But that didn’t mean I had to tell him the whole truth.
“I ran into my ex from high school,” I said.
“Gina?” Darien’s grin widened. “Oh man. Does she know you’ve been pining over her this whole time?”
“I do not pine.” I was a grown man, for crying out loud. Why did everyone keep insisting I had been pining?
“When you’ve been in lowkey love with a girl for, what, ten years, and the last time you saw her she was pissed as hell at you? That’s what we like to call pining, Vincent.”
It wasn’t worth arguing with him about. If I had let him, we’d have been going back and forth on it for hours. “Look, I’m just—I’m trying to earn her back.”
“And how’s it going?” Darien didn’t just sound curious, but concerned.
That was why I liked the guy. He actually gave a shit about the people around him and he wasn’t afraid to show it. I’d never tell him, because God knew his ego didn’t need it, but Darien was the kind of person I wanted to be. I had way too much of a temper for that, but he was, in a way, my role model.
“It’s… going.” I told him about the date and the sex, but left out the mafia angle.
“She seems to be into you. I mean, she slept with you.”
“Our being attracted to each other wasn’t ever the problem. It was her trusting me.”
“Understandable.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“It sounds to me like you need something to show her that she can trust you again. And not just through taking her out on romantic dates, although that’s a good thing to do, as well. It shows her that you appreciate her. I mean, something that’ll show that if she’s vulnerable, she can go to you. Or that you’re not the guy that you were before. That you’re responsible and think about people other than yourself.”
In a way, oddly, that meant that the mafia deal was a good thing. I would have done whatever it took to protect Gina, whether she ended up wanting to date me or not. But in the process, I figured, perhaps it would show her that I was willing to go the distance and that I could be trusted.
“Thanks, Darien.” I checked the clock and stood up. “I’m taking her to lunch, so I’ll see you later.”
“Good luck,” he told me, giving me an encouraging pat on the shoulder as I walked by him.
If you asked me, the person who needed luck was that Gabriele asshole.
Especially once I heard from Gina what he’d done that morning.
“Please don’t do anything rash,” Gina pleaded when she finished explaining all that had happened.
“This guy just threatened you into dating him and you’re telling me not to be rash?”
Gina glanced around the restaurant. She’d asked that we be seated in the back, just in case.
“You already care about what this guy thinks,” I told her. “You’re glancing around and putting us in the back so that he won’t see us together and attack me or something. He already has control over you and that’s not okay.”
“What do you want me to do about it then?” Gina hissed. She was lashing out, which told me she was truly scared. Gina wasn’t the type to get irrational or angry. That had always been my specialty.
I reached across the table to take her hand. “I know it’s hard. I’m not trying to blame you for this in any way or say you’re handling it badly. I’m just pointing out what he’s doing. It’s not right that you’re put in this situation.” I squeezed her hand gently. “I have an idea, if you’d like to hear it.”
Gina nodded. “At this point, I’m willing to try almost anything.”
“Including trusting me?”
She gave me a wry smile. “Yes, even that.”
“Gabriele has as cousin who’s his rival for head of the family. I’ve contacted the guy, and if we can get Gabriele out in public to a vulnerable place, a neutral place, the cousin can take him down. Make it look like someone else or not, I’m not sure. But he’s agreed to it.”
“So I agree to his date,” Gina said, “and get him to a restaurant, and then the cousin takes care of the rest.”
“Exactly.”
Gina bit her lip. “I’m not sure about this. I don’t want to be involved in a… a hit.”
“I know.” I squeezed her hand again. “But we can’t take get rid of Gabriele any other way. Trust me, we can’t do this on our own. That’ll bring the entire mafia family down on our heads. We have to make it about infighting. This guy is willing to take the blame for this hit, to show his uncle that he’s got what it takes. We need to take advantage of that.”
Gina sighed, gently removing her hand from mine. “All right. We can try this. But we need to be smart about it. None of you charging in with guns blazing, you understand?”
I nodded. “I understand. I’ll handle everything. All you have to do is convince him to go to the restaurant I tell you, and then show up and look pretty.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Gina mumbled. Her voice was so low she probably didn’t expect me to hear her.
I shook my head at her. “Hey, you are pretty. More than. I’m going to be insanely jealous the entire time.”
Gina gave me a small smile. “You’re not allowed to be so charming, you know.”
“Pretty sure that’s exactly how I’m supposed to be. How else am I going to win you back?”
“You know how you can do that,” Gina told me.
Right, I thought. Earn her trust. And I would do that.
I’d get this asshole off her back and she’d see just how amazing we’d be for each other.
10
Vincent
I would have been a lie if I’d said I wasn’t nervous. There were a lot of ways that the whole thing could go wrong. But Gina was handling it well.
Maria had Gabriele’s number. Or the number of one of his guys, rather. All the business owners in the neighborhood needed to be able to contact their new bosses in case something went wrong, like if a rent payment would be late.
Yeah, like anybody wanted to be the one to make that phone call.
