Page 29 of The Don's Prisoner

“I fail to see where that’s my problem,” I countered and made my way to the kitchen table where I had all my sketches laid out. Okay, not all of them, I had some lining the back of the couch. And the coffee table. And the kitchen counter—except in front of the coffee pot, which still had half a pot left. I also had sketches pinned to the wall in my office too, but those I had already decided I was keeping in the line.

“It’s your problem too because you are my fiancée. They will have questions about when we are getting married. Questions I can’t answer.”

“So? Tell them you don’t know. Tell them you will get back to them or something.”

“It doesn’t work like that with my family,” he said through gritted teeth. I could almost hear how much he was clenching his jaw.

“Well, you demanding I go places with you doesn’t work like that with me,” I told him. “I am a businesswoman. I have deadlines and meetings and shows. I have clients that I need to meet deadlines for. This is not a hobby, Gio. This is my career.”

“I understand that,” he said softly, “but I need you to come with me to this dinner.”

There was a hint of desperation in his voice that I wanted to ignore, but as soon as I heard it, I knew I was going with him. He had a lot riding on me following through with our deal. I knew that. But he couldn’t just get away with demanding I did things. If we really were going to have a marriage, then I wasn’t going to be his slave. I was going to be his partner.

“Ask me nicely,” I said. There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Excuse me?”

“If you really want me to go with you, I will go with you, but you must ask me nicely. I do not take kindly to being told what to do by anyone, Giovanni. Least of all pushy, overbearing men like you,” I bit out.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I waited, picking up one of the drawings from the table and putting it in the pile by the coffee pot. Those were the “no”s. I would keep the sketches until the next time I was putting together a new line, but I didn’t feel like they were good enough for this time around. I had time to do the same to two more sketches, these lifted from the back of the couch, before he finally answered me back.

“Fine,” he huffed. “Will you please… come to dinner with me, so my family can meet you?”

“Absolutely. Come pick me up in an hour,” I told him in my sweetest voice. He was swearing when I hung up the phone.

When there was a knock at my door forty minutes later, I opened it with a smile. Okay, so it might have been a gloating smile, but it was a smile all the same.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I teased and stepped aside to let him in. He glared at me and stepped in, looking around at my apartment. The drawings had all been cleaned up and put back in my studio—all except the last five candidates, which I had taped to my living room wall. I had to choose two of them, but I couldn’t decide which ones would work the best.

His eyes went to the sketches, and he walked closer, inspecting my work. I watched him, closing the door and folding my arms over my chest, hiding the ample cleavage my little black dress was giving me. I had pinned it in the front, so it didn’t show too much. But it was still a lot—more than what I wanted to show his family for sure. The peacock-colored wrap I was planning to use to cover with was draped over the back of the couch.

“These are beautiful,” he said, no mocking in his tone, which I was grateful for. I was proud of my work, and if he mocked it in any way… well it would hurt. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it would.

“Thank you. I’ve been trying to decide on the last two to include in my new line, but it’s a lot more difficult than I was expecting.”

“Why don’t you just include all of them?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at me.

“Because I have a budget I need to stick to, and if I went with all five designs, it would cost me another quarter of a million dollars just to get the prototypes made, let alone hiring more models, producing more stock… It is just too far out of the budget,” I admitted.

“That’s a shame,” he said and turned from the sketches to me. “Are we going to have a problem here?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, returning the hard gaze he was giving me. His jaw was set in a thin line, and his eyebrows were narrowed. He was certainly not happy, but then again, neither was I.

I did not like being told what to do or being bullied into things.

“I mean are you going to follow my lead tonight, or am I going to have to get your brother involved and call this whole thing off?” he threatened, and I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. Fuck, he was going there? He really was pissed.

“You don’t like it when other people dictate what you are going to do, do you?” I asked and casually walked over to the back of the couch and straightened out my wrap so I could drape it over my shoulders. Then I pulled one side over my chest, bunching it in strategic places, and pinned it to itself over one shoulder with a golden peacock-feather brooch.

Gio followed close behind me, so close I could practically feel him breathing down my neck.

“No,” he admitted. “I do the telling. I wear the pants in this relationship, and I do not appreciate you not listening to me.”

I turned around and placed my index finger on his chest. Then I looked up at him, meeting his gaze without fear. I had had about enough of his shitty attitude.

“You know what, Gio? We are going to get something straight right now. If you expect me to be your wife for real, give you children, and actually become a member of your family, you and I are going to have to work as a team. This means you do not give me orders. We discuss things, like adults. Like two people in a relationship because, believe it or not, I also hate being told what to do. And it’s bad enough I am in this mess to begin with because of my brother, but you cannot threaten to take his life every time I do something that pisses you off. In fact, you do not get to threaten my brother’s life ever again. I am aware, constantly aware, that his life is in my hands. I do NOT need a reminder. Understood?” I ranted, poking him in the chest for good measure a few times.

And no, it was not just because his chest looked so good in the vest he was wearing. There was also no way I was testing how taut his muscles were because, even though I was yelling at him and upset with how he treated me, I was still picturing what he had done to me on the hood of my car.

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