Page 9 of Dangerous Games of Trust
I blink back at him, squirming uncomfortably with his proximity and his weight bearing down on me. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” I push the words through my clenched teeth.
The warmth that comes with his body pressed into mine. The overwhelming smell of his cologne. Oh, this is dangerous territory. I know exactly what he’s getting at. My stupid brain is conjuring up all sorts of scenarios, hoping that this little wrestle of wills can end the same way it did last time. Us rolling round together. I can’t be so close to him, it’s scrambling my brain, taking me back to our last night together. A night where I gave him way more power over me than I should have. But I wasfeeling so fragile, and he was my strength. Right now, I’m just as weak.
As if he’s recalling that night too, he moves my hands in his so he’s only holding my wrists with one hand, his other gently glides down my face and then traces across my lower lip. I suck in a breath, his tender touch sending a thrill right through my body. This is my time to strike.
To regain control, I strategically position my elbow between his arm and my face, while simultaneously leveraging my locked ankle against his to destabilize him and push him away, rolling us so I’m now the one on top. I glare down at him with a newfound power I quite like the feel of.
The corners of his mouth curl upwards. “Better, Red. That’s it, get that fire back I know is hiding inside of you.”
I shove him in the chest as vigorously as I can, then quickly get off him, needing space before I do something stupid, like kiss him again. But he’s too quick, grabbing a handful of my hair and yanking me back to his solid body so we’re face to face only an inch apart. Tears prickle in my eyes at the sting of the way he’s holding me.
“I thought I lost you to Alessandro,” he growls out, his green eyes portraying the depths of his pain so well that I feel it go right through me. I thought I lost him forever as well. But he did this to us, not me.
I blink back at him, trying not to say exactly what I’m thinking. After what he did to me, he has no business trying to pretend what we had was something more than a fucking ruse. “You can’t lose something that was never yours. In the time we had together, you did nothing but lie to me. I don’t even know who you are,” I spit back at him, my voice trembling with the hurt still wracking through me.
His grip loosens a little. “I did what I had to so I could protect you,” he barks out, a man on the verge of flicking his psycho switch.
I should be scared, I don’t know the depths of what Geovani is capable of. But I’m not. I can feel my nostrils flare as an angry tear slips down my cheek. He has to be kidding me with his bullshit excuses.
His hands move from my hair down my arms, finally landing on my waist. “Forgive me.”
“What am I even doing here, Geovani? What do you want with me?”
He lets me go, seeming to regain his composure, moving to sit on the bed. “I have a job offer for you.”
I stare back at him, a little in shock. His offering me a job was kind of the last thing I expected him to say. “What kind of job? I’d be a shitty gym instructor.”
He laughs; I’m sure he’s imagining it. “You’re not wrong.” He smirks. “I want to utilize your skills.”
“How exactly will I be able to help you?”
“Depends on the day. You’re good at graphic design, right?”
“Yeah, I’m okay at it. I still had a year to go on my degree.” I shrug. Before I came home for Christmas, I was top of my class, but that feels like a lifetime ago now.
“We need to fix that as well. I’ll have Dani look into it. For now, you can work on some basic design stuff for me or research projects I may need help with. The role I need you for is creative director. My business has expanded quickly over the last few years, and where Dani will run the day-to-day of the office, I need you to work on our visual branding to take one role off her hands. I run multiple businesses, ranging from the gyms I own to the underground fights I host and the buildings I like to acquire to have them in. Once the fights are over, we renovate the building and sell them off for a profit.”
I look him over, my expression probably giving away my surprise, but I’m kind of impressed at what the two of them have created here.
“Not everything I do here is illegal, we need to look from the outside that it’s all legit. We haven’t had any trouble with the cops, but the last thing we want is them sniffing around. Your job will be to make me look like a professional businessman.”
I smirk, not able to see it right now with his face covered in bruises. “That’s not going to be easy,” I mutter.
“I’m sure you will find a way,” he snips back.
I join him on the bed, pulling my legs up as I lean into the headboard. “What is Marco doing here?”
“Your brother has a lot of contacts, he’s very useful to me.”
“That’s a bullshit answer if I ever heard one. If you want me to be a part of all this, don’t keep stuff from me,” I snap. Fuck him for thinking I would just nod and go along with it. “I know Marco is no saint, he’s been working for Enzo for years.”
He considers me for a second. “He’s using his contacts to hunt for my pa. Carlo’s lost his fucking mind, and he’s more dangerous than ever before. What he did the night of the rehearsal dinner was reckless. He knew the consequences of teaming up with Enzo. He was seeing dollar signs, and when I wouldn’t help him get what he wanted, he went to Enzo.”
“Isn’t that what you did that night?”
His expression hardens. “What I did that night was try to get you to see the reality of what they were after. Alex will do anything that Enzo tells him to. He’s a devoted son still trying to get his papa’s praise. His intentions were fueled by the idea of what you could bring to the family, everything your papa created and more money for Enzo.”
“What were your intentions?”
