26. Ambrose

Chapter twenty-six

Ambrose

" A driano, I could not give a flying fuck about being here right now." I sigh over the same glass of whiskey I've been nursing for the last hour.

"What is wrong with you? This is the biggest news for Vitale Holdings since Papá died and even long before that, it's major. It's the expansion we need right now," he explains.

Deep down, I know my out-of-the-ordinary behaviour is raising some red flags around the room—especially with my brothers. Adriano is right, this is exactly what we need and it proves all the media wrong about everything they've said about me, especially since I brought Horatio to the table in the first place.

Technically Valerie did.

There it is. The reason for my sour mood. The media may have to eat their words, but all I care about are hers and whether I truly can prove her wrong.

God, I want to. I've never wanted anyone to be wrong so badly in my life.

I never want her to question it again, because God knows I belong to her .

"Ambrose," Adriano snaps.

"What?"

"Diego is here, fix your mood and pretend to be happy or more people are going to notice and start questioning it." He leans until he's next to my ear. "Especially Antonio."

He knows.

How?

My eyes scan his, but they give nothing away. How does Adriano know anything he does? Right place, right time.

When he came out with beers at Sunday dinner.

"Ambrose, here you are." Diego pats me on the back.

His shirt buttons are fighting for their lives again as they struggle to hold the thin fabric together. You would think for a man with his kind of money he'd be able to have a perfectly tailored suit, but I suppose we all spend our money differently.

"Good to see you, Diego, glad you could make it." I plaster on a perfect smile.

Gus and Antonio greet Diego in a similar way to me, with fake smiles, overly polite, as if we all weren't talking shit about him hours ago.

"Thank you for inviting me. This is Skye, my fiancé.

As the words leave his lips, a tiny girl with pitch-black hair appears in a dress that leaves barely anything to the imagination. From the corner of my eye, I can see all of my brothers try to disguise their surprise before we all offer her a curt smile.

"Lovely to meet you, Skye. I hope you two enjoy your night, we'll catch up with you a bit later, Diego," I say, as I usher my brothers in the opposite direction.

"She barely looks old enough to drink," Gus says to us .

"She looks like she belongs in a strip club," Antonio says, and Adriano smacks him up the side of the head before I even get the chance to.

"That doesn't give you the right to say shit, have some respect," he mumbles and Antonio rolls his eyes.

"What happened to his other fiancé, what was her name? Katie?" I ask.

"Stacy," Gus corrects me.

"They called it off after he caught her and his lawyer in his bed a couple of months ago," Adriano shrugs, taking another drink from the bartender.

The rest of us stare at him, questioning how he knows. Especially when we can barely get enough dirt on Diego to get him kicked off the board.

A security guard comes up to Antonio and calls him off to check something out.

"This tastes like shit, where's the girl that usually works up here?" I bark at the bartender, who looks like he's ready to crawl into a hole.

"The blonde one?" Gus asks.

I nod.

"Oh, Sienna, she's off tonight," he says.

"Of course she is," I mumble and turn around to survey the VIP area.

I notice a group of men stepping in past security. Horatio leads them through looking around. "Show time," Adriano says and I nod, stepping away from the bar and heading towards them.

"This is a lovely place you guys have," Horatio says.

"Thank you, hopefully, we can open one in Paris soon that'll rival this."

"Of course–this, and so much more," he chuckles, shaking my hand.

Behind him, I spot Antonio downstairs talking to a group of girls and when I notice who it is, I can't figure out if I want to hide or jump for joy.

"Please excuse me for a second," I say to Horatio, and Adriano swiftly takes over the conversation, guiding him and the rest of his men further into the VIP area.

As I make my way down the stairs, the anxiousness I'm feeling only gets worse, and when I spot Antonio standing with his arm around Valerie it all transforms into anger. I want to rip his head off his body for the way he's looking at her, and then it hits.

I'm jealous. Of my own brother.

I stop midway down the stairs. What the fuck is wrong with me? Valerie hasn't even forgiven me yet and I'm already ready to tackle someone for looking at her. Like some neanderthal.

Yet, when her eyes meet mine and they don't look at me with the same hatred they did earlier this afternoon, I'm ready to go to war for her as long as she never stops looking at me like this.

Her eyes quickly dart back to Antonio.

As I reach the bottom, I notice Natalia standing with her. Then I notice her outfit. I almost wish I hadn't, because now my pants are tighter than they were when I came down here.

She's wearing a skin-tight sheer dress. I can see everything; every perfect curve, the way her bra enhances her amazing tits and how the dress isn't pink. No, it's black, and she looks the same way she did that night at the funeral.

Like sex on legs, ready to corrupt me and drag me down to wherever she wanted me.

And I'd gladly let her.

"Ambrose," Natalia calls and I, against my will, drag my eyes off Valerie and stare at the girl. I pity her because I know I give her a look deadly enough, for her to be at least six feet deeper than where she stands right now.

"Good to see you again, Natalia," I say as I join them.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I need Antonio to take care of something upstairs for me," I say to the girls.

"Horatio is here, go play nice," I whisper in his ear and he nods, but looks at me with annoyance. I know I've cut his time with Valerie short and I'm sure he hates me for it.

"What's upstairs?" Natalia asks.

"The VIP area," Antonio says. "You guys should join us."

The urge to punch him resurfaces. I wanted to be the one to invite them up, but of course, he'd beat me to it.

The ever-perfect Vitale brother.

"We'd love to," Natalia says.

Antonio heads up and I stand back gesturing for the girls to follow him up. "Valerie," I call after her and she stops a few steps above me and I'm sure if my head could double in size and my eyes turn into literal hearts, they would.

"Did you get my note?"

"I did. Got the flowers, too. How'd you know they were my favourite?"

