Page 150 of The Art of Ruin

Adriano exhales softly through his nose before pressing one last lingering kiss to my mouth. “You should know,” he murmurs against my lips, “I fully intend to spend the rest of the day pretending to behave while thinking about you naked in my bed this morning.” His hand palms my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone as he looks at me with those dark, hooded eyes. “Your cheeks all flush from coming on my tongue.”

Heat rushes straight to my face at the memory. “You’re incorrigible.”

“And yet,” he says quietly, fingers tightening once at my waist before he lets me go, “you can’t get enough either.”

23.Adriano

By Thursday evening,I’ve reached the unfortunate conclusion that being in love appears to have made me significantly less efficient. Not publicly of course. No one at ISM would dare accuse me of losing focus.

But privately?

I’ve spent the last twenty minutes staring at the same financial report while thinking about the way Casey looked this morning, standing barefoot in my kitchen wearing one of my shirts and absolutely nothing else beneath it.

Falling for her hadn’t been on my agenda, even when I took her home from the gala with the intention of getting her out of my system. But the second I touched her, tasted her, felt her shatter around me, it was like a switch flipped. I knew she was mine in that moment, as if I’d been struck over the head with the realization. I just need to let her catch up. She’s been through hell, and her trust is shattered. I’m willing to give her all the time she needs to figure out that we’re endgame.

“You’re smiling at spreadsheets again.”

I look up sharply to find Matteo sprawled across the chair opposite my desk with the kind of ease only family gets awaywith in my office. How had I not even heard him come into the room? “I’m not.”

“You absolutely are.” He squints at me suspiciously. “It’s deeply unsettling.”

“I’m working.”

“You’ve been on the same page for twenty minutes.”

I close the file without comment and sigh.

Matteo leans back further in the chair, entirely too pleased with himself now. “You’re gone. Like genuinely gone. Nico owes me four hundred dollars.”

“I don’t want to know why the two of you were betting on my personal life.”

“Because we’re invested emotionally.”

“You’re parasites.”

“We’re family,” he corrects easily. “Different word. Same concept.”

I should throw him out. Instead, annoyingly, I find myself glancing toward the clock mounted on the wall behind him.

Matteo notices instantly. “Oh my God,” he says, horrified. “You have plans.”

I say nothing.

His eyes widen slowly. “You organized a date.”

“Leave my office.”

“Adriano Mancini planned a romantic evening.” He presses a hand dramatically to his chest. “Elena’s going to cry when I tell her.”

I don’t know why Matteo has taken to Elena like he has, but I can only assume he craves that maternal figure in his life. He was young when our mother died, barely in college and it changed him. Outwardly, he became louder, funnier, but in those quiet moments, I notice the grief he tries to hide. But he won’t talk about it, so I don’t push and instead let him wear the mask that he made.

“I’ll have Rossi throw you in the river.”

He laughs. “Worth it.”

Before I can decide whether homicide is an acceptable solution to sibling irritation, my phone vibrates against the desk.

The amusement disappears from Matteo’s face the second he sees the shift in mine.