“Where are you going?” He breaks away and I can breathe again.
“What?”
“Half-packed bag upstairs.”
Shit. “You had no business going through my house.”
“I wanted to see where you live. And by the way, you’re messy.”
“Why did you want to see where I live?”
He shrugs his shoulder now. “Curious.” He looks at my wrist, at the bracelet there.
I cover it with my other hand.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.
“I was unpacking, actually,” I lie.
He studies me like he doesn’t quite believe me but then he drops it.
“Do you have whiskey?” he asks, turning to walk into the small living room. I’m pretty sure this entire house fits inside one room of his penthouse
I shake my head when he looks at me. “I have vodka.”
“That’ll do.”
I exhale and walk into the kitchen to get the bottle of Absolut out of the freezer. I take out two water glasses, not wanting to feel embarrassed but feeling it anyway.
I don’t have a lot of nice things. No crystal tumblers. My furniture is second-hand. Most of my clothes too. I’ve never been embarrassed by it before.
“Ice?” I ask, not turning around.
“No. Dilutes it.”
Of course, it does. He wouldn’t want that.
I pour the vodka and go back into the living room. I hand him his and when his fingertips brush mine, it makes my breath catch. It’s like electricity, that spark, and all I can think when I’m around him, when I smell his aftershave, is how he looked at me. How he touched me. Held me.
How he had his mouth on me.
I swallow my vodka in one go.
He chuckles. “Do I make you nervous?”
I try to chuckle too, but it just comes out weird. “Yeah, actually, you do.” I don’t lie. What’s the point of lying to him about this?
He takes this in. Drinks a sip of his vodka.
He looks around again. “No photos, Sienna. Not anywhere in the house.”
“I haven’t had a chance to unpack them,” I lie.
He turns back to me, swallows the rest of his drink. “You’ve lived here for years.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Why did you lie to me just now?”
“Why do you care?”
“Like I said, I’m curious.”
“Are you here because you changed your mind?”
“Changed my mind?”
“Last night. You didn’t exactly get what you… paid for.”
“No, I didn’t. But that’s on me. The debt’s cleared.”
I have trouble holding his gaze. “Thank you. I guess.”
“You didn’t expect that.”
“I don’t know what I expected. You’re not really who I thought at all, to be honest.”
He studies me. “Why are you like that?” he asks.
“Like what?”
“Twitchy. You were terrified when I touched you last night.”
I turn my back, go to the kitchen and pour myself more vodka. I drink it before I answer. “I don’t know you and I was naked in your bed.”
I face him, lean my back against the counter, force a blank expression.
Evade.
I know how to do that.
He raises an eyebrow. He’s waiting for more.
“And I’m not used to being naked in strangers’ beds. Maybe the women from your stable are but not me. I think fear is pretty natural.”
I don’t know if he’s offended by the insult. But I do know he doesn’t deserve it.
He just stands there watching me, though, his expression closed off as he sips his drink. The way he looks at me, it’s so focused, so intent, that I wonder if he can read my mind.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you. You knew that.”
“How would I know that? Because you said so? You’re a loan shark. A man who’d had me stripped and put up on an auction block. You can understand-”
“I told you you were safe. I’m a man of my word. But fair enough.”
Again, something I don’t expect.
“I know most men in your situation wouldn’t have handled last night the way you did and I’m grateful to you for that.”
“Any man who gets off forcing a woman is an animal, Sienna.”
Then even in my limited scope, animals are all I’ve known.
He walks into the kitchen, stands too close as he reaches over me to refill his glass. He remains there drinking, studying me.
He’s so much taller than me and I have to crane my neck to look up at him, but holding his gaze is a struggle so I look at his chest instead and think how much stronger than me he is. How power seems to throb around him.
I wonder what it’s like to be so powerful. So unafraid.
But it’s taking all I have to remember that he’s a very dangerous man. That any attraction I feel I need to quash.
“What are you really doing here?” I finally ask, the words somehow coming out sounding normal.
He sips his vodka and I don’t know if he’s comfortable with this strange, heavy silence but my ears are drumming with the adrenaline pumping through my veins and I need for him not to be here.
He makes me feel strange. Like he takes up the whole world when he’s in the room. Being this close to him is hard, harder than I like to admit. Everything about him from the way he looks to the way he speaks to the way he smells makes me want.
He takes his time to answer me, as if he’s collecting his thoughts. When he gets a strange glint in his eye, I know what he’s going to say next will change everything.
“I have a proposition for you, Sienna.”
I feel like my heart is going to beat its way out of my chest. “What sort of proposition, Giovanni?”
“I want one month.”