Taken For A Debt: A Mafia Romance (The Taken Duet 1)

The slight ache in my head, not to mention in various other places where I’d strained myself to the limit struggling against the men who had grabbed me, was a warning to me that carelessness would get me in trouble.

But to start with I would need to take some more risks. Work out exactly where the line was, with him.

While Mum and Daddy were pulling things out of cupboards and the fridge to organise their own breakfasts, I directed Devin to the table, not the bench where we usually ate breakfast. I pulled out of his grasp with some regret and pointed him into a chair on the long side of the table, so I could sit next to him. Mum and Daddy took the opposite side of the table, looking a bit unhappy about it, but their usual configuration with Daddy in the nicest chair at the head and Mum to his right wasn’t going to work any more.

“I was telling Mum and Daddy about the big bash we’re going to put on,” I said, edging my chair closer to Devin’s. It shrieked as it scraped across the tile. Daddy could barely stifle his wince and Mum didn’t try.

Devin was entirely unmoved, of course. I had to try harder.

“I want it to be a really memorable event. It needs to be like one of those fairy tale shindigs: everyone who is part of this extended family I’ve been hearing about is invited.”

Devin leaned back in his seat. “That isn’t going to be possible. The Hallorans are never going to come, to begin with, and there are a few other families who are annoyed enough with things I’ve been involved with to snub an invitation. Then there’s the issue of some families that are actively feuding. Just thinking about the Italian contingent, you’re going to have to choose between the Capriottis and the Rosens, to begin with. Both, and you’re liable to have someone pull out a gun eventually. They might restrain themselves enough not to shoot, but I wouldn’t count on it with the Italians, they absolutely love going full mob with things, and the flash of a muzzle tends to ruin the event anyway.”

I tried not to burst out giggling. In the space of a handful of hours, I’d gone from possibly dying a technical virgin at the hands of unexpected captors, to getting into an engagement to a man slightly out of my league that might see me becoming very wealthy in my own right, if that man’s sense of honour worked the way I thought… to needing to work out how to not die possibly still a virgin at my wedding reception from a stray gunshot.

It was certainly going to be a good way to get to know the family, though. “Do I get some say in this? Like, can I see who the options are for our guests and weigh in on who I’d like to have there?”

Devin lowered his eyebrows at me. “Are you going to select the guests based on who will look most hot in the wedding photos?”

“I was thinking maybe the other way around. I could select the least attractive guests to enhance my own appearance.”

“I like the way you think, young woman,” said Devin.

“Ah, that pleases me the most out of anything you’ve ever done.” I wriggled my chair nearer to his again, this time more careful about the noise I was making.

Devin flinched when I reeled my body against his like he hadn’t been expecting that sort of advance, but lucky for him I wasn’t finished: I reached out with the hand furthest from him to turn his face to me with a hand on his cheek, and as that movement hid the front of my body from my hovering parents, I tugged on my dressing gown and pyjama top with my opposite hand, sliding them down. A calculated move I’d tried at parties before, which should currently be giving Devin a really good view of my cleavage. Perhaps not as nicely presented as usual with the lack of a bra, but then that was probably enabling him to see even further down.

Assuming he was looking—and he was definitely looking, though in typical Devin O’Hare form he wasn’t giving me much in the way of a normal response.

“The thing is…” I kept talking through my heart rate going through the roof, my neck and chest feeling like they were heating up. I was definitely giving him a response. “I’m kind of worried because I don’t have friends I can call on to come to a hen’s night. Isn’t that an expected part of these proceedings: a girl posse to get too drunk and feel up some muscled men in cowboy hats and not much else?”

Daddy flinched as he was shuffling over to join us at the table, and splashed milk from his cereal bowl all over the tile floor. He took another step, and slipped, barely catching himself on the table.

Devin turned his eyes away fro

m me for a moment, just long enough to show he’d witnessed the spectacle. Then his gaze passed over the wrist of my hand still holding his face, the movement doing something in my head that felt like a caress. “There will be some restrictions, just because of who you are and who I am. You can’t be allowing yourself to get so carried away you end up in a situation where you can be blackmailed. Many people will not want this wedding to go ahead, for many reasons… or they will see any opportunity to put us in an uncomfortable position quite desirable.”

Restrictions? That single word set me on edge, came too close to that remark he’d made about training I’d thought somehow we were past now, but I kept things playful for the sake of my parents. “I suppose you question my judgement and self-control because I am young and female? Maybe you think pretty girls can’t be trusted to hold their alcohol?” Well, maybe it wasn’t so playful, and a throb in my skull reminded me that Devin did have slightly good reasons for thinking I might be liable to act in a way that would seem illogical with just a little wine in me.

I thought he had seen my doubt too, the moment I realised I didn’t have a leg to stand on, but he responded calmly as if he hadn’t. “It has little to do with your nubile femininity and all to do with your inexperience in this world. Everyone who will cross paths with you will try their hardest to find the weaknesses they can exploit.”

“And I will learn, the same as anyone else,” I retorted.

As Mum sat down at the table too, Devin moved. I barely kept myself from flinching as his hand found its way under the edge of my dressing gown and, without hesitating, started to move up under the edge of my shorts too.

Mum and Daddy didn’t seem to be noticing anything out of the ordinary. Well, this was the game I’d started, wasn’t it: he was just kicking it up about a dozen notches right off the bat.

“Devin, let’s go get ourselves some food.” I managed to extricate myself from any contact with him without revealing anything else that should stay under wraps. I led the way over to the bench where a couple of varieties of bread and bowls of fruit and yoghurt were laid out, far too aware of his sleek suited self always hovering behind me. I made one resolution: I would always be properly attired around him in future.

“What are you doing?” I demanded once we were assembling plates for ourselves side by side and my parents were settling into an uneasy conversation of their own—a cover for something else that was passing between them silently, I was sure.

“No more than you were doing.” There was a strange sweetness in Devin’s smile. “I’m not like one of your usual little boys who is too afraid to even touch you. If you try to play games with me, I won’t allow you to assign me different rules.”

“You know what I think,” I muttered, “you have a problem with expressing intimacy with a woman unless there’s a point to it.”

“Spoken like a young woman who has never used intimacy without a purpose—and that being a purpose that pleases her and nobody else.”

“Who else am I supposed to be looking to please?” I demanded.