It took less convincing than we’d thought to get Gabriele to agree to a different restaurant than the one he’d suggested to Gina earlier. Although, actually, that was probably just the force of Gina’s personality. She called him while I was with her. She held my hand the whole time, although I don’t think she even realized that she was doing it.
“You’re the one basically threatening me into dating you,” she told him. “The least you can do is let me pick the damn restaurant. I’ve been wanting to go there for months but couldn’t afford it. Besides, nobody’s Italian is as good as my Nona’s, so why would I even bother trying it?”
Gabriele spluttered, but Gina stood firm. She didn’t let her voice waver, and she didn’t let it seem like it was the restaurant itself that mattered to her. She acted like it was the principle of the thing, like she just wanted to have some say in how the date played out.
In reality, it was because that was the restaurant that Anthony and I had picked out. But Gina played it off beautifully. I almost wanted to tease her, ask if she’d been an undercover cop before or something. But I didn’t want to accidentally make her more nervous, so I kept my mouth shut.
The way that she unconsciously leaned on me the entire time made a possessive thrill shoot up my spine. She was going out on a limb because I had asked her to, and I didn’t want to do anything to ruin that.
She had me drop her off at the restaurant, telling Gabriele that she would meet him there and that he wasn’t allowed to pick her up from her apartment. Gabriele had objected to that at first, but he’d backed off as soon as he’d gotten another earful from Gina.
Honestly, I wondered if the guy just wanted her because she was fiery and curvy, the makings of a stereotypical Italian mafia wife. It made my blood boil that he didn’t even know Gina—might not even care about knowing her—not as a true individual.
After dropping Gina off, I circled around a
nd parked my motorcycle down the street. Anthony and his men waited for my signal. We had to wait for Gabriele to take Gina inside and sit down. It was a restaurant with plenty of wide glass windows in the front. One snipe would take him down.
This was neutral territory, so no other gang could easily be blamed. Mario would, of course, suspect that Anthony was the one who planned it, but when it was revealed that I’d hired the sniper, he’d have to keep his suspicions to himself. He wouldn’t go after me, though, Anthony promised. He’d know the truth that I was being “set up” by Anthony to take the fall. He just wouldn’t be able to prove it.
I didn’t even bother pretending to understand the weird politics of the mafia. So long as Gina was safe and I didn’t have a target on my back, that was all that mattered.
I walked back to the restaurant on foot and pretended to talk on the phone to someone while I stood just around the corner, waiting for the right moment.
Gabriele walked up to Gina and greeted her. He had a big smile on his face, wore a snazzy suit. I’d never wanted to punch a guy so much in my life.
Gina did great, or so it looked from the way she stood and smiled. She looked natural, relaxed, a little annoyed—not at all nervous.
That’s my girl, I thought.
Then I saw Gabriele, still smiling, make a kind of sweeping gesture at the windows of the restaurant. His grin was sharper now, and I got that tingle at the base of my spine that told me that something was wrong.
Gina stood her ground like a champ. Argued with him. But then, Gabriele grabbed her arm.
Even from my hiding spot, I saw that he grabbed it tightly, squeezing. He shook her a little. Gina’s eyes grew wide, even as she planted her feet and refused to be intimidated.
No way was I letting that go on a second longer.
I strode over, shoving my phone into my pocket. “Hey,” I barked, rage coursing through me. “Get your damn hands off her.”
Gina wrenched her arm free and quickly stepped back into my side. I put her behind me, glaring at Gabriele. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Gabriele shot back. “Just how stupid do you think I am? You and my cousin both. Making her insist on this restaurant. Neutral territory, big windows, the way she suddenly changed her mind—this is a stubborn woman. She’s not going to change her mind on me after one day. She thinks I don’t know her, but I know enough to understand that.”
“She’s right here,” Gina said. I took a step to the side to keep Gabriele out of her line of sight.
“Tell my cousin I will not be so easily caught,” Gabriele snapped at me. “And that this bitch—”
My fist moved before I even had time to think about it, colliding with his face. Gina gave a surprised squeak as Gabriele stumbled backwards.
I shook my hand, my knuckles stinging, and grinned at him. Those higher-up mafia types, they weren’t the ones getting into fights. And if they were, it was gun fights, not fist fights. I knew my way around a good old boxing match better than that asshat did.
Gabriele glared at me, his hand covering his bloody nose. “You are going to pay for that,” he snarled. “And you’re going to regret setting me up.” He looked over at Gina. “Especially you.”
He stormed off.
I didn’t waste a second. I grabbed Gina and hurried her away, back to the motorcycle. “I’ll take you home.”
Gina shook her head. “Not my place. If he tails us, I don’t want him finding out about Tabby, my roommate. She thought—she was so excited for me, she thought I was going on a date with you and… she has no idea, and she could be in danger…”
I took her face in my hands. “Hey. Nobody’s going to be in any danger, okay? We’ll go back to my place if that’ll make you feel better. But Tabby will be safe and so will you.”
I pulled her in, hugging her tightly as she trembled in my arms. “You did good,” I told her. “You were really brave.”
