Prologue Part II
When he broke the kiss she was almost distracted from the goings-on in the adjoining room.
“I told you before, I am a very wealthy man. Do you know why I bought you last night, darling?”
She shook her head, “rich men do crazy things all the time.”
“My last lover gave me an STD.” her eyes flicked to his in horror and he held up his hand, “I am clean now, as attested to by the medical report you insisted, I provide ahead of our meeting, but getting chlamydia a year ago made me want to try something completely different. A virgin was going to ensure I was safe from the machinations of a twisted, cheating, lover’s mind. I wasn’t expecting you to be as,” he paused, the back of his knuckles dragging over her bottom lip, “responsive and excitable as you turned out to be. I want you to stay. If you can be a good girl and sit here and wait until my men finish their discussion,” he drawled the word out, “then we can pick up where we left off. Since I’m your first I was hoping we can continue to see each other.”
She finally met his gaze, “you paid me a million dollars for one night, Bruno. I didn’t think it would lead to more than the one night. I have college classes, and my family is likely waiting for me.” She looked at his watch, “my family always does brunch on Sundays. I can’t miss it.”
“I would like to meet your family. I’m not letting you go, darling girl. Last night was bar none, the most exquisite night of my life and knowing you are untouched by any other man is bringing out the most primal part of me to keep you as mine and mine alone.”
She was truly terrified now, “I don’t understand.”
“I want you to be my mistress. Long term. We will fuck every night and likely every morning too,” his dark eyes were heated as they looked her over, “and in return, I will take care of your every need. There is nothing you or your family should want for. If you wish to continue your education, I have no issue with this. Where do you go to school?”
“NYU.”
“What are you taking?”
“Graphic design.” All the back story she’d concocted when she’d started this game came to her easily. She’d practiced it enough.
“Then you will continue. I’ll have your courses paid for. It won’t cost your family anything.” He frowned, “why did you sell your virginity online? What prompted you to do so?”
Alcee found herself wondering how he could hold a conversation as he was while there was a dead man in the next room but then it dawned on her, he was distracting her while the men cleaned up the situation.
“I needed the money.”
“For?”
Twisting her fingers nervously she shrugged, “school is expensive, and my parents have three kids including me. My program is sixty thousand dollars over four years. I have student loan debt and then when I graduate, I want to start my own business, and the start-up is expensive. One of my girlfriends suggested doing this black-market thing as an auction. One of her cousins did it to pay off her student loans instead of stripping. I was only looking for the sixty thousand for my program, but you bid a million and here we are.”
“You come from a large family.”
“Yes.”
Her family consisted of five children, with four older brothers, another lie told. All four of them were in arranged engagements and marriages. Her eldest brother Mercurio was married seven years ago when he was twenty-five to the daughter of his father’s Consigliere Panfilo. Panfilo was her father’s second cousin which meant her brother married within the family. She herself couldn’t fathom having sex with someone they shared DNA history with but to keep it in the family, her brother toed the line. If he wanted to be Don someday, he did what was demanded of him by their father.
“I will provide for your family.” He said as he rose to stand in front of her, extending his hand out.
A man stuck his head out the door, “Bruno, sir, we have relocated our guests, if you and your companion would like to head to the other suite across the hall for breakfast.”
“Thank you,” he nodded to the man. “Come. We will have breakfast together and discuss our future.” He lifted up her trench coat off the patio table and wrapped it over her shoulders.
Draping his arm around her he edged her through the room where the body had been, and she made certain to keep her eyes averted. Twenty-one years of living as the princess to the Mariani family, she knew when she was supposed to keep her eyes and mouth shut.
Just as he escorted her into a room across the hall, another man wearing an obvious holster came into the hall and she flinched.
“He is my head of security. As I said, I am quite wealthy and have many enemies.”
“Sir, a word?” the man motioned for Bruno to return to the suite they’d just vacated.
She didn’t waste any time. The moment the two men disappeared into the room and closed the door; she was pulling the door to the suite she was in open and racing to the far end of the hall through the emergency stairwell.
After racing down multiple flights of stairs she stopped to take a breath, wheezing like an asthmatic missing their inhaler. “Holy shit, Alcee, you need to exercise more,” she hissed at herself.
Eventually she reached the bottom floor and then made her way to the parking garage. It didn’t take long to find her way into the early morning traffic and to flag down a yellow taxi.
Giving directions to her parent’s estate, she was dropped off outside the gates and made the slow walk up the driveway.
Her mother was right behind the butler who opened the front door, her hand going to her mouth in horror, as she took in her daughter’s walk of shame, “Alcee, what have you done?”
Taking a deep breath, she met her mother’s gaze directly, “if anyone was going to sell off my virginity it was going to be me. You can tell Papa unless Don Lozano is interested in a bride who is no longer pure, I’m of no use to either family.”
A fleeting thought of the passion of the night before taunted her as she considered perhaps, she should have stayed with the murdering rich man named Bruno as all hell broke loose.