“What do I do?”
“We will figure it out. Right now, he’s waiting on us.” I looked at her. “Are you talking to him?”
“Yes,” she confessed. “He thinks we’re in this together. He wouldn’t have let me leave otherwise.”
“Are you?”
She paused from gathering the breakfast plates. “No.”
“Keep him pacified, Amber. I’ll figure out the rest.”
“He will not give up his son, and he’s hell bent on making you pay.”
I looked at my sister with certainty. “He’s not in control.”
A knock on my office door brought me out of my haze. I opened it and greeted the lady who stood with a large case of makeup and an overly exaggerated smile. “Ms. Ellison, nice to meet you. I’m Gloria Runnel.”
“Please come in.”
“I see you aren’t in your dress. We can work around that. Where should I set up?”
An hour later, I was fully impressed with Gloria and her abilities and tipped her twice her rate before I turned down a photo and closed the door behind her. I had ten minutes to dress and slipped the silky midnight fabric over my head and pulled the floor length hem past my hips. The dress itself was spectacular, but Ross was right in that I had no escort. This Cinderella had no prince waiting, but she didn’t need one and never would. No, this Cinderella had run with the rats, fucked a prince or two, and decided that self-worth was superior to being second to a man’s ego.
But that wasn’t how Daniello made me feel. Not at all.
He had plenty of ego, no doubt about that, but I only played second to his need for me. He fed off our lust first and always.
“You’re getting soft, Taylor,” I scolded myself in the mirror as I admired the waves in my hair. My dress fit my every curve then flowed from mid-thigh down.
The girl inside me covered in Dyer, Tennessee dirt jumped up and down with glee, and I smiled back at her.
We did okay.
Rocco glared at me before testing my patience. “She is a whore.”
Barga was supposed to be my sanctuary. At least that was the idea. Aside from my time with Taylor in the States, my home was the only place I truly let my guard down. At that moment, in my villa, where discussions of all business were off the table, I had a two-hundred-pound fly to remind me it was never safe to let my guard down. Rocco was in a rage. So far inside his head, he couldn’t see reason.
“Stop your tongue, or I will cut it out of you. She has been through much in her life and deserves your respect.”
Rocco scoffed at me, his face covered in his usual scowl.
“Why her? Why this temptation? This is not the way you do things. No entanglements!”
I sipped my coffee before I spoke. “Rocco, are you a robot?”
“What?”
“Are you a robot?”
He scowled before he spoke. “What a senseless question.”
“Do you find woman entertaining?”
He shrugged. “I fuck.”
“Imagine a woman so beautiful, so entertaining that her pussy was the only one you wanted.”
Rocco waved his hand and said in Arabic, “Never for me.”