“Thanks for saving our spot,” Sylvie said, sliding back into her seat. I looked from her to the full margarita glass in her hand. It was at least the second drink and that barely twenty minutes within our arrival.

“You should slow down a bit. We’re not in New York where we know the place.” I wasn’t usually the voice of reason—or a buzz kill—but we were in a different country.

She waved her hand and shot me a dazzling smile. “Relax, Brooke. You weren’t this boring when you were still guzzling down tequila shots with me.”

I smirked. Granted, she had a point, but still. Nothing wrong with being careful. Better safe than sorry, right?

“Look at that hot Italian guy.” Sylvie pointed past a group of dancing girls to a guy with a tattoo on his neck and a black leather jacket draped across the stool beside him. He looked like he belonged to a gang. I couldn’t really judge whether he was hot, or not. Obviously I didn’t have Sylvie’s hawk eyes when it came to spying an attractive specimen of the other gender in a dimly lit club. From the distance I could barely make out more than his height and cropped hair, ripped jeans, and what looked like lots of ink covering his bare arms. For all I knew, he could be between twenty and fifty years of age, with a hideous face.

“He looks like a drug dealer,” I remarked dryly.

Sylvie laughed that tinkling laughter of hers that told me she had probably heard the opposite of what I just said, and she grabbed her glass. “Time to get acquainted.”

Oh, god. Not him.

I grabbed her arm and yanked, forcing her to face me. “Please don’t hook up with the local mafia. I don’t want them knocking on our door, or burning down the house the moment they realize you go through men like others change their underwear. He looks like trouble and trust me, I have a keen eye when it comes to spotting trouble.” I raised my brow, not stating the obvious.

Something flickered in her blue gaze. First I thought it was a spark of realization that I was right—and then her mouth pressed into a tight line and I knew it was determination. She was about to try to prove me wrong.

“Oh, come on, Sylvie. That’s so stupid.” I rolled my eyes. Sylvie yanked her arm away.

“Just because he looks like a bad boy doesn’t mean he is one. Besides, I’m not interested in dating him. Just in having a drink and then chatting for a few minutes. You know, meet new people, and maybe improve my Italian.”

Sylvie didn’t speak one word of Italian. During our flight she had been using her meager Spanish and French vocabulary, think ‘muchas gracias’ and ‘merci’ when talking to the flight attendant.

“Chatting? Really? Do I need to remind you that’s what you always say?” I crossed my arms over my chest and regarded her coolly.

“Chill, Brooke. I know what I’m doing. Besides, we’re here to have fun. You might as well start having it.” She shot me her most reassuring smile, which wasn’t reassuring at all. If there was one thing I could say about Sylvie, it was that her taste in men sucked almost as much as mine. Given that mine had just hit rock bottom, I could only hope she wasn’t going to try to top me.

She leaned in to place a soft peck on my cheek, and then she was gone before I could mentally devise a strategy to keep her away from a natural human disaster. My eyes following her through the crowd, I leaned forward in my seat and craned my neck so I could watch Sylvie’s every move—just in case she was aiming for more than a drink. As if sensing the blonde behind him the tattooed guy turned, and then they were engrossed in conversation. Just in the blink of an eye. My heart fell in my chest as I observed their body language. Both leaning into each other, Sylvie smiled at something he said, and then he smiled. The next thing I knew they were on the dance floor, his arms wrapped around her. Her body grinded against him as the DJ switched the tune to something fast but sexy. The kind of music that invited you to let the guy you’ve barely known for five minutes play acrobatics with your tongue.

My gaze glued to Sylvie and her conquest, I took another sip of my water when something tickled my neck and someone’s hot breath caressed my ear.

“Brooke, what the fuck do you think you’re wearing?”

I jumped in my seat at hearing the familiar voice in my ear, and my heart skipped a beat. Turning, I looked up to see him leaning over me, barely an inch away. The way he made my heart hammer, I knew I was far from over him.

Chapter 4

Holy mother of sins!

What the hell was he doing here?

The question played over and over in my head as I swallowed hard to get rid of the sudden lump in my throat. It wasn’t just my throat that felt constricted, but everything else—from my stomach to down below, as though every inch of my body remembered the good times he and I once had.

That was before I found out he was planning to steal my future estate.

“J—” My mouth opened and closed again, unable to utter his name, while my eyes remained glued to him like a moth to light. I wanted to run; I wanted to scream, and yet I did none of those things. My whole being was too hurt to react, too stunned by his presence.

It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be here because he couldn’t possibly know where I was. No one did. I took a deep breath to calm the alarm bells ringing somewhere at the back of my mind. I was in deep crap. No, make that the deepest and crappiest of crap, because Jett was at least twice as sinfully gorgeous as I remembered him and thrice as dangerous—to my heart. The soft spot I thought I had for him in my heart and in my lower abdomen, magnified in the blink of an eye.

