Page 8 of Seduced By the Enemy

Salvatore sat up a little straighter as he followed Raf’s gaze, over to Emilia—and his pledge of not looking at her went right out the window. She was in conversation with the woman two seats over, talking a mile a minute, her hands moving animatedly as she explained something then laughed. Not only was he failing to pretend she didn’t exist, he was finding it almost impossible to look away.

“Maybe she’d help me get over Marcia,” Raf said, so a prickle of distaste ran the length of Salvatore’s spine.

Raf wasn’t a one-night stand kind of guy. In fact, he was Salvatore’s direct opposite. Where Salvatore had made a habit out of short, casual flings, Raf had been dating Marcia for years before they finally married. While their relationship had ended disastrously, thanks to her lying about being pregnant, then lying about miscarrying, all so Raf would propose, Salvatore had no doubt that deep down, Raf was still the ‘happily ever after’ kind of guy. Despite his messed up upbringing and all the issues that had undoubtedly left him with.

“You’re not over Marcia?” Salvatore asked, unconsciously reaching into his pocket and twisting his fingers around Emilia’sdelicate lace thong, reminding himself that if she was going home with anyone that night, it would be him.

“You know what I mean,” Raf said. “Get her out of my mind. She’d hate the thought of me hooking up with her.”

“Because she’s a Valentino?”

“Because she’s a knockout. Marcia always had a wildly jealous streak—it didn’t matter that I never looked at another woman while we were together.”

At first it had been a throwaway remark, but something in Raf’s tone was grinding Salvatore’s gears. “Need I remind you they’re our sworn enemy?” He tried to keep his voice light, casual, like it was no big deal, but the whole conversation was flooding him with distaste.

He might hate the Valentino family but he wasn’t comfortable with Emilia being discussed like this. Not after what they’d just done. That protective instinct surprised him, and mostly, he wished he didn’t feel it, because it brought with it the hint of complications he didn’t want to navigate.

“So? Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone. Make her want me, break her heart, and hurt Marcia in the process.”

Salvatore looked sharply at Raf, appalled by the dark threat in his cousin’s tone. “Raf, come on, bro. That’s not like you.”

“No?” he turned to face Salvatore, a look in his eyes that was sheer anger. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think. Maybe no one does. Or maybe I’ve finally grown up.”

Salvatore frowned. Dante had convinced Raf to come to this thing, but it had quite possibly been a mistake. “Let’s go get a drink,” Salvatore suggested, only to break up the ease with which Raf could stare across the room at Emilia. He loved his cousin, but in that moment, he felt like shaking him just to loosen his interest.

“There’s wine on the table.”

“Something other than wine,” Salvatore suggested.

“Fine by me,” Raf conceded, standing in a way that was not quite steady, so Salvatore realised belatedly another drink was the last thing Raf needed. It might have been wishful thinking, but as they made their way to the bar, Salvatore was sure he felt the heat of Emilia’s gaze following him.

Salvatore and a man—shewas pretty sure it was his brother or cousin, going by their shared features—left a short while after going to the bar. She tried not to track Salvatore’s progress, but her eyes seemed to have developed a mind of their own, and followed him even when she was desperately trying not to.

And even though she hadn’t known he was going to be at this thing, once he’d left, she lost interest in being there altogether. Never mind that it was a cause close to her heart. Never mind that she’d been looking forward to it, and had flown back to the States specifically for this fundraiser.

It was only when she herself left that Emilia checked her phone once more and saw the text from him. It was straight to the point: his address.

She read and re-read the message several times, before deleting it and putting her phone away. Randomly hooking up at some event was one thing, but going to his house, by pre-arrangement, quite another. That’s not what they were—and they never could be. There was way too much water under the bridge between their families, and she wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.

Two weeks later

The Fulham County Pediatric Hospital Fundraiser, New York.

“For you, ma’am,”a waiter said, as he buzzed close to Emilia. Midway through a conversation with a high school friend, Emilia paused, to study the cocktail held on a tray, a small frown tweaking her bright red lips.

“Is that—a French martini?”

“As the gentleman requested,” the waiter said. Emilia’s heart shifted up a notch, as she kept her focus on the cocktail for a beat, before saying, “I’m sorry, who ordered this for me?”

The waiter looked around, then turned back to Emilia. “He’s not there anymore,” he said, apologetically. “Tall guy, dark hair, wearing a grey suit.”

“That narrows it down,” she drawled, scanning the room and seeing at least ten men who fit that description, trying not to let her hopes get ahead of reality. Trying not to have any hopes at all. After all, hadn’t she agreed that whatever she’d been doing with Salvatore had to stop? The fact they’d slept together twice was bad enough, but she could put that down to stupidity and unpreparedness.Lookingfor him now was a bridge too far.

But as she took her first sip, that’s exactly what she did, and only drew her focus back to her friend when she’d convinced herself he wasn’t here, after all. Meaning the drink had been sent by someone else. And that could be any number of people. She almost always had the same drink at this sort of thing, so any of the people she’d socialized with in this setting would know her preference. Yet she couldn’t shift the feeling that Salvatore must be behind this.

Time passed, though, with no sight of him, and an hour later, well after she’d finished her drink, Emilia had given up even looking for him. So when her eyes happened to shift sideways and land square on his face, it was impossiblenotto react. Not to let out a small gush of air, a sound of surprise, so the group she was in conversation with paused to regard her, to wait for her to explain.

“Sorry, I just remembered something I was meant to do today,” she fumbled out a fib, scrunching her nose.

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