Page 34 of Savage Proposal

“That’s too long. I’ll give her a week.”

“How can I know you’re giving my Gia a proper chance?” Don Gallo asked. “A week is too short.”

I ground my molars together. A headache was forming behind my eye. “Two weeks,” I said. “That’s as much of an opportunity as I’m going to give her.”

Don Gallo was quiet for a moment. “That’s acceptable,” he said finally. “Gia will stay with you for two weeks, and you’ll give her a chance, yes? That’s our deal.”

“Deal,” I echoed. “Give me a few hours to get a room ready for her; I’ll send a car this evening.”

“Excellent. We’ll talk soon.” Then the line went dead.

I hung up the phone and pinched the bridge of my nose. “You can’t possibly think that’s a good idea,cugino,” Elio said, coffee in hand. He was in the chair that I usually sat in when I gave confession to Cristian.

“Iknowit’s a bad idea,” Damian agreed.

“The minor families have sent girls before. It’s never been a big deal.” A headache, yes, but nothing that I couldn’t handle.

“Things were different before,” Damian argued. “Gia isn’t just from any family; she’s my cousin. My uncle will believe that gives her some kind of advantage. He may not accept it if you just send her back after the two weeks.”

“He doesn’t have a fucking choice. I’m not going to touch your cousin.”

Damian didn’t look as certain. “Gia is persistent. She comes across as sweet and innocent, but?—”

“I don’t need the warning, Damian. I’m not going to go anywhere near her; she can shadow Amalia for the week.”

“What are you going to do about Isabella?” Elio asked, sipping at the mug in his hand.

“How does Isabella factor here?”

Elio gave me a flat look. “Gia might be young, but she knew Sienna. She went to your wedding, remember? You don’t think she’s going to say something to her?”

Hearing Sienna’s name made the hair at the back of my neck stand on end, but I looked at Damian. “When you pick her up, impress upon her the need to keep her mouth shut. Her name doesn’t get said aloud in this house. Understand?”

Damian nodded. “Of course.”

He looked like he had more to say, and when he didn’t come right out with it, I practically spat: “What?”

“We can keep Gia quiet about Si—” I glared, and he swallowed her name down again. “I mean, Gia can be made to understand that she can’t talk abouther, but how is Isabella going to feel about another woman being in the house?”

“She gets along with Amalia just fine.”

Elio scoffed, and he shook his head. “Cugino, are you being purposefully dense?”

“Excuse me?”

The smirk faded from his face. “You’re fucking Isabella. You don’t think she’s going to feel some kind of way about another woman coming in here and flirting with you?”

That was the most ridiculous fucking thing I’d ever heard. It didn’t matter if Isabella didn’t like someone flirting with me. She and I weren’tanythingto each other outside of the bedroom, and despite the fact that she had been denying how much she wanted me for the last three days, I had no intention of bringing anyone else there for now. “Her feelings aren’t a factor. I owe the Gallos for how we dealt with one of theirs, and that’s that.”

But Elio just shook his head again. “You’ve been without a woman for too long,” he said. “She’s going to hate Gia on sight. I guarantee it.”

I wanted to argue that Isabella wouldn’t cause a scene over something so petty…but even Sienna, for as mild and sweet as she was, became territorial when other women gave me the eye. She would never say anything, but she would stick close, drape herself all over me. I loved those nights; it made the sex afterward all the better.

“How she feels isn’t my fucking problem,” I said definitively. “She’s in this house to work off a debt. We aren’t dating, and I don’t owe her a goddamn thing.”

Neither Damian nor Elio said anything after that, but it wasn’t because they didn’t have anything to say. The rest of the morning was spent in a tense silence that only served to darken all of our moods. By the time Amalia brought up our lunch, Elio was itching for something to do. He nearly followed Amalia out of the room, grabbing her back and whispering something in herear that made her giggle, but I called him back. She patted his cheek and winked, disappearing out the door.

Elio glared at me. “Cock block.”

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