“Move,” she said. “Get out of my way.”
“Why?” His eyes narrowed, and he watched her shift from weepy to full defense mode. What was going on with her?
“So I can get away from you,” she spat.
“I’ll move when you explain why.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be you or any man like you! I was supposed to fall in love with a businessman, a lawyer, or even an accountant. Not some broke-down biker who can’t be bothered to know his own family’s history.”
“So that’s it,” said Saks, fury fueling his heart. “I’m not good enough for the Mafia Princess?”
“Don’t you dare call me that!” she snapped. “That’s the last thing I want be!”
“So, it’s okay for you to deny your heritage, but not me?”
“That’s—that’s not what I mean.” Her face colored in her anger. “Oooh, just. Get. Out. Of. My. Way!”
Saks flung open his hands and stepped back. “By all means, Princess. Wouldn’t want to keep you from your very important career with very important people.” Saks’ tone was absolutely scathing, and Chrissy’s face turned even brighter.
“You know what? Call one of your club buddies to keep an eye on you. I have an important career to move up in.” She grabbed her bag and flounced to the front door, her blonde hair flying behind her. She slammed the door so hard the front window rattled in its frame.
Suddenly the apartment was quiet. Too quiet.
Chrissy’s departure sucked the air out of the room. It hit him with the force of wind-tossed wave that she left and most likely would not come back. In a second all strength slipped from Saks as his anger drained, and he gripped the counter then the couch before he sank into it.
Saks wasn’t stupid, despite what Chrissy thought, and he realized he was in trouble. Not just on a personal health level, but on a family cold war level. He grabbed his phone off the counter and called the first person he thought of. “Luke, man. This is Saks. Can you come to my house? I need help.”
CHAPTER TEN
Chrissy pulled herself out of bed, groaning at the 5:00 AM alarm her phone blared.
“Okay, okay,” she grumbled, then she swung her legs over the bed. Her head pounded from the overabundance of tequila she’d drunk last night and her stomach didn’t support the idea of standing on her feet. But she had to get moving and get into work to figure out how the office was set up.
The fabulou
s career she had told Saks she was going after didn’t exist. Who was she fooling? Chrissy stood and swayed then, struck by the sensation of her stomach being scraped by a knife, fell to the bed again. She couldn’t get her wits together to do anything other than curl up on the bed and cry.
Because that’s what she wanted to do. The last bitter words with Saks cut her heart as surely as if someone sunk a knife into it. It was her fault, all of it, because she’d failed to handle things.
One was what her grandfather told her. “The deal is off.” As if he had the final say over everything. If Saks so much as tried to contact her again, her grandfather would send Marcus, or worse, to show Saks the error of his ways.
The second was a harder thing to face.
She loved Anthony Parks.
When did it happen? Somewhere between the fabulous sex, the teasing spanking, and how he looked when she tried to take care of him, with absolute affection and trust?
And she’d gone and spoiled it.
She’d let all her fears about being the daughter of a Mafia Don spew out and poison the very thing she wanted.
Him.
She groaned.
A sharp knock on the door demanded her attention.
“What?” she snapped.