Chapter 12 - Chiara

There is a knock at my bedroom door, and I lift my head off the pillow, just waking up and feeling momentarily disoriented.

“It’s open,” I call out, and the door pushes open. To my surprise, it”s not the maid as I expected, but Maxim.

He steps inside.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were still asleep.”

“That’s okay, come in.” I sit up and run my hands through my hair, wondering how bad I look.

He chuckles. “You look cute, with your hair a mess like that.”

I grin and feel my cheeks blushing.

“Are you free today?” he asks, stepping closer to the bed.

“I am.”

“Will you join me for a day out?”

“Um, yes, that sounds lovely.”

“Super.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. Come and have breakfast with me, and then we can get going.”

I throw the blankets off me, wanting to get ready quickly so that I don’t leave him waiting, but then abruptly realize that I”m only wearing panties and nothing else. I pull the blankets back up, but his heated stare tells me he already saw everything.

His lip curls into a half-smile as he turns back towards the door. “I”ll be waiting downstairs.”

He leaves, pulling the door closed behind him.

I breathe out an embarrassed sigh and throw the blankets off again.

It doesn’t take me long to get ready. I choose a pretty summer dress that fades from light blue to dark blue, and even though it”s short, it flows around me in a feminine way. I add a pair of white sneakers and a white blazer, and when I glance in the mirror I feel pretty.

After a bacon and egg breakfast, Maxim ushers me toward his car.

“Are you going to tell me where we are going?” I ask again.

“I said you”ll see.”

I grin. This must be another date. I really enjoyed last night and having that chance to get to know him better. He surprised me, and even though I don’t want to admit it fully, I”m beginning to like him. I have to be careful, though. I want to be sure that he is who he seems. I feel so wary of everything, as though it can’t possibly be real because it was all arranged, a forced relationship.

After some time in the car I realize we are driving around the city and toward the docks, which doesn’t make any sense.

I can’t imagine where we would be going on a date in this area.

Before I can ask, we turn onto a road leading directly towards a group of warehouses.

I glance over at him.

“Are you going to tell me?”

He chuckles. “Last night, you said you were interested in business, and I thought that you might enjoying seeing what I do and how I run things.”

“Your business? Isn’t it kind of secretive? Aren’t you supposed to hide—I mean—um.”

“You”re my wife, Chiara. You can know everything about me. All you have to do is ask.”

For a brief moment, I”m confused. My brain was so focused on this being a date that the idea of it not being a date seems odd. But when I take a moment to think about it, this is a different kind of date. Because isn’t the whole point of going on a date with someone to get to know them better? And now he is inviting me to get to know a very protected and secretive side of his life.

I begin to feel excited.

My father never involved me in these things, always thinking it was better for Stefano to handle business instead of me. I know he would never say it to my face, but it”s because I”m a girl, and he sees girls as being delicate creatures. Maxim does not treat me that way, clearly, and it makes me feel like he respects me.

We step into the warehouse and his employees greet him, eyeing me up and down. He introduces me to everyone as his wife, which again makes me smile.

Maxim doesn’t hold back when he shows me around.

He takes me through everything, including the raw product before it”s packaged, the ways in which they hide it for smuggling, and how the shipments look when they are ready to leave his warehouse. He even tells me all of the code words that his staff uses when they speak to him that no one else would know—terms and keywords to keep things under the radar if anyone”s trying to gather information about them.

Blue sky—to let people know that someone is not acting alone, and has accomplices nearby.

Red fire—to confirm that the person you are dealing with is dangerous or heavily armed.

Salted Earth—to confirm that there is a trap of some sort, and you need to be on high alert.

I am so fascinated by everything. His setup is immaculate, and when staff members approach him to ask questions, his commanding, authoritative presence captures my attention. He is competent in every regard, and I can see he takes a great deal of pride in his work and the way he”s arranged things.

He rolls up the sleeves of his black shirt and helps one of his workers lift a crate on to the back of a wheeled carrier so that they can move it.

I watch as his muscles flex against the edge of his sleeve, the way the tendons and veins in his arms move. I want to run my hand over them.

He is sharp and aware of everything going on around him, and I can see that he is able to handle any number of things coming at him from different directions as he gets updates from everyone and dishes out commands.

Maxim takes me on a short tour of the workers” housing area near the back of the warehouses. They are neat, comfortable, and he”s set it up so that they have everything they need and more. The workers who are on break, or have day off, still go out of their way to come over and great him warmly.

His employees clearly have a great deal of respect for him. Every single one of them is polite, friendly, and pays attention to his words in order to carry out his instructions properly.

