Page 13 of Forbidden Sins

“What happened?” she asks in a soft, broken voice, when it seems clear that I’m not getting up and leaving anytime soon. “Dad, he—he didn’t say anything about what happened. How did?—”

I take a slow, deep breath. “Estella, are you sure you want to know any of this? Isn’t it better?—”

It’s not, and I know it before she even speaks to contradict me.

“I think everything in my head right now is worse. All the worst possible scenarios—” Her voice breaks again. “Was it something normal? Like a…a car accident on the way back? Or was it…was it the job…”

Her voice trails off, and I think she sees the confirmation in my eyes. “Oh my god,” she whispers, her hands pressing over her mouth for a moment before dropping back into her lap. “That’s why Dad’s going to…he?—”

I nod. “From what we know, the job at the club went bad in some way. We don’t know how, or why. That’s the information your father is going to seek out. That he’s going to get out of them.” Behind the tears, I see a flash of satisfaction in Estella’s eyes, and it startles me just as much as her first vicious reaction. I’ve never seen this side of her before, and yet…can I be surprised that it would come out because of her brother’s death?

If someone I loved was taken from me, I’d want to tear those responsible limb from limb myself, rather than letting someone else do it. And I’d be able to, because I’m a man in a world that facilitates men’s rage and demands that women keep it quiet. Buried, like those they love so often are.

Hell, I wanted to go with Antony and the men he took with him to pry answers out of whoever it is responsible for Luis’ death. Not just for Estella’s sake, but for the sake of my own friendship with Luis.

Three years is a long time to live somewhere—day in and day out, for the most part—around people who you see and speak to every day. Some, like Antony, make it impossible to grow any kind of personal connection. Trying to form a friendship with Antony Gallo is like trying to be friends with the fucking King of England—he’s someone who always thinks himself above others, and who doesn’t have friends. He has business associates, colleagues, connections, family.

But Luis, like his sister, was different. Pretty much from the time I came to work at the Gallo mansion as Estella’s bodyguard, he and I got on as if we’d been friends our whole lives. When he wasn’t running himself ragged over the tasks his father set for him, in meetings or doing jobs for the mafia, we’d pass each other in the hallways or rooms of the mansion and ask how the other was doing. When Estella didn’t need me hovering at her side and Luis and I found ourselves with nothing to do, we’d talk like a couple of normal guys. Baseball, motorcycles, craft beer. He lamented wanting to race sport bikes and not being able to because Antony was too worried that something would happen to him. That he’d crash, and Antony’s empire would be in danger of crashing, too.

Look what fucking happened,I think bitterly. Luis is dead all the same. Not while doing something he loved, but while doing his duty to the family. Dead far too young, before his life ever really had a chance to begin, and now Antony Gallo’s empire is in the same danger that he always feared.

There’s no one to inherit except Antony’s daughter, and I have some idea of what the don of the Gallo family will think of that idea.

She’ll be even more sheltered now.My chest constricts at that thought, at the idea of how much smaller Estella’s gilded cage will be now. Now that she’s all that Antony has left.

I wish Luis were still alive for his own sake, of course—but also for his sister’s. Because her life is about to change in ways that she could never have anticipated.

Estella moves closer to me, lying on her side on the bed as her hand drops to my knee. My body tenses at the touch, the muscles of my leg flexing, and I look quickly at her to see if she noticed. Her gaze is far off, staring across the room at nothing, and I grit my teeth against the wave of heat that the simple touch of her hand on my leg sends through me.

It shouldn’t feel this good, having her touch me. My cock softened a few minutes ago, but now it twitches to life again, and an answering muscle in my jaw ticks as I struggle to control my body’s response to her. No woman has ever been able to turn me on this easily, in a circumstance where it’s definitely uncalled for.

Now isn’t the time, and it never will be. There will never be a moment when it’s appropriate for me to be aroused by Estella Gallo.

The sooner I remember that, the better off I’ll be.

I swallow hard, wrapping my fingers around her hand and gently shifting it away from my leg, onto the duvet next to it. Her eyes flick up to mine, and I think I see a hint of hurt in them, but what else am I supposed to do? These kinds of casual touches—they can’t go beyond tonight. There’s no world in which it can become so easy for us to touch each other like this that we might forget and do it in public one day, in front of her father, in front of someone who would notice and speak up.

“There’s nothing you can do about any of it but wait, princess,” I murmur softly, brushing the back of her hand with my fingers. Estella’s eyes flutter closed, and she lets out a soft whimpering sound, the sound of someone who has cried themselves out, who has nothing left. It sounds almost like a coo, like a bird’s cry. Like a mourning dove.

“You should try to sleep,” I encourage her. “I know it’s hard—but the time will pass faster, if you can. You’ll wake up in the morning, and maybe there will be answers. At the very least, you’ll be rested, and?—”

“Don’t say it’ll be easier, then.” Estella’s eyes open, dark pools of grief meeting mine. “Please don’t say that.”

“I won’t.” I brush my thumb over her knuckles, resisting the urge to touch her face. To wipe away the tears still slowly trickling down her cheeks. If we were something different toeach other, I’d get up and go get a warm washcloth, wipe off her face and dry it afterwards. But I’m not her lover. I’m not her boyfriend or her husband.

I’m her fucking bodyguard—and for the first time in three years, it doesn’t feel like enough.

It feels like I’m rattling the bars of my own cage, desperate to get closer to her. To be able to take her grief in some meaningful way, to comfort her without the gulf of who we are to each other dividing us.

But that’s impossible.

“Just sleep,” I say quietly. “Just try.”

Estella presses her lips together, blinking her damp eyelashes rapidly for a moment before looking up at me again. “Will you stay?” she pleads softly. “I don’t want to be alone. Please, Sebastian?—”

My entire body tightens again at the thought of sharing a bed with her.No, I think instinctively. That’s a step too far, and we both know it. Estella and I glance across the room at the same moment, and I see the armchair next to the fireplace on the wall facing her bed.

“I can sleep there,” I suggest, grateful for a way to both give her what she’s asking for and keep the distance that I desperately need. Her father won’t be happy if he comes back early in the morning and finds me in her room at all, and if any of the staff come into the room they’ll talk, but it’s better than finding me in bed with Estella, even clothed. I’ll be in the armchair, clothed and shoes on, far enough away from her that it’ll be clear nothing happened between us. I can talk my way out of that, at least.

---