Sienna POV
I watched the street slide past the window for a while before I spoke.
“Are you always this casual with women, Mr. Moretti?”
He tipped his head and glanced at me, a smile pulling at his mouth.
“Who told you that? Luca?”
I pressed my lips together and said nothing.
Adrian didn’t push.
He only laughed once, as if my silence had answered for him.
“There have been a few. I won’t pretend otherwise.” He was frank about it, not bothering to hedge.
“My reputation is what it is. Plenty of women want to get close to me, and I’ve no interest in explaining myself to every one of them.”
The light ahead turned red.
He braked, and the car settled smoothly at the intersection.
Adrian turned his face toward me, and the amusement drained out of his eyes.
“But serious? Not one.”
He said it flatly.
“I know why they come near me.” He looked forward again, tapping his fingers lightly on the wheel.
“And I know what they want. As long as both sides are willing to pay the price, it’s simple.”
In his world, women and money and power went into separate drawers.
Some wanted his name, some wanted his money, some simply wanted something out of the Moretti family.
As long as both people knew what they were after, he never wasted time pretending to feel something he didn’t.
He paused, and a careless edge of mockery crept into his voice.
“As for feelings, that thing is too much trouble. I’m not interested in spending my time on someone who can’t even say what she wants.”
I didn’t answer right away.
I’d known a lot of men.
They hid appetite underneath respectability, wrapped their real purposes in pretty language, and then waited for the woman to walk into the trap on her own.
Adrian clearly couldn’t be bothered with any of that.
He knew he was dangerous, and he never minded other people knowing it too.
“Then again,” he said suddenly, turning his head so his eyes landed on me, “a woman like you is a little different.”
I looked up at him.
“Smart. Beautiful. And you’ve got nerve.” His gaze rested on my face, the interest in it entirely unguarded.
“I don’t think wasting a little time on you would be boring.”
I met his eyes and kept my voice level.
“Do you say that to every woman?”
”Of course not.” He smiled more openly.
“So you should feel flattered.”
I let the teasing go and looked away.
Any fluster at a moment like that only hands the other person an opening to keep probing.
Adrian and I were nowhere near the point where I could drop my guard, and I couldn’t afford to build myself another problem.
The car went quiet for a stretch. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Then Adrian said, “You look terrible today.”
I touched my own face before I caught myself, and only then remembered that I’d left in such a hurry that morning I hadn’t even put on foundation.
“Maybe it’s just the lack of makeup.”
I took a lipstick out of my bag and dug out a small mirror.
The lights outside kept sweeping past.
I used the mirror to tidy the corner of my mouth, then slowly put on the color.
Bright red covered the paleness, and my whole face changed within seconds.
I’d barely put the lipstick away when I felt Adrian’s eyes still on me.
“What are you looking at?”
”Your mouth.”
He said it as if it were obvious.
I frowned.
Adrian laughed and turned back to the road.
“I’ve always preferred women with nothing on their face.”
”Why?”
”Less trouble,” he said.
“And it looks better for kissing.”
I was about to come back at him when something up ahead caught my eye.
A black SUV was drifting in from the other lane.
I knew that car far too well.
I recognized it almost instantly.
It was Luca’s car.
For a second I forgot how to breathe.
Why was he here?
Adrian had already seen it.
His eyes changed, and in the next second he reached past me, yanked the seat belt aside, and leaned his body into mine.
“Adrian?”
Before I could react, his hand was braced beside me, and the space between us collapsed.
His face was close enough that his breath fell against my mouth, warm enough that I froze on instinct.
“Don’t move.”
He kept his voice low.
Before I understood what he meant to do, his head was already lowering, his mouth drawing slowly closer.
I stopped breathing.
At the very last moment he stopped, leaving only the smallest distance between us.
I could feel his breath against the corner of my mouth.
He didn’t kiss me.
His eyes went past my shoulder to the window. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
I followed them.
In the lane beside us, Luca’s car was running level with ours.
The rear window was halfway down.
Through the traffic and the glass, I saw his face clearly.
And he saw us.
That was when I understood why Adrian had done it.
He’d done it on purpose.
From Luca’s angle, Adrian and I were nearly pressed together, his face at my mouth, my body pinned into the seat behind his.
However anyone looked at it, it was a kiss in progress.
I grabbed a fistful of Adrian’s shirt.
“Have you lost your mind?”
”Only just noticed?”
There was laughter in his voice, but he didn’t pull back.
My eyes were still on Luca.
He didn’t react.
Not on the surface, at least.
But I knew him too well.
The quieter Luca got, the more dangerous things usually were.
Across two cars I couldn’t read what was really in his eyes.
All I could see was that composed face going darker, the line of his jaw pulled tight enough to cut.
Then the light turned green.
His car shot forward.
The black body surged ahead and vanished into the traffic.
Only when it was completely gone did I let go of Adrian’s shirt.
“You let him see that on purpose.”
Adrian sat back into his own seat and took the wheel again, his smile not gone by a fraction.
He lifted a hand and touched the corner of my mouth, his thumb resting there while he wiped away the smear of lipstick his nearness had left.
The gesture was unexpectedly gentle.
He took his hand back and started the car, as if the whole calculated scene had never happened.
Not until we’d turned onto the next street did he add, lazily, “That kiss. You owe it to me.”
I turned to look at him.
Adrian’s mouth lifted.
“I have a good memory. I’ll collect it next time.”