Dark hair that brushed his collar, eyes as deep and green as sin, a white shirt that only managed to emphasize his broad shoulders and sculpted chest—the guy was a walking hazard to the female population. He certainly was to me. Even though he had crushed my heart and I knew about the kind of jerky trick he had tried to pull on me, I still couldn’t help the tiny butterflies fluttering in the pit of my stomach. Maybe it wasn’t my stomach, but something else. Something remembering his exploring fingers and the way he had filled me, making me come over and over again.

I rolled my eyes at my sudden onset of stupidity. Okay, we had amazing sexual chemistry and he definitely knew what he was doing, but whatever he had to say I wasn’t going to listen to him. Or bed him. Even though I sort of wanted the latter. A lot.

“You know what I’m going to do to every guy who so much as looks at you?” Jett’s lips brushed the lobe of my ear as his mouth moved to the corner of my mouth, his deep tone with just a hint of a Southern accent caressing my every nerve ending, making me want to—

Hell, no!

I jumped to my feet to put some much-needed distance between us and almost toppled over the bistro table. My eyes bore into him and the music died around us. The whole room began to spin and the people turned into a blur of distorted faces and colors. Closing my eyes, I gripped the edge of the table for support and forced myself to take deep breaths until my heartbeat slowed down to a bearable level. When I opened my eyes again he was still there. Still towering over me. Still gorgeous. The room began to spin again and my resentment started to slip away, which angered me. I needed to be angry because he was the bad guy.

“Sit down.” He closed the distance between us, the deep frown between his eyebrows barely taking away the breathtaking perfection of his face.

My mind screamed at him to stay the hell away from me, but my throat remained constricted, incapable of following my brain’s command. I raised my arm to stop him. Jett flat out ignored it as he clutched my upper arm and pushed me back into my seat. He dropped down next to me, so close I might as well have sat on his lap. I watched him sniff the contents of my glass and push it into my hand, seemingly satisfied that it wasn’t alcohol.

“Drink up. You’re dehydrated.” His tone left no room for discussion. I hated to give him the satisfaction of following his command, and yet I found myself taking one sip after another until the glass was empty. He took it from me and placed it on the table, then turned to regard me, his head cocked to the side, his jaw set. His stunning green gaze wandered over me, drinking me in, making me feel completely naked. Even though the lights were dimmed, I could see a nerve twitching beneath his right eye. With every moment that passed he seemed even more pissed. I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing I was wearing more than the thin layer of nothing Sylvie called a dress.

“You still haven’t answered my question, Brooke,” he said slowly, emphasizing my name.

I returned his icy stare and my tongue finally regained its ability to speak. “Sorry, did you say something? I was too busy figuring out whether you were stalking me.”

Jett’s expression darkened. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“This?” I looked at my half exposed chest and laughed. It sounded a bit strained and nervous, but he certainly couldn’t tell with the music in the background. The tune changed to something about a girl not letting a guy trick her twice. I snorted.

How fitting!

The DJ was sending me a message.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What’s wrong with it?”

“You’re giving every guy in here a hard-on. Including me.” His fingers brushed the inside of my thigh, riding as high as the hem of my dress, which was mere inches away from my thong. At his warm touch, heat immediately travelled through my belly and pooled between my legs. I pressed my thighs together and tried to push his hand away. He didn’t move.

“Maybe every other guy was the plan,” I said. “Because I wasn’t planning on seeing you. How did you find me?”

“Once I figured you were in Italy, it wasn’t hard. Knowing you and Sylvie, and given that this is the only club in the area—” He shrugged. I cringed at his audacity. Who the fuck did he think he was?

“Seriously, you’re such an arrogant jerk,” I hissed.

His icy stare dropped a few degrees, if that was even possible. I narrowed my eyes in the hope he’d feel my distaste for him.

“Didn’t I make myself clear enough in New York? It’s over between us. Get the fuck away from me, Jett. I don’t want to see you.”

If my words reached him, he didn’t react. Didn’t even blink. For a second I thought he didn’t hear me. I opened my mouth to repeat myself when he raised his hand to cut me off. “Look, I know what I did was a shitty move but I can explain. I was trying to protect you.”

The protection crap again. “What are you protecting me from? An inheritance you’d rather have for yourself?” I rolled my eyes. “Please, spare yourself further embarrassment and just leave me alone because I’m not buying your lies.”

His hand grasped my upper arm so fast and hard, I flinched. He inched closer until I could feel his breath on my lips. “Listen to me. I don’t want the Lucazzone estate. There was a time when I did, but that changed after I met you in that bar and we got to know each other.”

There was something in his eyes, a glint that begged me to believe him, a flame that forced me to search through our history for signs that he hadn’t been trying to deceive me all along.