Isabella POV I do not know what made me walk toward him.
Maybe it was the drink that I took or the fact that I was betrayed by someone that I love and my body stopped receiving the warnings that my brain was sending.
Either way, my feet moved, and I let them.
The room felt different the closer I got.
Quieter somehow, despite the music still pulsing through the floor.
Like the noise had agreed to give this particular corner some distance.
The people around us were watching but pretending not to but that did not affect my movement.
I fixed my eyes on him and he did not look away.
He sat there comfortably, watching me walk down to his private table.
Dark eyes.
Unhurried.
The kind that have seen too many things to be startled by one more.
I stopped in front of his table.
My heart was going too fast.
My legs were not entirely cooperative.
But still I walked boldly to him.
“You’re staring,” I said.
The words came out rougher than I planned.
Nobody at the table moved.
He looked away from me for a moment and fixed back his eyes on me like he wanted to understand my guts.
“Have we met before?” he asked coldly.
There was something in the way he said it, like a man who wanted to be seen as dangerous yet warm at the same time.
His eyes darken, not amusing exactly.
Something careful sitting just behind it.
I took one step closer.
Then I leaned down and whispered near his ear, “Nope.
But you are very handsome.” I heard the table go still in a different way than before.
He pulled back just enough to look at my face.
The careful expression he had been wearing flickered, something crossed it, fast and unguarded, before his face went completely blank again.
Like a man who had carelessly left his door open and had immediately locked the door on it.
“You are drunk?How much did you drink?” he asked.
I held one of my fingers up to count it but could not remember how many.
“A glass,” I thought about it and added another.
“Maybe two.” I frowned when I could not count because my raised finger kept appearing twice.
Either way, he does need to know about it.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m sure, Mister.” I said it the way you say something when you are not entirely sure but have decided to commit to the answer.
He watched every movement of mine like he was afraid that he would miss a thing if he looked away.
A little concern flashed on his face but he covered it before I could notice.
I tried standing but I could not steady myself, so I sat on his lap.
I felt him held his breath and went completely still with no movement.
Every eye on that side of the club locked their eyes on me.
I felt the sharp attention of his men on me.
His assistant stopped breathing like he was expecting a reaction from him.
Silence filled the room with no movement.
I settled against his chest, wrapped my arms over his shoulder and placed my face on the side of his neck.
He smelled like sandalwood.
Clean and warm and slightly smoky, like expensive wood left in the sun.
I inhaled it without thinking, the way you breathe in something that makes the noise in your head go quiet for a moment.
I lifted my face just enough to reach his ear.
“Mister,” I whispered.
“I want to have fun.” I let my lips his earlobe lightly.
“With you.
Are you free?” The arm of the chair creaked slightly.
His face darken.
He turned his face toward me.
His face was unreadable, but his eyes looked like it was torn between.
Something that sat between confusion and something far more dangerous.
“No,” he said.
Flat.
Final.
The word of a man who did not negotiate.
I pulled back and looked at him properly.
He was serious.
Completely, infuriatingly serious.
“But I want to dance.” I pressed one hand against my chest and made my most persuasive face at him.
“It hurts, right here.” Something moved in his jaw again.
A small, quick tension.
Like a man trying to solve a problem he had not encountered before and finding none of his usual methods applicable.
I did not wait for his reply, I stood up and tilted sideways before his arms held me.
He steadied me without a word.
I looked down at his hand on my arm.
Then up at his face, he let go the moment I had my balance.
Immediately.
Like the contact would harm.
I straightened and used my hands to smoothen my clothes and decided I was fine.
Then I staggered toward the corridor that led to the bathroom.
The hallway was narrow and crowded.
Music from the main floor vibrated through the walls.
Some couple were engaged in a conversation in the dim light, some were hooking up and others were making out.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at my reflection.
My mascara already ruined with tears, hair scattered and lipstick gone.
I thought about Matteo, Vanessa’s smile.
About four years that had apparently meant one thing to me and something entirely different to him.
I turned the tap on, washed my hands and face.
Then dried my hands, looked at my pathetic face one last time and walked back out into the corridor.
I did not see him until I walked into him.
I felt my shoulder hit something solid and stumbled backwards, waited to feel my back on the floor of the club instead I felt two hands holding my back firm.
I looked up to see who saved me, and it was the handsome man earlier.
He looked different, not the man whose presence commands respect.
Rather, I saw a man who was trying to take control of his body but was failing.
His jacket was long gone, the top button of his shirt undone.
That alone was not strange.
But his eyes were dark like a man waiting for his prey, very calculative.
He was standing against the corridor wall, the crowd that I saw earlier long gone.
He looked down at me.
I looked up at him and said, “You.” “You,” he said.
His voice came out slightly deeper and rougher than before.
For a moment neither of us moved.
His hands were still on my back from when he caught me, hot and firm.
He released me slowly.
Then his hand went back to the wall.
I watched him.
Something was not right.
The stillness he had carried all evening that absolute, unhurried control had a crack in it now.
Small, but visible.
His breathing was not quite even.
The line of his shoulders was carrying something they had not been carrying twenty minutes ago.
My heart was beating too fast again.
Not from grief this time.
“Mister,” I said quietly.
“Yes,” he said.
His voice was low.
The word had already left my mind before I could control it.
“I want to sleep with you.” The corridor went completely silent as I brace myself for the answer.
He looked at me like he was trying to make sense out of an inebriated woman’s request.
Something moved through his face, complicated and quick.
His jaw tightened.
His hand on the wall pressed slightly harder.