Page 64 of Lucian

“Stop moving away from me like I’m going to attack you! I haven’t once touched you to hurt you!”

Beating down the urge to get away from his anger was easier said than done. Somehow, Jordyn did it. “I know, I’m so—”

“Save it,” Lucian cut in, sounding cruel. “If that’s how you feel about this, like you’re my live-in, paid and kept whore, then that can be fixed, sweetheart. Real fucking fast.”

Jordyn tipped her chin up, staring him straight on. “Threats don’t scare me, Lucian.”

“That’s not a threat. If you haven’t figured out how much I need you around me, you are never going to. Or maybe I took a wrong turn somewhere over the last month and a half and got your signals and mine mixed up somehow. What a goddamn shame. We were doing so well, too.”

“You’re the one who felt the need to remind me of how much money you spent on my clothes,” Jordyn replied, heat rising in her cheeks and voice. She brought up his first, but Jordyn didn’t feel like it was the same thing. Maybe it was, she didn’t know. “Do you think I need that reminder?”

Lucian’s jaw clenched. “Is that what this is about right now? Because if it is, I don’t have time for it.”

“No, of course you don’t,” Jordyn muttered, laughing bitterly. “Heaven forbid something important to me that I’ve tried talking to you about over and over again be overlooked because your schedule can’t fit it in.”

“We’re fighting about the clothes?”

“No, Lucian! Where have you been for the last ten minutes? We’re talking about my life.”

“Jordyn—”

Lucian was interrupted by a vibrating coming from his left pocket. Another call. Jordyn wasn’t surprised. The defeat in his eyes as he sighed harshly and shoved a fisted hand into his pocket to silence the call said a great deal.

“I really can’t do this right now,” Lucian said, almost pleadingly.

“Just go. I need five minutes to breathe and think alone.”

“I need you to listen to me first, Jordyn. If I wanted a whore, I’d have one. If all I needed was a good fuck, I’d have it. She wouldn’t be sleeping in my bed, meeting my family, attending my church, or mixing in with my business. Frankly, she probably wouldn’t even know my name. Do you know what she’d be? Some back alley screw, quick and fast. Maybe I would pick her up in a club and forget about her before I even left. Or maybe, if she was lucky, she’d make it to the backseat of my car.

“You asked me to give you something,” Lucian continued, not taking his frustrated gaze off hers for a moment. “You needed to be safe, and I’ve done that. That meant to me I needed to make sure you didn’t have to go back to that life at all. You wouldn’t have to walk into that apartment again and see your blood in the bathtub, or your vomit on the floor. You wouldn’t have to be hurt by those things. So if that meant replacing what I took you from, that’s exactly what it meant. I’m sorry if my wealth offends you, but it doesn’t bother me a bit. And I will spend it on whatever I want, whether you like it or not. If I want to spend it all on you, I will do just that.”

“It isn’t about the money,” Jordyn tried to say.

“Oh, I figured that out. Don’t worry.”

“No, you don’t understand at all, Lucian.”

A hurt expression marred his handsome features, drawing his mouth that kissed and loved her body so well into a frown. It pained Jordyn to know she was the cause, but he still wasn’t listening.

“Take your time, sweetheart. Figure out what you need. Isn’t that what I told you from the start?”

It was. That’s what was the most difficult.

“I can’t be someone different for you, Lucian. I can’t just leave me behind. Playing dress up and having sleepovers doesn’t make a new woman. I need you to hear me right now.”

Again, the phone in his pocket vibrated.

“I have to go,” Lucian said quietly. “When I get back, if you need something different, we can work that out, too.”

Could they really?

Jordyn said nothing as he stepped into the waiting elevator and the doors closed behind him. She didn’t think it over very well when she grabbed enough money from his desk for a taxi and left ten minutes later, either.

• • •

Lucian’s distraction was not going unnoticed.

Once a month, Lucian had to act like nothing more than the capo he was for a few hours and say to hell with the rest of the world, but he wasn’t able to do that today. Tribute was usually his favorite time in any given month. All nineteen of the Marcello family capos gathered to make their payments to his father at a club they always used for this purpose.