Page 47 of Merciless Daddy

I left.

Fuck.

I wanted him, and I wanted him bad.

Chapter 7

Salvatore

At five in the morning, I gave up pretending I intended to sleep.

The penthouse kitchen was dark except for the lamp over the stove and the blue light of my phone. The lake beyond the glass looked like hammered steel. I stood at the counter with cold coffee in my hand and replayed the kiss for what was probably the hundredth time.

Her fist in my tie.

Her mouth hitting mine.

The taste of whisky and anger. The small sound she made when I pulled her against me. The way her body had softened for one second before fear came back and locked every muscle.

I had wanted to follow her when she left the office.

I had wanted to put her against the hallway wall and ask exactly what she needed to feel safe enough not to run from my hand. I had wanted to hear her say it. Better, I had wanted to hear her refuse to say it until I made patience feel more dangerous than surrender.

Instead, I had stayed where she left me.

Four hours later, I was still hard whenever I thought about her pulling my tie.

This was undignified.

It was also the least of my worries.

I was holding the key. Rosalia’s key.

Back then, I had intended to give it to her.

I had intended to learn every quiet part of her. Her meals. Her sleep. The exact tone that made her stop carrying the world for a while. She wanted rules and praise and a hand at the back of her neck. She wanted to call me Daddy in private and have me understand that the word meant more care, not less respect.

Then my father died.

I became responsible for my brothers almost immediately. Our mother needed a son who did not fall apart. The eastern office needed somebody willing to become colder than the men who thought grief had made us weak.

So I became useful.

Rosalia waited two years for me to become human again.

I never did.

I looked at the key. Let the light play over it. I couldn’t make the same mistake again. Couldn’t fall for someone who I’d end up letting down.

Bare feet—or nearly bare feet—moved behind me.

I turned.

Yelena stood in the kitchen doorway wearing the dark grey cashmere jumper and soft black socks. Nothing else was visible. The jumper came down to the middle of her thighs. Her hair was loose, tangled from sleep, dark honey over one shoulder. Her face was bare. No diamonds. No paint. No armor except the pale eyes assessing me from across the room.

My whole body answered her at once.

Not gradually. Not politely.