“I was scared out of my wits,” she admitted. “Thank you. For keeping an eye on me.”
“Of course.” I pulled away, passing her the spare helmet. “Let’s get you where you can take a nice, hot shower, wash the stress of the day away, okay?”
She nodded.
I couldn’t believe that Gina actually agreed to let me take her home again. She’d made it clear that she wanted to take our relationship slowly, and that she agreed to the set-up only because she wanted to get that asshole out of her life.
Yet, there she was, letting me take her home, taking a shower in my master bathroom while I fixed her some coffee.
When she emerged, it took everything in me to not cross over to her and kiss her. Her dark hair was curling damp around her face and down her shoulders, and her olive skin shone from the water. She wore one of my bathrobes, which was a little long for her, but drew tightly over her curves, leaving little to my starved imagination.
“You okay?” I asked. I still felt like I was a baby deer, stumbling and tripping in my attempts to take care of her. Protecting Gina, that I could do easily. I’d fight whoever needed fighting, no sweat. But saying the right words to her? Not messing up this new, fragile chance she’d given me? It felt like walking through a minefield.
Not that it was anything less than I deserved. I’d been a minefield myself, back in the day. She had legitimate concerns.
I just wished that she would stop fighting the way that she seemed to feel. She kept coming to me, and I could see that her body yearned for me. We couldn’t seem to stop touching each other. Would it kill her to admit that she still wanted me the way that I still wanted her? That she and I were still compatible, that we should give it another shot?
“I’m all right,” Gina replied, taking the cup of coffee from me. “You really don’t have to stick your neck out for me like this. Tonight… was a disaster. Maybe it’s best if… if you back off.”
“I’m not going to let you be hurt,” I replied, surprised at how aggressive I sounded.
Gina rolled her eyes, drinking the coffee. “Why are you doing this? Why do you have to protect me?”
“Because it’s what you do when you care about someone,” I replied. “Because you show them how much you value them and how much you care.”
I knew the moment the words were out of my mouth that I’d sounded too raw, too broken. Gina’s eyes went round and soft. “You mean like how your dad should have been with your mom.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
Gina tilted her head to the side, giving me that raised eyebrow look that told me she didn’t buy my horseshit for a minute. “You’re not him, Vin.”
“I know that.” My dad couldn’t have done all the things that I had. He was a hard man who knew nothing but his own desires.
Gina laid her hand over mine, setting her cup to the side. “I mean that. You spent your teenage years trying not to be like him. Are you really going to give him any more of your time? The worst thing that you could do to him is to forget him. To act like he doesn’t matter, like he doesn’t exist. That’s what will get to him. You don’t deserve to keep worrying over being like him or not like him.
“I’m not going to be here so that you can prove you’re not like your father. I’m going to be here because you care about me for me and because I feel safe with you.”
That made my breath stop for a moment. After all that I’d screwed up in high school, after how horribly this evening had gone… she still felt safe with me? “You mean that?”
Gina nodded. “Yes. But have you… have you talked to your dad? About any of this?”
I shook my head. “What would be the point?”
“People are more complicated than we give them credit for. You were never just the bad boy and I was never just the good girl. We had layers. We still do. So does your father.”
“You really think that he was justified—”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Vin, and you know it. Your little digs to push people away might
have worked on a seventeen-year-old, but not on me now. You have an issue with him and you should talk to him.”
I sighed. “I didn’t want to talk about him tonight. This is about you. Taking care of you. Are you sure you don’t want to go home? See Tabby?”
“I let her know where I was. She’s ecstatic. She’s been telling me I needed to find a boyfriend for months.”
“And am I?” I asked, hardly daring to hope. “Your boyfriend?”
Gina shrugged. “I suppose we could say that, once going out on a date with you won’t almost cause a public murder.”
I didn’t like that she was making light of a situation that put her in such danger, but I understood that it was her coping mechanism. “I can set you up in the guest room.”
Gina bit her lip thoughtfully. “Or… I could stay in your bedroom?”
My gaze trailed down her body. “If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” I admitted, my voice taking on the growl I couldn’t seem to help but develop when talking to her, “then I don’t think we’ll even make it to the bedroom.”
In response, Gina reached up and undid her robe, letting it fall to the floor.
She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
I kissed her, hard, savage, my hands seizing her and pulling her to me. She moaned, grabbing at me, as ferocious as I was. She might not admit that she cared about me as much as I cared about her, but her body said all the things that her mouth wouldn’t, and if that was the only way she could admit that she needed me, then I would take it.
Gina made a startled but pleased noise against my mouth as I lightly fondled her breasts, already hard in my pants at the thought of getting to be inside her again. Just the sensation of pressing up against her was enough to have me desperate for her. She was softer, her body more defined than it had been in high school, now that she had finished growing and settled into her permanent shape. She’d been pretty in high school, but now, she was mouth-watering, and I wanted to keep her here and not leave for a week, spend that time finding all the ways to take her apart, all the ways to make her scream.
Take Me Home_A Billionaire Protector Romance Page 6
