by Jagger Cole
I frown. “The food? This wine?”
“I won’t apologize for eating well.”
I sigh, daring myself to meet his eyes. “One might start to think of themselves as a kept woman.”
He smirks. “Because of the good views and wine?”
“Because you’re doting on me, and because I can’t leave,” I say quickly.
“Who says you can’t leave?”
“Can I?”
He pauses, and his brow furrows into a scowl.
“See, that’s a no.”
“No, it’s not,” he grunts.
“So if I wanted to leave, now, you’d let me?”
“Do you want to leave?” This time, I pause too long. Enzo smiles. “You want your story.”
I blush. “Yes.”
“But the views and the wine won’t exactly hurt.”
I smile shyly, feeling my face burn under his gaze. It’s like I come apart around him. It’s like Enzo Amantea cuts the strings and makes my puppet limbs all useless.
“You’re here as a journalist, Claire.”
“But what you just said…”
“Yes?”
I blush deeply. “About you… you know.”
“Wanting you, yes.” He shrugs. “I do. And?” I blush deeply, and he smiles hungrily. “You aren’t used to men being forward about that, are you?”
“Um, no,” I laugh nervously. “Not like that.”
“That’s a shame.” He sips his wine and sets it down. “I’m assuming then, Claire, that you haven’t been told enough how beautiful you are.”
My cheeks burn hot. My teeth worry my lip. “Thank you,” I whisper quietly.
“Or how sexy you are. I’m assuming no man has had the balls to tell you how fucking hard you make him. How much he desires to fuck you.”
My face feels like it’s on fire, and it’s not the only place. Heat throbs through my core, and I can feel desire bloom between my thighs. Not just desire, either: want. It’s a burning hot craving, and it’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before. But that’s also because Enzo is obviously right. No man has ever talked to me the way he does. I don’t even know what to say, or how to respond. But Enzo simply grins at me and goes back to his food and his wine. So I follow suit as best I can with the air feeling thick and hot around me.
We finish the appetizers, and then dive into the sumptuous dinner his waitstaff brings out. We bandy casual conversation, and Enzo tells me about some of the new infrastructure projects the country is starting. A waiter offers me a second glass of wine. I know it isn’t smart, but I say yes anyways. Maybe it’s dangerous to let my guard down around a man like this. But maybe the thrill of dancing that line excites me more than it should.
“So, is your sister coming back to Bullogia now that it’s been freed?” I ask brightly.
Enzo smiles. “Freed? Not usurped?” he teases.
I roll my eyes. “You said yourself that you’re the rightful king, didn’t you?”
“I am,” he growls. “I’m just glad that a member of the international media agrees with me, finally.” He smiles curiously at me. “And as to my sister, she does what she will.”
I frown. “Is there bad blood between you?”
“Not at all. But we’re both driven. We both know what we want, and we don’t hesitate or stop until it’s been taken.”
“She’s in London, isn’t she?”
“You’ve been doing your homework.” He smirks.
“Of course.”
Enzo nods. “Sometimes she is.”
“Most kings in Bullogian history have had families by your age, right?”
He chuckles. “Claire, is this an interview or casual conversation?”
“Just conversation.”
“Well most kings in our country’s history weren’t living out of grain silos and trapping pigeons to eat for fifteen years while they waged war against the criminals who murdered their family,” he says with an edge of danger in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, frowning at myself. “That was out of line.”
“It’s fine, Claire.”
“I can’t imagine fighting for my home like that.”
“Few can.”
“You were wounded, weren’t you?”
He nods. “Several times. The worst was storming this very palace during the uprising.”
“Badly?”
“I was shot three times.”
My mouth falls open. “Holy shit.”
“What does not kill you… what is it that you Americans say?”
“Makes you stronger.”
He smiles. “Exactly.”
“Maybe it also makes you harder, more insulated.”
“Are we still having a casual conversation?”
“Yes?”
“Good,” he growls.
