I checked my suitcase and phone.
Outside, it was still dark, but I couldn’t sleep.
It was common sense to run from a man who liked to boss people around and throw his weight around.
I’d known his kind my whole life. They were all cut from the same mold, greedy for power, success, and women.
I checked my phone again. Sesi hadn’t called or sent a message, and I felt anxious whenever she went silent.
It was not a good sign when my mom slipped into her dark mood. After all, I had spent my childhood walking on eggshells around her depressive episodes, and I knew how tough it could get.
I was heading to Rome anyway. I just needed to pick up the last piece of jewelry at the auction for my project, and no Theodores in this world would keep me from having it.
As the taxi left the village before dawn, I closed my eyes, relaxing my tense body.
Until now, I hadn’t even realized how much Theodore unnerved me. It was easy to imagine the stubborn, bullheaded man dragging me home, indifferent to what I wanted or needed.
A loud noise startled me, and the taxi driver slammed on the brakes. Before long, I found myself staring at the trunk of a vehicle while the driver rubbed the back of his head.
“I swear I checked the spare tire before we left. It was there.”
We were stranded in the middle of nowhere, and my driver would rather face a bear than call his boss for help during his first week on the job. With no other choice, I rolled up my sleeves and helped him fix the flat with sealant.
At first, it worked—we managed to drive for a few miles. But then the tire deflated again, and we had to stop. We tried calling for help, but the driver wasn’t from the area, and every garage we reached told us we had to wait for at least a few hours.
With no other option, we went back to patching up the tire, but before long, we were both dirty, tired, and desperate.
I called Sasha to send help—maybe she could ask one of the guys from the party last night. She promised to send someone as fast as she could. In the meantime, the sun was beating down on us, and the lack of sleep took its toll.
I drifted off while waiting.
I stood over Sleeping Beauty, whose face had burned in the sun, positioning my body to provide extra shade.
“Get up, Tara. It’s time to move.”
Her nostrils flared, and she wore the same expression as the day I had launched her favorite doll out the window with a plastic bag parachute.
That day, she’d cut her leg trying to rescue Betsy from the rose bush, and I was banned from riding my bike for an entire month.
Tara sat up and stared at the only car around—and it wasn’t the one that had driven her here. “Where’s the taxi?” she asked.
“On his way home,” I said, opening the back of my car while my temples were pulsing. “You saved me time, starting our trip earlier than planned.”
For the last half hour, I had been changing tires with that unfortunate taxi driver while she slept. Glancing at her grimy shirt and shorts, I could tell she’d also had a fun day.
“You need to change. I don’t want that grease on my seats,” I said as I began peeling off my soiled clothes.
Typically, I would have warned her about undressing—as a gentleman should—but she didn’t act like a lady, so I didn’t feel like being a gentleman.
Tara looked at herself as if she had just realized how dirty she was, and I narrowed my eyes. If she had been sleeping, how did she get dirt all over her clothes?
“How did you get so greasy?” I stepped closer, surprised by the sharpness in my voice.
The intrusive act made her angry, and I liked it. In a twisted way, whenever Tara got mad, my adrenaline kicked in.
She faked indifference, leaning her hip against my car when I could tell she was boiling inside. “I had a passionate tryst with the driver.”
“I bet you did,” I murmured.
The corners of her mouth fell with disappointment—she’d obviously expected a very different reaction. Then came defiance. She opened the button on her shorts, pulled the zipper down, and let them fall to the ground. She was giving me a taste of my own medicine.
“Can I have my suitcase?” she asked as she held the edge of her T-shirt.
I kicked the suitcase toward her. “I swear to god, if you don’t have a bra this time, I will spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit all the way home.”
She bit her lower lip before the shirt covered her rosy cheeks and face.
She was wearing a bra—a white, silky bra that was transparent everywhere except for two strategically positioned cherries. The same cherries were on her panties.
I swallowed hard while silence stretched around us. I was always digging myself into a hole around her.
As if someone had pulled me from a dream, I grabbed her suitcase, tossed it in the trunk, and walked to the car. I counted to ten to stop myself from leaving her then and there.
