Page 4 of Forbidden Sins

“Here you are, Miss,” she says, setting it all down. “I’ll have breakfast right in for you. The cook already has something staying hot, waiting for you to come back in.”

A few minutes later, the maid comes back with another tray—this one with a plate of eggs covered in shredded cheese, green onion, and chili sauce, as well as a side of fruit and blueberry sausages. She sets it down, waits to see if I need anything else, and then vanishes.

I quickly dig in. I’m extra-hungry after the run this morning, and one perk of no one else being at breakfast with me is that no one will say anything about how much I eat. My father tends to side-eye whatever I put on my plate at meals, clearly worried that I’ll put on weight and become unattractive to whoever he wants to marry me off to. The amount of time I spend running to stay in shape doesn’t factor in, since he’d rather I not do that at all.

Sometimes, I think he’d rather I sit up in my room like a Victorian waif, drinking tea and nibbling at bites of food until he needs me for something. Which isn’t often, since I’m not the heir. Luis is.

“Good morning, 'Stel!” As if summoned by my thoughts, Luis comes hurrying into the room, looking more rushed than usual. He’s wearing black suit trousers and a dark red button-down without a tie, the sleeves rolled up. His dark hair looks messy, as if he’s been running his fingers through it, and I frown at him.

“You, too? What’s got you running around like crazy this morning?”

“A job.” Luis pauses, catching the look on my face. “Don’t worry, ‘Stel. I’ll be back in time for the party, I promise.” He swoops in, dropping a kiss on my cheek. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“You better be there!” I call out after him as he rushes back out of the room as quickly as he came in, narrowing my eyes after his departing figure.

Other than Sebastian, I’ll only have one other friend at a party that’s meant to be for my birthday. And honestly, the person I want there most is my brother. We’re close in age, only a year apart, and our birthdays are only separated by a month. In a way, I feel like the party should be for him, too, although my father doesn’t celebrate Luis the way he celebrates me. Men don’t have big birthday parties, as far as he’s concerned. Luis is supposed to be tough, indestructible, inured to things like birthday parties and affection.

But as far as I’m concerned, that’s bullshit. We might not have loving parents, but Luis and I have always loved each other enough for an entire family. And tonight?

The thing I want most is for my brother to be there to celebrate with me.

2

SEBASTIAN

YOU ACTED LIKE AN IDIOT THIS MORNING.

That’s the only thought in my head as I climb the stairs to my suite of rooms in the Gallo mansion, sweaty and eager for a shower. The look on Estella’s face when she saw me climbing out of the pool is burned into my head—the look on her face when she was staring at my cock most of all.Rightat it, as if she wanted to memorize every fucking inch of what she was seeing.

I run a hand over my face, shoving the door to the suite open and closing it hard behind me.

I should never have gotten out of the fucking pool while she was still standing there. I’ve been careful about things like that over the years. Careful to never let her see me with less than shorts and a T-shirt on during workouts. Careful not to make jokes that were too sexual. To never let the teasing slip over into innuendo if I could help it.

Careful to never let the innocent mafia princess that I’m in charge of protecting know how she makes me feel.

“Fuck,” I mutter the word aloud into the open air as I strip off my shirt and toss it into the laundry, my shorts and boxer briefs following closely behind. My cock twitches as I stride across theroom naked toward the bathroom, threatening to swell into a full-blown erection every time I remember that damned look she gave me.

Hell, she probably didn’t even know what she was fantasizing about when she saw me climb out of the pool half-naked. Antony Gallo has kept his daughter sheltered as a hothouse flower, except for the small freedom of letting her attend college in person. Even then, I was told to stick to her side like glue, and it affected her college experience, I know that. Hard for a girl to make friends or have boys develop a crush on her when a six-feet-four of a muscled bodyguard is looming within a few feet of her at all times.

Never mind that the thought ofanyonehaving a crush on her makes my jaw clench and an entirely inappropriate possessive instinct run through me like a jolt, every time. It’s a pointless feeling, and one that I’ve been trying to get rid of for as long as I’ve been in the Gallo mansion. Estella is not the kind of woman I should so much as look at, let alone nurtureanykind of feelings for. Even our friendship borders on inappropriate, simply because we’re so close. Her father doesn’t approve of it, I know. We’re both careful not to behave like friends around him.

But since the day I started work here at the mansion—since the day I met her—those feelings have been impossible to fully root out.

It’d be inappropriateeven if she wasn’t your boss’s daughter,I remind myself as I turn on the hot water for the shower. I took up the position as Estella’s personal bodyguard when she was eighteen and I was thirty-two. Now, three years later, the age gap between us isn’t any better. Just another layer on a cake of reasons why I should keep my fucking distance… or as much as I can while still protecting her, anyway.

And yet, my mind keeps drifting back to the look on her face when she saw me climbing out of the pool. A look that told methat she feels something very similar to what I’ve felt for three years now—the reason why every time I’m present when Estella uses the indoor swimming pool for laps, I stay outside.

For three years, I’ve done all I can to avoid seeing Estella Gallo in even the slightest state of undress. When she goes for a swim in the outdoor pool or uses the mansion’s hot tub, I find somewhere else to be, appearing only once she’s come back down from changing afterward. I’ve never entered her bedroom, only met her outside in the hall. These are just a few of the rules I’ve set down for myself since the moment I met her and felt that sizzling burn of attraction—an attraction that I’ve been ashamed of since the moment I felt it.

Eighteen and thirty-two.I was nearly twice her age when I met her. I should be ashamed now, standing here with my stiff cock brushing against my abs, throbbing at the thought of Estella looking at it. Justlookingat it. If I let myself imagine?—

“Stop it,” I bite out, muttering it to myself through clenched teeth as I step under the hot spray of water—water that I would have done better to make ice cold instead. Yet another rule I set out for myself from the start—I can never, never allow myself to imagine Estella when my own hand is wrapped around my cock. Every time I’ve ever come close to breaking that rule, I’ve forced myself to stop until I can think about something else—an old lover, porn I’ve watched, a celebrity that I find particularly sexy. I’ve never allowed myself to jerk off thinking about her, and I’m not going to start today.

I’m not.That look on her face isn’t enough to make me break my rules. If I start to let those fray, what happens next? My self-control is the bulwark I’ve built between my own desires and the innocent girl who has no business being the subject of them. I can’t allow anything to weaken those defenses.

What I should do,I think to myself as I start to scrub off the sweat and chlorine clinging to my skin,is get a hotel room in thecity on my next day off.I could go out to a bar, find someone to take back to my room, and work out some of this frustration. It’s not something I do often; my life is too focused on my work for me to have any interest in dating. I’ve never particularly wanted a relationship at all, let alone anything serious or long-lasting. But a man has needs, and occasionally, I’ll pick up a woman just as eager to sate them. It’s never difficult, but it’s also not all that much more satisfying than my own hand.

Still, it’s impossible to go forever without another person’s touch. And from time to time, indulging that need prevents me from making other, much worse mistakes.

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