Page 41 of Savage Proposal

I glanced over my shoulder. “What does it look like?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and I scoffed and stopped loading the drawer for the moment. “Did you think I was going to sleep next to you tonight after you threatened me with sex trafficking this morning?”

Hetsked, practically rolling his eyes. “You’re being stubborn. I had to do something to appease the Gallo girl. She came into my office while I was on the phone with her father, wailing like someone had shot her.”

Of course he would treat this as some kind of inconvenience. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I’m just a warm body in your bed,” I reminded him, throwing his words back at him. “I can do that, uphold our deal so to speak, and still sleep in here.” He stepped into the room, and I did everything that I could not to back up. There would be no repeat of what happened in the dining room. I couldn’t put myself back in his hands again, not like that anyway.

“I don’t agree,” he said. “I won’t allow it.”

I scowled. “Why do you want me to sleep in your bed anyway?” I demanded, growing frustrated. “You have access to me, obviously, whenever you want. Why do I have to do this?”

“Tell me that you don’t sleep better beside me,” he challenged. “Tell me that you won’t have any nightmares on your own. Then, I’ll consider it.”

I opened my mouth to sayexactlythat, but I stopped. I was a poor liar, and we both knew it, and truth be told, I did sleep better beside him than I did on my own. “That’s not fair,” I said.

“Life isn’t fair,dolcezza,” he crooned. “The best course of action is to accept it now and make the most of what your life has to offer you.”

“What, exactly, has my life offered me?” I asked. “I was attacked in my apartment and almost bled out on my bathroom floor. I worked my ass off for years, and all of that is down the tubes thanks to my father’s vices.”

“A year or so of your time, that’s all. Then, you can go back to your life.”

“Do you think that I’ll be able to forget all of this?” I said, putting voice to the fear that had been growing inside of me. “That you’ll drop me off on the side of the road after I’m discharged from the hospital, and I’ll just start my life where I left off?” Tears sprang to my eyes, and I wiped them roughly off my cheeks.

Lorenzo stared at me, jaw clenching and unclenching, but he didn’t offer kind words or comfort because the man was physically incapable of doing so. “Move your things back,” he said after a moment. “Now.”

Thenowas on the tip of my tongue, but I knew there was no use in it. For better or worse, I had to be here now, and I had to find some way to square that in my head. I couldn’t fall apart; that obviously did me no good. I couldn’t challenge him because it would end up just the same.

The easiest way out was through. That was clear to me now.

“You could at least apologize,” I said with an imperious sniff and grabbed for the few things that I had been able to put in the drawer.

“For what?”

I nearly chucked one of my shoes at him. “Do you have to be such an ass?”

He smiled, and I hated myself for how it warmed me. “I can't let you like me too much,dolcezza.” He was teasing—or his equivalent, anyway—but I heard the truth in his words. That was his line in the sand. I could enjoy his body, but his heartwould never belong to me. I felt iron bars come down on my burgeoning, confused feelings, locking them up tight.

Go along to get along, I thought. I would take what I could while I was here, keep myself from going insane, and avoid thinking about how it all would end.

“There’s no worry about that,” I promised. “I know where we stand.”

His smile faded around the edges, and he dipped his head. “Good.”

I moved my things back to the master bedroom. Somehow, I felt even more trapped being here. The room was twice as big as my apartment, but walking across the threshold felt like I was walking into my own jail cell.

After I put my clothes back into the drawers that I had just emptied, I went for a shower. If I was going to feel suffocated tonight, I might as well take the longest, hottest shower in existence to make up for it.

Lorenzo’s shower was a thing of beauty. Floor to ceiling emerald-green tiles; black-and-white hexagons on the floor; gold plumbing. The moment I had laid eyes on it, I’d wanted to move in and never leave. It had a rain showerhead and body sprays and the ability to get to the temperature of magma, and today I employed all of them, filling the large bathroom with steam. I was lathering shampoo into my hair when the glass door slid open.

“I can barely see you through the steam,” Lorenzo said.

I didn’t stop massaging shampoo into my scalp. “I didn’t plan for you to see me.”

He chuckled, and the sound bounced around us. “You’re naked in my shower,dolcezza.”

I tipped my head back, letting the water run through my hair. “You say that like taking a shower in the bathroom closest to where I will be sleeping is some kind of open invitation.”

He reached out, sliding his hand across my waist, cupping my hip. “It is when you don’t lock the door.”

Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. I let myself be drawn into his arms and slipped mine around his neck. “I still want an apology for this morning.”

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