The conversation moves back to far more benign topics like the new rail system he’s eager to start working on. We finish our meals, and waitstaff takes the plates away. When I realize we’ve finished the insanely expensive bottle of wine, I blush and feel the effects of it tingling through me. I stand, smiling. “Thank you, Enzo. For a lovely dinner.”
He stands almost at the same time I do and walks around the table to me. “I’ll walk you back to your rooms.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary…”
He hooks his arm in mine, and I tremble. “This way,” he says dismissing my words. He starts to lead me out of the lavish dining room, and I can feel the thick muscles of his arm flexing.
“You don’t get told no often, do you?”
“Ever,” he smiles. “Well, no, that’s not true. A ruler who never hears no from his advisors is doomed to fail.”
“What about from women?”
His brow furrows. “There are no women.”
Everything that plays on the news that I’ve seen portrays Enzo as this billionaire playboy type. With the royal title, and palace, not to mention his jaw-dropping good looks, it’s not a tough story to believe.
“The news back home…”
“The news you hear in America, or anywhere, is generated by my enemies,” he says with disgust. “That I’m eating babies? Having my way with women across the country before their weddings like something from the movie Braveheart?” he snorts. “No, Claire. I’ve been too busy keeping my fucking country together with my bare hands to allow myself…” he frowns. “Distractions.”
His hand goes to the small of my back, and I tremble as we walk the halls. We come to a stop at the door to my quarters. I turn to him, and I tremble under his heated gaze.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“Of course.” His tone says so much more than those two little words could ever mean. His eyes seem to glow into mine in the dim light of the corridor.
“Goodnight,” I whisper. I start to turn.
“Claire.” His hand closes on my forearm, and I gasp. I look back to him, feeling like I might catch fire at any moment.
“I won’t just take you.”
My cheeks redden fiercely. “You won’t?” Oh my God, why do I sound disappointed?
“No,” Enzo smirks. “You’ll ask me to.”
I laugh nervously through the heat on my cheeks. “Yeah, okay.” I try and sound jokey, but it’s not working.
Enzo smiles hungrily. “You will.”
“When can I go home?” I whisper.
“After.”
“After what?”
He shrugs. “After I make you mine.”
My lips purse, even as my face reddens. “So I can’t leave until I let you sleep with me?” I mutter angrily. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, Claire.” Enzo smiles widely and looks amused, as if I’ve said a joke. But then he leans in close, and I gasp when his lips stop an inch from mine.
“You can leave after you beg me to fuck you.” He breathes against me. I gasp, and my entire body trembles.
“But I’m not sure you’ll want to leave after that.”
He reaches past me and opens the door. I’m numb, or in shock. He pushes the door wide, smiles darkly at me, and then turns to stride away.
7
Enzo
“Enzo, you look like shit.”
“Well, we can’t all live in posh London townhouses pampering ourselves all day, Viv.”
My sister rolls her eyes over the video call. “Poor, poor big brother. Over there roughing it in his forty-thousand square foot royal palace on the ocean. You poor thing, Enzo. How are you ever surviving?”
“I’m surviving, so I’ve got that. And let’s not forget that while you were settling into English high society, I was eating rats hiding under a trapdoor in a barn.”
“Your choice, Enzo,” she shrugs. She pushes her long dirty blonde hair back from her face and effortlessly ties it up in into a perfect, neat, bun. Messy isn’t something Viviana portrays to anyone, ever, me included. My younger sister is the poster model for “put together.” Not a hair out of place. Not a single detail overlooked. It’s how she’s not just survived as a refugee of a coup in a foreign country but thrived. Dominated, even.
I don’t blame her for leaving, of course. In fact, I was the one, at fifteen, who made damn sure that a family loyal to my uncle’s crown took Viviana away from Bullogia. When the first shots rang out that day, when it was clear what was happening, I put her on that yacht myself. She was eleven when our uncle and parents were killed, for Christ’s sake. A guerrilla war was never hers to fight.
