Page 4 of Ruthless Mr. Ricco
He’s done so much to help, but his protection ended today.I’m on my own now.
After a quick but heartfelt goodbye, I shoo him away and blow kisses to my mom through her window as the cab pulls away.
I stand on the sidewalk staring after them long after they disappear into traffic, warring with emotions too big to label.When my shawl slips to the crook of my elbows, I fill my lungs with city smog and prepare to walk home.
A hand lands on my shoulder.Terror ices my spine.I turn my head, and for a moment, my heart leaps into my throat with instinctual joy.Every nerve ending in my body lights with delight, but then I realize the familiar features don’t belong to the boy I had a crush on in high school.
This isn’t Matteo Ricco, my academic rival, first and only love interest, and ex-best friend.
These features belong to his older brother.And by older, I mean by a mere eleven months.Angelo Ricco, the man smiling down at me, was in the same grade as us, but since his brother and I were in advanced classes and he was not, we never shared the same classroom.The few times we met were random chances on campus or at whatever event his brother and I were competing in.
Mortification squashes my disappointment as I recall the last time I saw Angelo’s brother.In a fit of madness and despair, I gave Matteo Ricco my first kiss only for him to shove me away and call me a shallow, selfish bitch.Even my father’s betrayal didn’t cut so deeply.
“Holy hell, it’s really you.Look, guys, I found Brook Prescott!”Angelo shouts over his shoulder.
Hatred spears through me as he directs my father’s last name at me, even though I know he has no way to know I’ve changed it.Nausea grips me as other familiar faces gather around us.
Fuck.I haven’t seen these people since high school graduation.I hoped to never see them again.They represent the worst days of my life.
I smile politely but can’t help scanning the area in search of an escape.
“How did you know it was Brook?She looks nothing like she did in high school,” Trevor, Angelo’s best friend, says with a gross look down my body.
I reach for my shawl, but Angelo shrugs and slings his beefy arm over my shoulders before I can fix it.Worms crawl under my skin.
“Some people are hard to forget.”
His suggestive smirk is worse than his touch.I wedge my arm between us and elbow his side, but he pulls me tighter against him.
“I don’t know what’s more surprising; that the nerdy top student became fine as hell or that Brook Prescott came to our high school reunion,” Trevor laughs.
Double fuck.Class reunion.
I need to leave.Now.Before—
“She wasn’t the top student.I was.”
All the blood drains from my face.It’s too late.He’s here.
I turn my head and look up—and up—to the most handsome face in the world.
Matteo Ricco is no longer the lanky teen I fell in love with.Instead, he’s the tallest man on the street with a build to rival his older brother’s.Dressed in a tailored suit with his hair perfectly styled and icy indifference shining from his hazel eyes, he commands the space around him without even trying, and despite my best attempts to stop it, my heart squeezes with want.
He lifts a brow and slips a hand into his pocket, but despite the casualness of the gesture, my nipples pebble and heat pulses in my veins at the leashed power in his body.
Holy triple fuck, I’m doomed.
Chapter 2
Matteo Ricco
Jealousy pours acidthrough my veins,but I quirk a brow and let the disgust festering in my soul emanate from my eyes as I take in how Brook Prescott, the conniving bitch who pretended to be my friend in high school to get closer to my brother, presses her curves against said brother’s hard body.
She may have made a complete fool of me eleven years ago, but there’s no stopping the lust surging through me as she turns wide eyes toward me and flushes.
She’s a wet dream in the flesh with her long legs, tight dress, and lush lips.
I should be grateful she showed her true colors before graduation, otherwise I might have ruined my future for her.Instead, I used her betrayal to better myself in every way possible.Now, I’m not only bigger and stronger than my brother, but I also have more influence as the founder and CEO of New York City’s fastest growing multi-billion-dollar company with three other start-ups trending in the same direction.I don’t need to fight him for whatever inheritance my father passes down; I made my own legacy.