In a hurry, tripping over her feet with a dress still halfway on, she stumbled into the car just before I pushed the gas pedal.
My mouth twitched. This must have been the fastest change in women’s history.
I looked through the window while he was driving over the bumpy road.
There was no need to look at him. I knew his face like I knew my own, and I wasn’t proud of having been obsessed with Theodore Morelli while we were growing up.
I’d watched his body change from a lanky kid to the suave man of any woman’s dreams. And it was not just women that loved him—my grandfather had loved Theo more than his own son. He had never hidden his wish for the two of us to end up together.
Uniting our two families through marriage would have been a dream come true for my grandfather, but it felt like a nightmare to me. For a girl who had grown up with two parents married for money and who hated each other, it felt like a one-way ticket to hell.
I had promised myself that I would rather die than marry if the man didn’t love me more than himself. And Theodore Morelli could never be that man.
I rubbed my chest with a shaky hand as Theo stopped at the gas station.
“Leave me at the bus station. I will find a way from there,” I said.
He ignored my words. When he entered the gas station to pay, I left the car, grabbed my suitcase, and dragged it down the street.
I counted to twenty before Theo’s car slowed down next to me.
“Are you going somewhere?” he asked, keeping his hand out the window.
I lifted my chin, ignoring him.
“Get in the car.”
“No.”
“Tara.” He raised his voice, and I glanced at him.
“You know it’s illegal to car crawl behind people.”
“Really?” He arched his brow. “Is it the same or worse than traveling without documents?”
I stopped in my tracks, giving him a startled glance while checking for my wallet.
He stopped the car beside me and got out, dramatically fanning himself with my wallet between his thumb and index finger.
I could have killed him.
“Give that back.”
“Come and get it.”
Though we weren’t kids anymore, I suddenly felt like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum and launched myself at him.
He caught me in midair and dropped me like a sack of potatoes onto the backseat of his car.
I refused to let him go. My fingers clung to his shirt, pulling him down on the back seat as our legs dangled through the open door.
Amid all the commotion, the car rolled forward down the street. Theo hadn’t put on the handbrake.
“Stay still,” I whispered, my face just an inch from his, as I stretched to pull the handbrake.
Theodore groaned, pressing his forehead against my shoulder.
Maybe we were acting like kids, but something very adult poked my lower belly, causing me to stiffen and gaze directly into his eyes.
I felt his hand over mine on the brake as we pulled it back. The weight of his body made mine tingle, and I blinked in surprise.
Theodore’s expression was unnaturally calm. The way his body molded against mine felt sinfully good.
He propped himself up on his elbows, and his sharp, clean scent mixed with testosterone hit me hard. I’d spent a month surrounded by men who smelled sweeter than I did.
Terrifying Theo smelled like danger.
“Let me go on my way,” I whispered. “I have to be at an auction in Rome tonight.”
The stony expression on his face told me what he thought about my plans.
“You can’t force me to go with you. Nono is dead. Stop sucking up to him.”
As if I had slapped him, his head moved to the side, and he pushed himself off me, getting out of the car.
With one hand, he raised my legs and pushed them inside, slamming the door and locking me in.
I watched as he dropped my suitcase into the trunk. Then he got behind the wheel, and the car backed up before we were on the road again.
“This is kidnapping,” I protested while climbing into the front seat, disheveled, shocked, and closer to tears than anger.
“Shut up, Tara. You’ll have time in Rome to do whatever you need. I don’t want to hear another filthy word from you. Is that clear?”
I looked at him with wide-open eyes.
“Then we will go to the will reading, and god help us there,” he murmured.
I wanted to tell him that I’d given the proxy to my father to represent me. But the grimness on his face taught me better, and I kept my mouth shut. I was happy as long as I could buy the bracelet I needed.
I adjusted my position on the soft, buttery leather seat and instinctively touched the spot on my pelvis where I had felt pressure ten minutes earlier. My whole body was pulsing with a strange energy.
He noticed it, and a smirk appeared around his beautiful mouth. I swallowed before taking a breath and looking at him.
“Tell me, Theodore, do you have a big buckle on your belt, or are you just happy to bully me?”
