Page 26 of Forbidden Eyes
What I should do is grab her, haul her ass back to the penthouse and make her stay put until the jet is ready to take us home. That’s what a sensible man would do. He’d block her out. Block his damn dick from thinking about things it shouldn’t be going anywhere near. For whatever reason, I don’t want sensible. I want to watch some more, tease myself. Enjoy her.
“Are we walking all night?” I call out.
“Screw you!”
That’d be nice.
I look up into the cooling night sky, chastising myself, and then refocus on her again and frown. She seems so engrossed in getting somewhere, anywhere. Her arms are wrapped around herself, mind probably a mess of anger and irritation about whatever is pissing her off.
“Stop moving your damn ass for five minutes. I’m not following it around all night. You don’t even know where you’re going, do you?”
She slows down enough that I eventually come into line beside her, and then round in front of her to stop her completely. I look down, noticing the tension around her features as she looks at the ground. She’s too pretty for that. Too young as well. Vico’s daughter should have everything she needs in life. What the fuck has she got to be unhappy about? My fingers dare to lift her chin up then snatch away because of the way she yields so easily to my touch.
“What’s the real issue, Sofia?” Her eyes look up at me, ones I could lose myself in for hours—big, bold, hazel rims around near black chocolate depths.
“I just want to know who my family is, Carter. I want to know what has got them where they are today.” Silence descends, and her eyes flick out towards the bustling streets of Miami. She backs a step away from me, a sigh coming with the next breath. “I’m like a bird in a cage, my wings well and truly clipped. Don’t you understand that? Haven’t you ever felt like there’s something missing?”
Why would I? I’ve seen everything this world has to offer. Lived it. Delivered it. Because of her family and their needs.
I frown and tuck my hands in my pockets, unsure what I can do to help her, if anything. Not that I should give a damn about what she wants, but I guess she deserves to see at least some of what I’ve done for them over the years, what they did before me to get where they are now. I can’t help her with Vico, but Cane is something I can do.
I pull out my phone and call for a car to be brought to us, shaking my head at my own stupid thoughts. I’m either a fool or too damn interested in her for my own good.
“You cold?” I ask. She shrugs her shoulders and sniffs, refusing to look at me, and I find myself taking my jacket off for her. The fuck am I doing? She folds her arms into it as I put it on her shoulders carefully, and nods in thanks.
“Alright, Sofia, if you …”
“Fia. Please,” she cuts in, finally turning to look back at me. “Please. I’d like us to be friends, not enemies. I don’t like arguing.”
My lips quirk, amused. I’d like us to be anything but either—somewhere in the middle, preferably involving fucking.
Out. Of. The. Goddamned. Gutter.
“Alright, Fia. I’ll show you as you’re so determined to find out, but this isn’t your show. Understand? Perhaps if I can fill you in enough to satisfy you, you can take that frown off your face and stop walking the fucking pavement. Deal?”
The beam that comes back at me could knock me off my damn feet if I think about it too much—bright eyes and a smile worthy of paintings the world over. I stare at her, my mouth at a loss for coherent words, and find myself smiling, too. Something shifts in the atmosphere around us, blurring everything out of view but her. “You should smile more,” she says quietly.
As should she.
I blow out a breath and look away from her before she distorts reality too far for comprehension. That isn’t going to be helpful for anyone but my dick. Luckily, the car pulls up beside us, giving me a reason to look away from her. We get in, and I send the driver back on foot so I can do whatever it is that I’m doing. I don’t even know where to go first, what to tell her, but as I pull the car away, and watch her peel my jacket off to expose her soft skin, I realise that whatever I’m doing has nothing to do with talking. Talking is the last thing I want to do. Fucking is what I want. Lots of it. Her mouth on mine. Her naked skin on mine.
I lick my lips and look out onto the road, heading for the docks and trying to dislodge my thoughts. She can see that first, get a feel for what happened to Gabby and Nate out there.
“You know Nate’s a tech genius, right?” I say, turning the corners.
“Yes. Mom keeps saying I should spend some time with him to learn, but Dad’s always been so against it all. That’s another thing I don’t understand. How is being a geek something he should be wary of?”
My smile grows again, wondering how little she knows.
“He’s no geek, Fia. Without his knowledge, none of the Cane Empire would be here now. It would all be in the hands of Yakuza. You know that word?”
“Not really. They’re triads, aren’t they? Chinese?”
“Japanese. But, yes. Nate stole a lot of money from them to protect Gabby. He took on Quinn to make sure that happened, defied him, and then when that fight had been won because of his smarts, Quinn asked Vico for help to end it all. Your father finished the war they started, and all of that started here.”
The car rumbles beneath me as I turn into the main docks, and my finger points over to the far quarter. “There’s not much left anymore. Most of it’s been demolished or used for new warehousing, but that new high-rise was where that war started. Andreas was Gabby’s brother. He switched sides and put her in the firing line. Nate wasn’t best pleased.”
“I don’t understand. My father was here?”