5. Gia

Each time Salexplains it to me, I still can't believe what he's saying.

We're both a few drinks in, so the shock and the alcohol might be impacting me as well, but I really can't get over it.

I stare at Sal over the rim of my glass. "So, you're like some kind of real estate magnate?"

"Basically, yes."

I narrow my eyes at him. "What's the name you have your portfolio under?"

"Are you going to tell Elio?"

I roll my eyes at him. "I'm obviously not going to tell Elio."

It's the truth. Elio doesn't need to know about this, and if Sal decided that he wanted to keep it from Elio, then I'm not going to be the one who tells him.

Sal and I keep secrets. But not from each other. We made that promise on the train back to Rome, after Belarus.

Or so I thought.

"I trade under the name Comare Holdings."

I burst out laughing. "You're the one who runs the company named after mistresses?"

"I bet you never would have thought it was me," he replies with a grin.

That's absolutely true. There is no world in which I would have thought that Sal De Luca ran a real estate company that essentially chose a name so similar to the Sopranos lore, I was sure that they were run by some white guy in New York.

"Well. I've heard of you. You made a splash when you acquired that old estate in France."

He nods. "That was my fourth one last year."

I nearly spit out my vodka. "Fourth one? Jesus Christ Sal, how many estates do you have just lying around?"

"At least four in France," he says, a smile teasing the corners of his lips.

I snort. "Smartass," I lob at him before sipping my drink. "So. Are you going to tell me where the rest of your holdings are, oh great real estate magnate?"

"No."

The word hits me harder than I expected. I resist the urge to rub my chest, my heart feeling more than a little wounded.

It shouldn't feel that way.

Sal and I aren't a couple. I told him that after he offered to be one.

So why does it bother me that he won't share the rest of his success with me?

"Okay. Keep your secrets then," I grumble. I turn in my seat, reaching for the vodka, when something in my side twinges.

Hard.

"Ah," I hiss, trying to breathe through it.

In an instant, Sal is at my side. "Gia. Where are you hurt?"

"I'm not. It's just… something down my side."

"Let me see."

"Sal, seriously. I'm fine. I don't need…"

"Let me see, damn it."

I freeze. Sal is looming over me.

From where I'm sitting on the bar stool, he seems impossibly tall. His strong arms are gripping the marble countertop behind me, and his tobacco and leather smell fills my nose.

How does he smell like that? I thought it was some kind of cologne, but since there's no way he keeps a spare bottle of that in his house that he's literally never in, I think he just smells that damn good.

That is unfair.

I make a note to search through all his bathroom cabinets for some cologne, but in that time, he's even closer to me.

I hold in a gasp as his lips are perilously close to my ear. "Let me see, Gia," he whispers.

I gulp. "It's not like you're a doctor or anything. You wouldn't be able to help."

"Gia," he growls. "Take off your robe."

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm not really sure what's going on. Because I'm not exactly the type of girl who responds well to being bossed around. In fact, I've built pretty much my whole career off of not doing that at all.

But when Sal tells me to take off my robe.

And he's two inches from my face.

And he's looking at me with those wide, brown eyes that seem to see inside my soul…

Before I know what's going on, my arms are moving. I undo the belt of the criminally soft robe, and my arms are pulling through the sleeves.

I'm still not even aware of it when Sal lifts me up onto the counter, ensuring that I sit on the robe so my butt doesn't hit the cold marble.

Thank the Baby Jesus himself that I didn't take off my panties.

Or maybe I should have.

No. Gia. No, no, no.

Aside from our admittedly very sexy situation, Sal is doing his level best to make it as unsexual as possible. He's examining my side, his eyes about a centimeter from my skin.

"Do you think you cracked a rib?"

No. "I definitely didn't crack a rib."

"Okay. I'm going to touch you and if it hurts, let me know."

I gulp.

His hands are so big. Like, he shouldn't ever walk into a glove store, or they'll all simply faint from witnessing hands this size.

They skate up my rib cage toward my breasts, which, while encased in a lace bra, are not exactly hidden.

It's lingerie. It's sexy. I like to wear sexy underwear.

I can't decide if that's a good or bad thing right now.

But, should Sal decide to notice, he'd see my nipples hard beneath the lace fabric, and he'd see that there are goosebumps rioting over the skin on my chest.

When his fingertips touch my naked side, I bite back a groan.

"When I put pressure here, does it hurt?"

He squeezes lightly.

No, but it makes me think of how easy it would be for you to lift me up and flip me over.

"No," I whisper.

"What about here?" his hands raise up higher, his fingertips skimming the edge of my lace bra.

"Not there," I say. God, my voice sounds hoarse. It's a miracle Sal hasn't picked up on the fact that I'm practically panting on the countertop in front of him.

I have been through hell. I was literally in a burning warehouse once. I not only survived Fyre Fest, but I made money off of people who wanted to leave on my private jet.

I can make it through Sal touching me like I'm made of porcelain.

I promise myself it won't break me. No matter how badly I want to be broken by him.

"What about on your back?"

Oh no.

He leans forward, tucking my hair over one of my shoulders so he can see down my back. Unfortunately, now he's really close to me. His chest brushes mine as he peers over my shoulder, his fingers working their way over the muscles of my back.

This is not good.

If I close my eyes, I can pretend that we're hugging. That he's holding me close, that his fingers skating over my skin are doing so out of care.

Desire.

Things that I walked away from once.

And honestly, if he offers…

I'm not sure I can do it again.

"Gia?"

"Yes?" I say. My voice is wobbly, but I managed to keep it quiet so I'm certain that he has no idea that I'm about ten seconds from ripping off his dumb soft shirt and sliding my hands up his tattooed chest…

Oh fuck.

Now I'm thinking about how his chest is full of tattoos and muscles and oh my god…

"Why are you shaking?"

