Lorenzo’s POV
She actually asked to stay at my place.
For a second I just looked at her, this small, stubborn woman with her chin tipped up like she was daring me to say no, and I honestly didn’t know what to do with it.
Not because it was crazy.
Because it wasn’t.
We were married.
Legally, on paper, in front of a judge.
A wife asking to sleep under her husband’s roof was the most reasonable thing in the world.
The problem was the roof.
Every property I owned was a problem.
The penthouse, the estate outside the city, the place downtown; none of them looked like they belonged to some ordinary guy working a normal job at Romano.
One look at any of them and the whole story fell apart.
No man with a modest paycheck and loan sharks on his tail lived like that.
And the new place, the one I’d had Leo buy specifically because I knew she’d be moving in eventually, was still gutted,no furniture.
Not fit to sleep in.
So I said nothing.
Which was the wrong thing to do, because her face fell.
“Okay, forget it,” she said quickly, waving a hand, already backing off.
“That was out of line.
I don’t know what I was thinking, we barely; it’s fine.
I’ll figure something out.”
Christ.
Now I felt like garbage.
“No,” I said, sharper than I meant to.
She blinked.
I dragged a hand through my hair and tried again, softer.
“It’s not that.
The apartment’s being renovated.
For you, actually.
So you’d have your own space.”
Every word of it was true, and it still came out sounding like a bad excuse.
“It’s not livable right now.
No water, no bed.
Nothing.”
“You didn’t have to do that.
Renovate, I mean.”
“Not a big deal.
But if you don’t mind,” I heard myself say, “we could take a hotel.
Tonight.
Together.”
She thought about it for half a second, then shrugged like it was nothing.
“Yeah.
Okay.
That works.”
It should have been simple.
The trouble started when I tried to pick somewhere cheap.
I drove us to the least flashy place I could think of, and when we pulled up under the awning, she leaned forward against the dash and let out this low whistle.
“The Marriott?” She turned to look at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Mr.
Marino, this is a five-star hotel.
You’ve got loan sharks on your tail and you’re booking us into *this*?
What happened to keeping a low profile?”
“It’s fine,” I said, handing my card to the valet before she could argue.
“This is the cheap one.”
“The *cheap* one.” She stared.
“In what universe is the Marriott the cheap—”
“Corporate rate,” I said, which meant nothing, and steered her toward the doors with a hand at the small of her back before she could dig any deeper.
“My company gets a discount here.”
I felt her go quiet under my palm.
I dropped my hand the second we hit the lobby.
Upstairs, she called the shower first, and I told myself I was grateful for the space.
I loosened my collar, poured two fingers of whatever was in the minibar, and stood at the window pretending to watch the city while water ran on the other side of the wall.
And my mind, uninvited, went right back to the alley.
To the way she’d fit against me in the dark.
To the heat of her spine flush against my chest, the smell of her hair, the soft give of her under my arm when I’d caged her in against the brick.
To my own hand settling on her hip without my permission, and how I hadn’t wanted to move it.
The shower kept running.
Steam, water, the picture of her under it.
My throat went dry and something low in me pulled tight.
I’ve had women.
Beautiful ones, complicated ones, women who knew exactly what they were doing.
None of it had ever undone me.
So there was no reason for my throat to go dry at the sound of a shower.
The door opened.
She came out in one of the hotel robes, belted loose, her hair down and dark and dripping onto her collarbones.
The white cotton clung where the water hadn’t dried, and the neckline gaped just enough that when she reached up to towel her hair, I saw the long line of her throat, the curve of one bare shoulder, the soft swell of her under all that terrycloth as the robe pulled tight across her.
Every coherent thought I had walked straight out of the room.
She wasn’t built like the polished women I was used to.
She was softer, fuller, all warmth and curves that a cheap robe had absolutely no business showing off, and my whole body reacted like I was seventeen and had never seen a woman in my life.
*It’s the timing,* I told myself, jaw tight, blood roaring somewhere it had no business roaring.
*It’s been too long.
That’s all this is.*
Except it had been too long before, plenty of times, and I’d never once looked at a woman and felt the floor tilt.
She caught me staring.
“What?” she said, tugging the robe closed a little self-consciously, which somehow only made it worse, made me imagine my own hand doing the tugging in the opposite direction.
*She looks like her,* I told myself, grabbing the lie with both hands.
*That’s it.
That’s all.
You wanted her because she looks like Natasha—*
But that was garbage and I knew it, because the woman I’d built this whole marriage around had never once made my pulse do this.
“Nothing,” I said, and my voice came out rough, ruined.
I set the glass down too hard.
“I need a shower.”
“Okay.”
I was across the room before she finished the sentence.
I shut the bathroom door behind me, turned the water to cold, and stood under it with both hands braced against the tile, breathing like I’d run ten miles.
*Get it together,* I told myself.
She’s a means to an end.
She’s the wrong woman.
She is absolutely, completely off-limits.
I cranked the cold water up higher, thinking maybe I just needed to get laid.