I was the one who wired money from what funds I still had access to, to make certain she found refuge in Milan with loyal Bullogia ex-pats. Years later, I was the one who greased the wheels to get her an expedited refugee visa to the U.K. But everything my sister is now is all her own doing. She was always smart but growing up the way she did made her calculating, and unflinching. Now, she’s as cunning and brutal as she is beautiful. She’s used that to build the start of an empire all her own in London.
All that said, since she was so young when she left, Viviana has never viewed Bullogia as home. She’s never felt the draw in her very blood to this land like I do. In fact, she considers herself an Italian immigrant to the U.K., not a Bullogian one. It’s the one sticking point between us. But again, I don’t fault her for it. This was my kingdom to claw back. Hers was one to build all her own somewhere else.
“So what does his royal highness of Bullogia need with little old me?”
I smile thinly and look out at the setting sun over the ocean beyond the city walls. It’s been three days since my dinner with Claire, and we’ve barely seen each other since. It would be easy to claim that she’s avoiding me since I kissed her and made my intentions known to her. But in truth, it’s I that’s been avoiding her. It’s not that I regret kissing her. Or touching her and telling her my intentions to make her mine.
I banished fear as an emotion almost fifteen years ago. When I was running for my life, with my parents’ blood on my shirt, I stopped knowing fear. I had to in order to survive. I replaced it with conviction and determination. Instead of fear, I only know strength. It’s how I was able to lead and persevere. The reason that I’ve been avoiding Claire though, is that very emotion I forgot. She makes me know fear again. She makes me scared of what I am around her, and what she tears down when she’s near. I’ve been a fortress, a solid wall, for years. Claire Shaw turns me back into a man. For the first time in years, I’m scared.
“A brother can’t call his little sister to make sure she’s okay? After all, I need to be sure you’re being cared for.”
It’s sarcasm, and we both know it. Viviana doesn’t need looking after or caring for. It’s anyone she’s set her wrath on that needs the parachute. Or a body bag. I don’t worry about men taking advantage of my little sister. I worry about Viviana going to prison for going on a gelding spree through London.
“A brother can,” she smiles thinly. “But I know you don’t worry about me.”
“Of course I still worry about you, Viv,” I smile. “London may fear you, but you’re still my kid sister.”
She grins. “What’s troubling you, Enzo.” I frown, and she rolls her dark eyes. “Is it your media stunt? You know I thought that was a terrible idea.”
“Well, I can’t help it if you took me telling you about it as consulting you about it.”
She smiles and sighs. “Well, it did turn out about as well as I knew it would. How long did the media crews stay in Bullogia? Three full hours after landing?”
Most were back on planes in two hours. But I don’t need to give Viviana any more ammunition. “Something like that,” I growl. “But they brought it on themselves. I offered an open dialogue, and they came looking for scandal and scraps to feed the narrative our enemies have sewn across the world.”
“Your,” Viv says quietly. “Your enemies, brother.”
“Fine, my enemies,” I snap. “It doesn’t change that those news organizations came here looking to further the stories and lies they’ve already been telling.”
Viviana grins. “Perhaps you’re just pissed off that they keep calling you a tyrant.”
“I don’t give a shit what they call me,” I hiss. “But I do care about our—my—enemies currying sympathy on the world stage. It makes Bullogia look bad, and it makes those murderous traitors look like victims.”
Viviana nods. “I know, Enzo. I might not have any ties to the cause of Bullogia, but I do sympathize with you.”
“They killed our parents, Viv,” I snarl. “And now they’re on CNN crying about me being a ‘despot’ or a fucking dictator.”
“Well, kicking out the media at gunpoint certainly sells your side of the story,” she says dryly.
“Viviana,” I growl with warning in my voice. My sister, predictably, ignores it.
“Don’t give me the big brother voice, Enzo,” she snaps back. “Did you think they would just hand you back the keys to the kingdom and fade away?”
“Of course not.”