"Um."

He pulls back. "Tell me where it hurts," he growls.

I shut my eyes. "Sal. It doesn't hurt."

"Then why are you shaking?"

I'm a good liar. Naturally. I'm really excellent at it.

For some reason, I've never been able to lie to Sal. He sees it almost immediately. I tried to lie to him once on the way from Minsk to Elio's house in Italy.

It didn't go well.

So instead, I tell the truth.

Kind of.

"My body is… reacting to you."

I've never seen Sal go so still.

I shut my eyes so that I can keep going.

"It's just you're so close, you know. You're warm and your hands feel really good on me and I just really like that and…"

I need to stop now. If I don't stop now I'm going to say something stupid.

Like I really want you to fuck me on this marble countertop.

"You're saying you're cold?"

He's just fucking with me now.

I snap one eye open and glance at him. "No. Sal. I'm not saying that."

"What are you saying then, Gia?"

His voice is barely above a growl, and it makes more goosebumps break out over my neck as I think about how that voice would feel against my skin.

I study his face. The sharp lines of his jaw are so crisp that he looks like he could cut through a two-by-four.

His eyes are dark, darker than their normal warm brown, and his fingers are curled into fists at his sides.

Like he's holding himself back.

At least one of us is.

"It doesn't matter," I say, a little more bitter than I'd intended. "It doesn't matter what I want, Sal. We can't go there. We just can't."

I hate that the second I say it, he shuts down. I swear I watch him power off, his eyes going from that dark flashing to nothing faster than the space between one heartbeat and the next.

"I'm going to shower," he says roughly.

Slowly, I gather the edges of my robe and pull it back up my shoulders. I watch him stomp up the stairs and turn the shower on.

Idly, I wonder what would happen if I walked in there with him.

You can't.

I suck in a breath and lift the glass of vodka to my lips. I need to remember that Sal is not part of my plan.

I'm going to do a good job as Elio's replacement.

I'm going to take over the Rossi family.

If I did that with a man at my side, I'd never do it.

In my world, men run everything.

They're the boss. The man of the family. They're the ones who do everything possible, and who take it upon themselves to create the world for the rest of us to live in.

Fuck.

That.

My own father loved us both, but he only ever saw Elio as the capable one. He would never say that Elio, while a great guy and a good leader, was not who my dad wanted him to become.

I was.

I'm the one who is cutthroat. I'm the one who is willing to do what it takes to get shit done. I'm the one who has no problem cutting someone's stomach open to let their intestines fall into their hands so they can really feel the outcome of crossing me.

Of crossing the family.

I'm the one who deserves to be the head of the family.

I love Elio. I'd never want to take anything away from him when it comes to the family business. If he wants to stay the head of Rossi Industries, he can do that.

But I'll strike out on my own if that's the case.

I've waited too long for this opportunity. If I had Sal at my side as… a couple, for lack of a better word, people would assume that he's the one who has the guts to do what it takes.

And they would overlook me.

Again.

I'm fine with Sal showing up as my bodyguard and backup because it's something that Elio would do as well. Elio has his own set of bodyguards, Luca and Rocco, who follow him everywhere.

But I can't let it be more than that.

The rest of the vodka burns in my throat. The pain is good, though.

It reminds me that all good things come at a price. The price of getting drunk off of good vodka? A little burn.

The price of achieving my dreams and leading the Rossi family?

Sal.

* * *

When he comes back downstairs,I'm more than a little buzzed from the vodka. I notice first that he's wearing the same soft clothes, which look, for all the world, like linen pajamas. They give him the illusion of like… a cult leader. A tame tiger.

The fabric is so thin, however, that I can see tattoos where it stretches across his chest…

And his thighs.

"Good shower?" I ask.

Immediately I want to take it back. First of all, who asks that? Second, it makes me think about how I've been thinking about Sal in the shower.

Naked.

So very, very naked.

"We need a plan," he rumbles. "We need to figure out what happened back there, why it was that meeting, and those who were invited, who were targeted."

"I mean was it the Russians? Or was it us?"

He shrugs. "That's what we need to find out."

I nod. It makes sense.

Now, the bigger question. "What are we going to tell Elio?"

Sal frowns. "What do you mean."

"He'll hear about it. He needs to know."

"Sure," he agrees. "But aren't you acting head of the family while he's doing paternity leave?"

"Yes," I say automatically. It's the truth; I am.

"So why does he need to know all the details? Is it enough to know that we're alive and handling it?"

I freeze. "I think it is," I say slowly.

He has a point. Elio would handle this with consultation, but he'd handle it on his own.

He would send me to get intel. He'd ask Nico, which I guess is Sal now, to handle some of the muscle.

He wouldn't report back to either of us what his decision is.

"We should tell him about the meeting. We can tell him about the attack. But I'm not telling him about Marco yet."

Sal nods. "How can we explain staying in Europe after that?"

"We want to find out who did it. Get to the bottom of it," I say. "We're here to find the motherfucker who tried to kill us, Sal. That makes sense to me."

"And the business stuff?"

"It's remote for a reason. Plus, doesn't he have Dino running some of the warehouses back in Jersey?"

Sal nods. "Yeah but…"

"I know."

Dino De Luca, the third brother in the De Luca family, is somewhat of both a loose cannon and a touchy subject right now. Do I think that he's loyal, or even mentally stable? No.

Do I think he'll risk crossing us again?

Also no.

"Dino runs the business. Have him report to Luca, who will report to you," I say.

Sal smiles. "Yes, boss."

The words turn me on way, way more than they should.

I nod. "Do you want to call Elio, or do you want me to?"

"What do you want, Gia?"

Everything.

But I don't say that. Instead, I nod. "I'll call him."

It's time to be the boss bitch I have always wanted to be.