Page 68 of Loyalty

Heady fruits and the sting of alcohol filled her lungs, and coated her tongue. She wasn’t a big drinker to begin with, but wine was the only thing she could stand to imbibe when she had to.

Red wine, specifically.

“Siena,” Matteo murmured.

Damn.

“Yeah, Dad?”

She looked at him, but he was staring back across the restaurant. At the same exact spot where she had been standing with Johnathan only moments before. He was no longer there, or inside the restaurant at all, it seemed.

Thank God for small miracles.

Her heart was already a mess.

“Do you care to tell me what that was about between you and Johnathan Marcello?” Matteo asked.

“Not particularly.”

“I’m sorry.” Matteo chuckled. “I posed that question like you had a choice—you don’t, Siena. Start talking.”

“It’s nothing, Dad.”

“Is, or was nothing?”

“Both,” she returned, and then took a much larger drink of wine. “There’s nothing to tell. We met up a couple of times randomly on the street around where I get my books, and once on the city bus.”

“And that’s all?” Matteo pressed.

No.

She was not about to tell him that she slept with Johnathan. He was her father, not a fucking friend. The only reason she got away with occasionally having a boyfriend was because Matteo needed to keep Siena happy to a certain extent.

He needed her work with numbers. He needed her bookkeeping skills, and her understanding of how to cook his fucking books. A little bit of freedom in this life could go a long damn way.

Or so she had learned …

“Yeah, that’s all,” she said, shrugging.

“He looked very uncomfortable when you wouldn’t indulge his conversation,” her father added after a moment.

“Perhaps that was because I didn’t want to talk to him, Dad.”

Siena knew that wasn’t the right thing to say, but she hadn’t been able to hold it back. Maybe if she got that out of the way, her father would back down on whatever he was trying to get at.

Unlikely.

“You know how I expect you to act around other men in this life, Siena. You’re to treat them with the respect you give me, or your brothers. Should you run in to Johnathan again, I expect you to be your pleasant, sweet self. The good girl I know you can be, huh?”

Her father cupped her cheek, and patted it gently. A wave of bitter irritation swelled at the action.

She shoved it deep down.

What else could she do?

“I’ll try, Dad,” she said, offering nothing else.

Matteo smiled. “There is no trying. Not in this circumstance.”