Chapter One

Present day

Aria

“Is that him?”

I hear one of my friends, Agnes, whisper, her voice barely above the chatter of the students pouring out of the gates. Her eyes are focused on someone beyond my shoulder, and I turn to follow her gaze. My heart skips a couple of beats when my eyes land on the striking figure standing next to a sleek black car.

Oh , he’s here.

The man that haunts my dreams. With his deep-set gray eyes that always send my body burning every time he fixes them on me which is always. God, his eyes are always on me, but I want more than just his gaze on me. I want… everything .

Things that one should never want from their bodyguard.

He's wearing a gray suit today. One that is tailored to fit him, and the crisp white shirt underneath is so perfectly pressed that it looks like something straight from a magazine. A silk tie adds an elegant touch that makes him seem more like a wealthy businessman than a bodyguard.

No, Orlando Battista looks nothing like a bodyguard. I didn't think so when I first met him a year ago, and I still don't think so now.

Alexa swings her arm over my shoulder and leans into whisper, "Who the hell is that?" her voice is low and breathy when she speaks, and I don't blame her. I feel the same way when I see Orlando and, for the most part, can barely string two words to form a sentence around the man.

“Her sugar daddy, duh!” Agnes answers her.

Alexa whips her head to face me. “You have a sugar daddy? Why am I just finding this out!”

“How else do you think she affords all those expensive purses she carries around? It’s got to be her sugar daddy. God, he’s so hot!” Agnes says, fanning her cheeks. “He picks her up every day, but this is my first time seeing him up close too.”

I know I should open my mouth and correct them about my relationship to Orlando and clear up the misunderstanding but… something about hearing my friends think of my relationship to him in that way does things to me.

I don't need a sugar daddy. My family's wealth is beyond what any of my friends can comprehend but they don't know that. To them, I am a normal girl who can afford designer clothes and expensive things as a result of a very generous older man.

God, just thinking of Orlando as anything but my bodyguard sends my body heating up with need. I can feel his eyes on me and it’s doing little to curb the desire I feel for the man. When my friends pull me back to the chatter, I welcome the distraction.

“So, are you spending Christmas with your family or with your sugar daddy?” Alexa says, nudging me and I flush.

"I haven't decided yet," I lie, hating myself a little for not being completely honest with my friends. Christmas in the Lorenzo household is mandatory for everyone. I have to show up if I don't want to be disowned. And yet, I can't tell my friends any of that. They cannot know that I am a Lorenzo. They cannot find out that I am the mob princess, or they will want nothing to do with me.

“Lucky girl,” Agnes sighs. “You get to spend the winter break with a sexy silver fox while I spend mine with my boring family listening to my cousins fight over boybands.”

The chatter carries on, but my attention keeps drifting to the man standing by his car. I notice more than a few interested glances tossed his way by the girls passing by and I have to shove back the green monster that threatens to surface.

Orlando Battista is not mine. Not in the way I want him to be anyway.

And yet, I can’t convince myself that he doesn’t belong to me. I have to stop myself from rushing over and attempting to cover the six-foot-five man with my tiny body from all the greedy eyes.

Mine! I saw him first. On the steps outside my home a year ago. He became mine that day.

“Um, Aria, are you okay?”

I snap my attention back to my friends and blink in confusion when I find them watching me with their brows raised. “What?” I say defensively.

Alexa chuckles, "You look like you are seconds away from committing murder or something."

“I… I don’t know what you are talking about.”

It’s Agnes who responds this time. “You’ve been glaring at those girls staring at your man. Hey, if I were you, I wouldn’t be worried. That man hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we stepped out of the gates.”

That’s because he is paid to keep his eyes on me , is what I want to say but I push it down.

Orlando Battista is my bodyguard. That line has been blurring a lot lately, but the truth remains that he is getting paid to protect me.

He is not mine. Those girls can ogle him all they want.

I push back the bile that climbs up my throat and flash my friends a smile. "I need to go girls," I tell them. "I don't want to keep him waiting much longer. I'll text you later."

“You better,” Alexa says returning my smile. “Enjoy Christmas with your sugar daddy.”

I blush, waving at the girls as I walk away from them and toward my bodyguard. He doesn't take his eyes off me as I approach him and my heartbeat thumps louder with every distance I cover between us.

