Page 4 of Spring Break with a Mafia Prince
I frowned down at her, realizing she stood just half a foot shorter than my six foot one inches. “Do you always do what strange men tell you to do?”
“This would be the first time.” One lean shoulder lifted in a shrug and fell.
I watched the motion and swallowed, the swell of anger blooming fresh. “And if I’d been coming back with the intent to hurt you?” I said, managing to keep my voice soft, squeezing the hoodie in my hands.
“Were you?” She frowned up at me, and suddenly I hated how that looked on her.
“No.” I held out the hoodie. “Let me walk you home. Away from this. You shouldn’t be here anyway. And it’ll get colder later. More than this, from what I’ve seen of the nights so far.”
She contemplated me for a long moment, and just as I thought she would refuse my offer, she slipped one arm into the hoodie that was miles too freaking big for her. Letting me wind the soft, grey material around her slim frame that seemed too delicate to be here, near me, near anything of my family’s before something—or one of us—broke her, she turned in a semi-circle until I completed the job.
Suddenly I stood in front of her, unsure how we got here as I fiddled with the zip and secured her into my jacket, rolling the sleeves up her wrists a few turns.
“Better?”
“Thank you.” She bit her lip andfinallywrapped her arms around herself like I’d guessed she had wanted to do before. “It’s much warmer.”
“Yeah.” Fuck her father for letting her walk out of the damn house and into a meeting with her dressed like that. She looked like bait, for fuck’s sake. “Come on. Show me how you get home. We just arrived yesterday, and I don’t know this place yet.”
“I’ll be your tour guide.” She still didn’t move.
I waited, my palms itching and then I broke every damn rule I had for myself and held out my hand. “Show me…I don’t know your name,” I murmured.
“Bella.”
I rocked back on my heels, a smile forming on my face. “Just like the boat,” I muttered. Her expression morphed into confusion. I waved the comment away. “It’s nothing.” It wasn’t. “My boat is also called Bella.The Bella Vita,a beautiful life.”
I tugged on the hand she gave me, pulling her closer to me. My chest closed. With any other woman I’d already know exactly what I wanted to do with her—hell, that was an outright lie. Any other woman I’d already have in my bed. Over the railing, on the nearest furniture…
Another lie.
I was getting good at those tonight.
I knew exactly what I wanted to do with Bella tonight. I wanted to walk her home, make sure she stayed warm and see her safe inside her home. And then get my ass back here and find out what business her father had with mine.
But her sapphire blue eyes that mirrored the dark water that lapped at the boat drew me out of my head, in a way that no one else I knew could achieve.
“You know my name,” she whispered, seeming to lose her nerve.
I smiled faintly. “Falcon Gianio. Walk with me, Bella?”
She let me draw her off my boat, away from my father and hers, and onto unmoving land. My hand was still wrapped around hers. Bella’s steps were much shorter than mine and even though this was a girl I had just met, a girl who I knew nothing about, I didn’t want to let her go.
Me, the mafia prince who hated contact with another person unless I was about to end up balls deep in their soft, warm flesh.
But that wasn’t on tonight’s menu. Not in the least. Whatever the hell this was, I had no intention of fucking my woes out into Bella’s soft, pale body. Her hand trembled in my grip and I loosened my hold instantly.
“Am I hurting you?”Am I scaring you? Too much for you?Fuck, I was freaking myself out as much as I probably terrified her.
“No,” she whispered, pulling her hand away. I missed the contact as she pushed her hair back from her face and made a messy but cute as all fuck knot with its dirty blonde strands at her nape. “I just…I worry about my father.”
I let out a short laugh, softening my tone belatedly when she glanced sideways at me. “He’s with my father and while mine’s in a mood, he isn’t inthatsort of a mood.” I took the elastic from her hand when she paused, biting her lip again. “I’ve scared you.”
“No.” She shook her head as I picked out the curls she knotted up and unwound the mess at her nape, winding her hair into a twist, and looping the elastic around it twice. “Oh, alright, yes. You did. A bit. I don’t understand any of this,” she confessed, wrapping her arms so tight around herself that she seemed to shrink. “Thank you.” One hand pressed to her hair. “How did you learn to do that?”
“I used to do it for my mother. She had long, dark hair, and it used to knot on the boat—not mine, my father’s, then, he sold it, afterward.” I stopped talking and took a breath. “She taught me to put it up for her.”
“Is she around tonight?” Bella glanced backward along the jetty.