Men don’t just get respect like that. They earn it, and he must have earned it with these people. On the rare occasions, I have seen Stefano dealing with his employees, all I see is a nasty, overbearing asshole who is chasing power that his workers despise giving to him.

Maxim is the total opposite of that.

“So, what do you think?” he asks as we walk toward his office in the center of the warehouse. I know I”m impressed with everything, surprised even, but for some reason I don’t want him to see that.

“It’s nice.”

“Nice?” he chuckles. “I thought you liked business?”

“I do.”

“Nice is not a word I would have expected you to use.”

“Why would you waste time with the intake process by double-packing the crates before they are loaded?” I blurt, having noticed the flaw in his system almost immediately.

“Well spotted. We have to do it that way. It”s a pain in the ass, but recently we”ve been having some issues. And that allows us the chance to double-check and possibly catch those interferences.”

“Outside interference?”

“Yes.”

“You mean someone messing with your business?”

“Exactly.”

There is a loud crash behind us and Maxim spins toward it. One of the works shouts, and he runs over to see what has happened. I follow quickly behind him.

A young man, perhaps a few years older than I am, cradles his arm in his hand as blood gushes out of a cut along his skin. He looks shaken.

“Are you alright?” I ask, feeling worried about the amount of blood spilling onto the floor. “We should get him to a hospital…”

I glance around me to find Maxim, but he has his back turned. “Find Dominique,” he mutters, his voice sounding strained, and then he marches off.

Anger surges through me. Why would he brush off someone’s injury like that? This guy clearly needs help, and he is the boss, so why isn’t he helping?

An older guy runs towards the chaos, and immediately begins to tightly wrap a bandage over the wound. “Come on, let’s get you to the med bay. You might need stitches.”

I shake my head. Where did Maxim go?

I walk toward the office, seeing as that was the last place we were headed before this happened. And I find him inside with his back to me, leaning against his desk.

“What the hell was that about? That guy needed you and you just walked away and left him to have to deal—”

He turns to face me, and his skin is an ashy gray, a damp glow of sweat across his brow.

His eyes are drifting, and he looks as though he is about to pass out.

I quickly grab his office chair and pull it toward him, pushing him into it. “Lean forward,” I say, pushing his head low. He does it without fighting me, and takes deep slow breathes as the color begins to return to his face.

“What happened? Are you okay?” I ask, worried about how he looks.

“I don’t really handle the sight of blood very well.” He chuckles dryly. “It is an unfortunate thing that I can’t control. If I had stayed to help him, I would have ended up needing help myself, and we have some important clients stopping by in about an hour. I don’t think that would have been a good look for me.” I can see he is embarrassed.

“That’s an annoying quirk,” I chuckle.

“Tell me about it.” He smiles back at me, looking a tiny bit more like himself. ”Besides, that”s why I hired Dominique. Knowing that when things like that happen, I won’t be of much use, I hired someone with the sole task of dealing with injuries. Dominique is a trained medical professional and is available to my team at all times.”

I watch him as he sits up straighter in his chair. His brow still glistening with a thin layer of perspiration. I can see how much his workers mean to him, and even though he struggles with his phobia of blood, he still goes out of his way to make sure it won’t affect them.

“So you have important clients coming soon, and you look a little bit of a wreck,” I grin.

“I can’t stop picturing the blood,” he complains. “It really isn’t helping me at all.”

“Well, maybe this will help.”

I step toward him and pull his face up to mine. I press my lips against his and slip my tongue into his mouth. He hesitates for the briefest of seconds and then gives in to the kiss.

He pulls me harder against his mouth, and wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me onto his lap. His hand trails up my back beneath my blazer. I sit straddling him on his office chair, and he grabs my ass, pulling my hips against him. My dress bunches up a little, and the thin layer of my panties is all that is between me and his pants.

I can feel how hard his cock is, and I am surprised that I managed to turn him on so quickly. The idea of being able to do that turns me on even more, and I begin rocking myself against his cock, a soft moan escaping my lips against his mouth.

This kiss is escalating quickly, and every part of me is screaming with how badly I want him. He can sense it, his hands roaming my body. But still I feel him holding back. Perhaps it is because we are at his work place. But his office door is closed, and no one can see us, so I want to do this.

I slip my hand between our bodies and press my fingers against his cock. He groans and closes his eyes.

“Chiara,” he says, warning in his voice.

“Is this a problem?” I whisper against his ear as I rub harder over his cock and feel it twitch against his pants.

“It might be,” he breathes heavily.

“But you look like you are feeling better,” I giggle.

“Mm.”

“So why would it be a problem?”