"You told my mamá at the funeral when you brought her a bunch," I answer honestly and she nods. Silence settles between us, well as much silence as possible considering we're standing in the centre of a club.

"I'm sorry," I practically whisper, my eyes dropping to my feet.

All I do see is her small hand reaching forward. I look up to see that her eyes are soft again, possibly even softer than earlier. Apprehensively, I raise my hand and place it in hers and then she does the last thing I expected—she smiles before pulling me until I'm next to her on the stairs.

"I know you are. C'mon."

"I should probably mention that Horatio is here, and a few of his men, so…" I trail off but I hope she understands the hidden message behind my words. "I know I'm asking for a lot, especially after what happened, but he doesn't know it was all pretend," I say.

"Let's go," is all she says and we walk up the stairs hand in hand, fingers interlocked. When we reach the top, it's as if every single eye in the section is on us, and as much as I'd love to think I'm over-exaggerating, every single eye is truly on us.

She drops my hand in panic, and the way my head snaps to her probably doesn't help how bad this looks. She must realise what she's done because she looks up at me apologetically.

I place my hand on the small of her back and guide her inside .

"You don't have to stay if you don't want to, we're probably going to talk business most of the time," I whisper, and she nods as we get closer to Horatio.

"I'm the one who should be nervous, not you." She leans back against my chest and looks up at me.

"Valerie!" he exclaims, and the need to stab someone is back. "I didn't know you'd be joining us."

"How could I miss this?" she says as he pulls her in for a hug. Gently, I touch her back and they break apart. I can almost sense how uncomfortable it made her.

"You should stay and have a few drinks with us," he says.

"Valerie came with some friends-"

"I'd love to," she cuts me off with a hand on my chest, and I'm so consumed with the feeling of her warm hand against the thin fabric of my shirt, that I completely forget why I wanted to keep her so far out of Horatio's reach because now all I want to do is pull her into mine.

I meet Adriano's eye and he raises a brow at me. On cue, it sends a surge of panic through me as I search the room for Gus or Antonio.

Adriano is amazing at keeping secrets when needed to, but Gus not so much, and Antonio is higher on his favourite brother list than me. Both of them are nowhere to be seen, so I count my blessings and guide Val over to a pair of seats opposite where Horatio sits.

I take my seat and instead of taking her own, she sits awkwardly on my knee. A small chuckle leaves my lips.

"You doing okay, sweetheart?" I stretch up to her.

"Yes, I just don't know what to do," she admits, and my heart clenches.

"Well for one–relax, you're making it look like we never even touch."

"We don't." I stare at her and she rolls her eyes. "Fine, I'm sorry," she says.

I place my hands on either side of her waist and gently pull her further into my lap. "Is this okay?" I whisper .

Goosebumps run across her skin and she shifts a bit and only then do I realise that my earlier problem still hasn't subsided, and my dick is still hard.

"Sorry," I say sheepishly.

She chuckles. "It's okay, this is fine."

Once Valerie is more comfortable, I notice Horatio staring at us. I notice he's staring at Valerie, and now I'm less than impressed that she decided to wear this dress. Reaching forward, I grab the other side of her thigh and turn her so that she's facing me more and not directly facing Horatio.

A waitress stops and hands Valerie a glass of champagne, and I presume Horatio took care of the order since my whiskey glass has filled itself.

Horatio starts another conversation about the way the global economy has been taking a knock and a few members of my team indulge in the discussion.

I couldn't be bothered, because Valerie is all my mind can comprehend right now. How warm she is, the way she fits perfectly in my lap, and the fact that there are so few layers separating us.

"Where is Natalia?" I ask, trying to make conversation.

She moves her head to the dance floor where the girl along with a few others, Diego's new fiance included, are dancing.

She shifts in my lap and I groan. "Sorry," she squeaks, looking down at me. Her eyes innocently meet mine, and all I want to do is corrupt them. I want to know what they look like scrunched up while she comes around my cock.

"Ambrose," Diego calls as he joins us. "Good to see you again, Valerie." He offers her a smile that runs through me and has me pulling her closer as I sit up to see what he wants.

She strokes her fingers over my arm in small patterns, presumably following the shapes of my tattoos she can see through my shirt.

He starts mumbling off about numbers and digits and not even seconds later, I'm zoned out and focused on Val's actions. I swear all these finance guys are the same, all they can do is talk about numbers in some weird attempts to brag about their knowledge and how big their pockets are.

That's how the next hour goes, them bragging, Val and I drinking while having our own small conversations, she continues to watch her friends while drawing her little patterns on my arms.

Fully focused on her I smirk, I watch how she focuses on her actions. "That feels good," I whisper and she smirks, still focusing. "You know what would make it feel better?" I ask, and she shakes her head.

"What?"

"If it was your nails digging into my back, instead of drawing these patterns."

She freezes, staring at me in disbelief and at the same time I spot Antonio talking to Natalia again.

"Baby brother alert, time to cut this short, sweetheart. Go dance with your friend."

"What if I don't want to?"

Her eyes are full of mischief as she places a hand high up on my thigh. I can't help but smirk and tilt my head to the side.

"Be a good girl and listen, I'll reward you later."

A very faint thumping on my thigh makes me want to swallow my words and take Valerie to the nearest bathroom and fuck the shit out of her, because it confirms the effect my words are having on her.

As Antonio turns to face us, Natalia tries her best to distract him–she's my new favourite. Valerie is on her feet handing her empty glass to a passing waitress seconds later.

"I'll see you later?" she asks. She's unsure—unsure of this, of us—of what I said, and I wanna wipe that look off her face with a kiss.

I smile, a genuine smile, at her and nod before winking. "Of course, sweetheart."