Dangerous Notes (Dark Pen)

When the elder man pushes to his feet and turns to walk to the closed door behind him, I feel relief.

“Tell my son I’m going to lie down. Wake me before it’s time to land,” he barks his order, not bothering to wait for me to respond.

Minutes later, Atlas returns, this time with a large platter of food that he sets down on the coffee table in front of the loveseat I’m seated on.

“You scare my father off?” he teases, or at least I assume he’s teasing since he’s wearing that smile that scrambles my thoughts.

“He said to tell you he was going to lie down, but to wake him before we land.”

After sitting next to me again, Atlas picks up a cracker from the tray of food, loading it with cheese and prosciutto before lifting it to my mouth.

“Open.”

I obey and am enjoying the explosion of flavor in my mouth before I realize I shouldn’t be acting this pliable, especially now that his father has left us alone.

“We don’t have time to sit around here eating and drinking like we’ve got nothing more important to be doing.”

Atlas waves his arm around the interior. “Oh, and what exactly is it you think we should be doing instead? I’d planned on carrying you back to the bedroom to ravage you after we ate, but my father’s ruined those plans. I could keep us very busy back there,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

“You have a one-track mind. This is serious,” I warn just before he shoves a black olive into my mouth.

He finishes swallowing his own bite before answering. “I blame you. Seeing you in this elegant ball gown, your hair and make-up perfect… It makes my dick hard.”

I hate that his words cause that giddy feeling to return—the same one I’d got when looking up at the new painting he’d hung on my apartment wall. I do my best to squelch it with reality.

“Someone is trying to kill you, Atlas. Don’t you think we should be trying to figure out who that is and stop them instead of having sex?”

“I don’t need to figure out who it is. Dex will do that for me. He has the connections.” He takes another bite.

“And your father doesn’t?”

“Not in New York, which is just another reason he’s pissed at me.”

“I don’t understand,” I say truthfully. To me Sebastian Rossi has all of the connections I wish I had—even more than his son.

Atlas sips from his wine glass before answering me. “Father spent most of his time working in Europe and even Asia. It’s only been since I went to school at Harvard and started making more connections stateside we’ve expanded to the US market extensively.”

Since Atlas is older than me, that part of his family history predates me knowing him. Curiosity gets the best of me.

“I’ve always wondered…” I pause, unsure if I want to open this particular can of worms. “Why do you and your dad have different last names?”

His eyes widen. “You haven’t Googled us?”

As soon as he asks, I feel foolish. I research the hell out of every minute detail when working a job. It is a bit ridiculous that I haven’t applied the same diligence to researching Atlas and his father, but I haven’t.

Thankfully, he continues answering my question without further pressure from me.

“Publicly, Sebastian Rossi is Italian royalty. He was heir to my grandfather’s fortune and has continued to lead the entire extended Rossi family through decades of business expansion.”

Atlas pauses long enough that I think he’s said all he plans to say on the subject. I know there is a lot he isn’t saying by the way his face turns hard.

His voice has a new angry edge as he continues. “He has a wife, three lovely children, and many grandchildren who will inherit the Rossi fortune.”

His words confuse me until the truth hits me, and I regret asking my question.

“My mother and I are his dirty little secret,” he continues. “Which is bad enough. What bothers me the most is my mother’s Giannopoulos family is as powerful in Greece as the Rossi’s are in Italy. But once she turned up pregnant with me as an unwed twenty-one-year-old, her family pretty much disowned her, shipping her off to London to keep the family shame as far away from tainting them as possible.

“It’s my mother who got the worst deal in this little family drama. She’s had to build her life far away from her family and friends. My father’s money has kept her well cared for, but she’s lived a lonely life, sitting in London, living for the short visits the asshole makes to see her—just often enough to keep her from moving on with her life.”

The way Atlas’s voice cracks at the end of his sentence tells me how much he loves his mother—and why there is always a friction between him and his father.