She sighs. “Enzo, brother, you fought for years. I do understand that, even if you don’t think I appreciate it. I do, honestly. You fought a fifteen-year war from the shadows when you should have still been having a childhood. Or having a first girlfriend and learning to drive. You took back the country, Enzo, but I’m sorry to say, your war is not over.”
Sometimes, I truly hate how wise my sister is. I smirk, shaking my head. “How did you become a Zen master, Viv.”
She grins. “By forgetting about the past, not spending my life fighting for it.” She sighs and waves a hand, clearing the air. We could go down this argumentative road a hundred times, and we’ll never agree. But that’s fine. Again, I have my life, and Viviana has her own too.
“I see that not all of the media went home.”
I frown. “Oh?”
“Enzo, you’re a world leader. You might want to watch the news.”
I roll my eyes. “I watch the news, Viv.”
“Not in the last hour then, I suppose.”
“What is it?” I frown.
“CNN broke it that a single reporter from the Los Angeles Herald stayed behind for the exclusive story on Bullogia and its tyrant king Enzo.”
My jaw clenches tightly. My anger simmers. “Did it now.”
Viv smiles. “She’s quite pretty, Enzo. This Claire Shaw.”
I scowl. “She’s a journalist, Viv.”
My sister laughs. “You had reporters with three decades of experience there, from the New York Times, from the BBC. And you picked her?”
Shit. My scowl deepens. “She’s good, and a fair reporter.”
Vivian laughs boldly. “Are you a frequent reader of the LA Herald, brother? Are you skimming that in between the Wall Street Journal and the Economist?”
“What are you getting at, Viv?”
She smiles. “I’m curious how things are going for you with a beautiful girl like that living at your big palace. And now I’m beginning to wonder if she’s the reason for my brother
ly phone call today.”
“I simply called to say hello, and to check in on you, Viviana.”
“Of course you did,” she says thinly. “Well, I’m fine. How are you, Enzo?”
“Fine,” I mutter.
She laughs. “So have you fucked her yet? Is that why you look so torn up?”
I frown. “Why would that tear me up? And no, I have not.”
“Yet,” she snickers.
“I should go.”
My sister rolls her eyes. “Enzo, it would tear you up because I know you don’t date or see women. You haven’t at least since you took the country back, have you?” I scowl. Viviana sighs. “So, no.”
“I had a country to rebuild, Viv,” I snarl. “I’m not sure if you can relate to that. It’s not quite the same thing as redecorating the guest bathroom of your fucking townhouse.”
“Snippy, snippy,” she chides. “Don’t get mad at me because you haven’t slept with this reporter yet. Enzo, I know you were busy doing great, kingly things. But you’re young! And more importantly, you’re rich, and royalty, and handsome. It makes no sense that you wouldn’t be out there fucking whomever you please.”
“Viviana, let’s leave worrying about my sex life to me, shall we?”
“Gladly,” she snorts. “But answer me this. And be honest, Enzo, please.”
“Ask.”
“Did you ask her to stay because of her job, or because of her?”
I grit my teeth, and I sigh. “Her.”
Viviana shrugs. “Well there you go. So what are you waiting for?”
“I can’t just take her,” I growl.
“Well, you can. You’re a king, Enzo.”
“I want her,” I admit. “But not like that.”
“You want her to want you.”
I sigh. “I think I’m done having this conversation with my fucking sister.”
She laughs. “You need more friends, Enzo.”
“You’re well, though?”
She shrugs. “I’m fine. Thanks for calling.”
“Good talking to you, Viv.”
“Ciao, Enzo.”
I end the call and slump back in my chair on the balcony of my bedroom. I haven’t the slightest idea why I thought getting into Claire with Viv would be a good idea. It’s done nothing to clarify anything for me, and it has settled none of my reservations Maybe my sister is right: I do need more friends. There’s Giotto, but I already know his opinion on having Claire here. He’s made it quite clear to me since the day I sent home the media that keeping only her here is only going to reinforce my negative image. She’s young and gorgeous. It wouldn’t take a genius to see the real reason I kept her in Bullogia.
