Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 193(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
“Second,” I continued without acknowledging his interruption, “Vivienne’s ex-fiancé could have been Nic, and I would still have taken her.”
Dario reared back as if I’d slapped him in the face.
“If you knew the details, you’d know that Nic would have my balls if I hadn’t. And before you imply otherwise and piss me off even more, he was already going to be my first call tomorrow.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s difficult to understand something when you run your mouth without all the facts,” Domenico drawled.
I shot him a glare, but didn’t shift my main focus from Dario. While I didn’t want to share Vivienne’s situation without her permission, due to Chanler’s visibility, I was a little more understanding of Dario’s concern. “He was abusing her,” I told him.
He took a second to absorb my words, then he lost all his righteous bravado, exchanging it for rage. “What the fuck? How was he hiding this from the press?”
“I’m not sure. Vivienne was too fragile for me to get the whole story out of her tonight. But now you understand why I helped her.”
Dario had the good sense to look chagrined. “I get it. You were just…acting so out of character. You’re never impulsive or rash, which is why Nic trusts you to run the southern branches. When you sent me off to take care of Jimmy, I assumed it was to keep the woman who ran into you from being a witness. Then I found out you brought her home, and I…” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly, I didn’t know what to think.”
“I’m still a little confused,” Domenico piped up.
I swung my gaze in his direction and waited.
“Getting her away from the event was necessary, and we would all have done the same thing. But why did you bring her here?”
“Because she belongs to me now.”
5
VIVIENNE
After everything that happened with Chet—and my worry over how my parents would react to the news that I was no longer willing to marry him—I had been exhausted. Even with my fears rattling around my brain, it wasn’t long after I climbed into bed that I quickly drifted off. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean I stayed asleep.
It was dark outside when I sat upright in bed, a scream ringing out in my room. I didn’t realize the sound had come from me until Rafa barged through a door that I had assumed led to a closet.
“Are you okay?” he demanded, his furious gaze sweeping the room.
Pressing a trembling hand against my chest, I nodded. “Yes, it was just a bad dream. I—um—I was dreaming about running in the dark, and then he—” I gulped as a shiver snaked down my spine.
“You were running from him, and he caught you?” Rafa guessed. I nodded, and his lip pressed together in a flat line as his eyes drifted to my cheek. “After what that bastard did to you, it’s not surprising that you’re having nightmares about it.”
He padded over to the bed and softly ran his thumb under my split lip.
“I think it’s just starting to settle into my brain what a close call I had.”
“He will never lay another finger on you again,” Rafa vowed gruffly before crawling onto the mattress and pulling me into his arms. “And you won’t go through this alone.”
Having a man I barely knew climb into my bed should have been frightening, but I couldn’t remember the last time someone had expressed so much concern for me. And there wasn’t a single part of me that was afraid of Rafa. So I stopped overthinking things and allowed myself to cuddle against him, savoring the feeling of safety that being close to him gave me. With Rafa holding me, I wasn’t worried about my nightmares coming back, and I drifted back to sleep with a smile on my face.
When I woke up again, the sun was peeking between the cracks of the thick curtains covering the windows, and there was no sign of Rafa. I might’ve thought that I dreamed it all, except for the note written in a masculine scrawl that I found on the bathroom counter.
I didn’t know him well, but the brevity of his message didn’t surprise me. Rafa didn’t seem like the chatty type. He gave off more of a tall, silent, and lethal vibe. Chuckling, I glanced at the note again, then my eyes practically bugged out when I noticed that my engagement ring was no longer on my finger.
“Crap.”
My first instinct was to frantically search for it because losing the darn thing would get me into a ton of trouble. Then I remembered that Chet and our parents were already going to be angry with me, so did it really matter if I had the ring or not? What was one more reason for them to be upset? I decided that it didn’t make much of a difference—at least not to me—and immediately felt lighter.