God, he’s perfect. With his black and silver hair neatly styled back with slight waves to it. Orlando is easily the most good-looking man I have ever seen. His face is well defined with strong cheekbones and a chiseled jawline that is carved to perfection. He keeps his beard short, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve wanted to reach out and comb my fingers through it to see if it feels as soft as it looks.

My heart is practically thumping when I stop in front of the taller man. A shudder rolls down my back the longer his gaze stays on me. I don’t care that he is paid to keep his eyes on me. Only that I am the only girl he’s looking at.

“Aria…”

He’s saying something to me. I can see his mouth moving when I step up to him and I know he’s saying words that I need to pay attention to, but my mind is focused on that single word. The way he calls my name, his voice rich and smooth. So deep it sends the spot between my thighs pulsing with familiar need.

“Arianna!”

“Huh?” I blink at the man, my cheeks crimson when I realize I haven’t heard a word he’s said. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Do you want me to make any stops before I drive you home?”

"Home," I repeat with a sigh, looking away. Can he even consider that fortress a home? It's a house, but it lacks the warmth of a home. Cold even with people living in it. My oldest brother, Fabian, doesn't get along with our father or even with Nico, our stepbrother. They are all constantly fighting with each other over one thing or the other and I am not eager to get back to that. And to think that's what I have to look forward to all holiday. "I don't want to go home just yet."

“Then where do you want to go?”

I look up, sucking in a sharp breath when I notice how much closer to me Orlando has moved. He's so close I can smell his rich wood and musk aftershave. For a full minute, I forget how to breathe, and my brain turns to mash.

He’s all I can see. All I can feel.

“The gallery,” I manage in a breathy tone. “I want to go to the art gallery.”

“Okay, I’ll take you there.”

Orlando finally pushes back, giving me space to breathe and I fight back the need to gulp on air. He opens the car door for me and I climb in, offering much-needed reprieve to my trembling knees.

I sit still as he walks around to the driver’s side and stare ahead, pretending I’m not pulsing behind my panties.

It would be so easy for him to place his hand on my thigh and trail it up my pleated skirt. I would let him, too. Part my legs for that large heavy hand climbing up between my legs and to the spot between my legs. He’d feel it, the wetness spread there and then he’d know…

Orlando would know just how wet I am for him.

Maybe he already knows that I see him as more than just my bodyguard. If that's the case, then he gives no indication and doesn't give in to my fantasy. No, those massive hands stay on the steering wheel as he pulls out of the curb.

It’s been this way all year. Silence in the car as we both pretend there isn’t any chemistry sparking between us. He’s heard my little breathy sighs. I know he has. He has to have noticed the fact that I wear my skirts way too short so they can ride up my thighs when I sit.

Unless…

“No way,” I mutter under my breath when the thought of Orlando having a lover crash into my fantasies.

“Did you say something?”

My head whips to the man and I shake my head. “No, I was just… um… it seems like it’s going to snow heavily tonight.” Good save .

“Looks like it.”

Then we fall back into silence and neither of us speaks for the rest of the drive to the art gallery. The second I spot the gallery, my focus shifts from Orlando’s heavy presence to the massive building that holds some of the best artwork in the country. When I am not daydreaming about Orlando, my mind is always on this place, wondering if I’ll ever have any of my art displayed in the gallery. The place I consider home.

I plant my face to the window and gawk up at it. “Do you think we can stay out a little later than usual?”

“Arianna.”

I turn to look at him pleadingly. “Please, maybe an hour or two. No one will notice if I get home late and if they do, I’ll just tell them I was out with my friends.”

He’s caving, the way he always does when I flutter my lashes at him and blink up at him innocently every time I want to get my way. “Fine.”

I am already opening the car door the second the words are out. Orlando is beside me before I can make it to the entrance where we purchase two tickets. I’ve been here a hundred times before but walking through these doors always feels surreal. No, walking through them with Orlando by my side feels surreal.

He is the only one who knows about my passion for painting. The one thing I have kept for myself.

When I was five, I started learning to play the piano because my mother wanted to show me off to her friends and brag about how talented I was. I agreed to study economics because it's what my father wanted. The family's princess, a doll everyone gets to play with.

No one’s ever asked me what I want. I’ve never had a choice in my life and every decision from what I eat to how I think is all planned for me, but painting is mine. I started painting to relieve family pressure but found out I was actually good at it, but no one in my family cares to know this part of me.

The silent man who's always by my side knows me better than anyone in my family does. I've let him into my world and a part of me can't help but wonder when he'll let me into his.