The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 155

“Maybe we should revisit the kissing thing. Not sure I can give that up on top of sex and heavy groping. I mean there is only so much I can handle keeping in check. I’m not really that much of a good boy.” Alexi slips me a sexy smile and picks up the kettle when it clicks, to pour us coffee. Watching the steam rise and hit with the heavy aroma as soon as the cups are filled.

“You’re not a good boy at all, that’s part of the charm. I think if we are revisiting the kissing, it requires a proper negotiation. I have to get something back if you are getting free rein to kiss me,” I jest huskily, flirtation coming out all by itself and aware I have slid my arm through his and am pressing my body to his side a little too possessively. Pushed up tight so I can get as much of him as possible.

“You get my tongue in your mouth with all its expertise, several times a day. That’s reward enough.” That arrogant wink and I frown at him.

“You’re so modest.”

“I know. It is exhausting being this amazing twenty-four seven, but I can handle it.” He gives me a wink that just gives me the urge to kick him in the shin. I like his tosser side, yet at the same time, I want to throttle him for it.

“You’re such an arse. An arrogant one.” I giggle at Alexi’s weird humour and let him go when he hands me a black coffee with an overly joyful gaze.

“That’s why you like me! Creamer is in the refrigerator.” I get a kiss on my temple and my smile beams wider of its own accord. Indulgently amused with him and unable to deny that it’s that cocky self-confidence that makes him crazy alluring.

“Who said I do? And thanks, but I think I need black coffee for how rough I feel. Someone got me too drunk and now I’m suffering.” I groan and take a sip as Alexi pulls out his cell again and starts texting. Probably informing Mico that we need him as a cab driver to come get us. Not that I’m sad. I do not want to get back on that death machine while my stomach is already doing the rhumba. He can leave it here till the end of time for all I care. Sitting on his motorbike was not exactly the highlight of my life.

“Should have let me fuck you, it’s guaranteed to cure any hangover.” He pauses between sips of his own black coffee to throw me a loaded look and I sigh at him.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a lie.”

“Well, now you will never know.” He smiles and then leaves me there as he wanders to the nearest armchair and sits down, putting his mug on the trunk and pulls his socks and boots over to put them on. A perk of sleeping in our clothes is we don’t have to get dressed. Just shoes and jackets and out the door. I can shower at the apartment once he goes to see Santagato.

I follow him and sit on the other chair, mirroring what he is doing with my own shoes and catch him glancing my way. Pulling them on quickly. I slept with socks on, unlike him so I achieve my goal faster.

“That’s my favourite sound in the world, you know?”

“What is?” His statement catches me off guard and I wonder what the hell he is talking about. Looking momentarily confused.

“Your laugh, I just don’t hear it enough. Something I aim to change.” It’s a serious observation, no hint of trying to charm at all and it catches me off guard.

I giggle shyly at that revelation, impulsively and blush from my toes to the top of my head. Knocked sideways with the way he just suddenly throws an unexpected sweetness at me; it knocks me off kilter.

“And here I was thinking they had bypassed the romance gene in your creation.” I smile softly, matching the one he gives me, and he goes back to focusing on his laces.

“Yeah well, maybe I can learn some new tricks, just for you.” It’s more of a mumbled response not really asking for a reply and I watch him a little too closely, biting on my bottom lip as a host of inner emotions and feelings collide dramatically. My heart and nether region fighting for dominance, and I shake my head to push both smoochy feeling and the sex-starved one aside.

Like I said, far too potent and I’m way too hungover.

“Do you think he will agree to leave me alone?” I ask nervously, bringing the topic back to Santagato to normalise things between us again. Hoping that if Santagato backs off, then Alexi will lighten up on the overprotective regime he has me on, where I can never leave the building without an escort.

I’m not used to a constant presence after twenty-eight years of surviving alone. I find it claustrophobic and highly stressful. Having reins put on me and caging me in. It makes me want to break free and run.

“That depends on how I deliver it. If he thinks I’m just protecting my asset because you run my club, then yes. If he thinks it’s personal, and I’m in love with you, then he won’t want to lose that edge. I have to play this carefully. This world is all about games, smoke and mirrors. You know this.” Alexi looks serious for a moment, that darkening cloud hovering close by in those eyes of his and sits up to look at me properly, his boots on and tied already.

I still find it weird how readily he says those three little words. After keeping them from me for months and now they slide out of his mouth as easily as any other. I think he is getting used to feeling them on his tongue and the fear of the power they once had over him has evaporated. I guess realising he trusted me and wanted me, made a huge difference to how he saw them.

I push that down along with a dozen other thoughts I don’t have the energy to address this morning.

“Do you think he would try to get at me again if he doesn’t agree?” My nerves return at something I have tried not to think about at all since coming back, but Alexi shrugs.

“Not if he wants to stay breathing. I honestly don’t know. It shocked me the first time because I really thought he knew better. We are allies but not friends. He knows what I would do to someone who crosses me and if I could have proved it already, Santagato would be yesterday’s news.”

I don’t doubt that. You don’t cross a Carrero. Everyone knows that.

“You didn’t confirm it from your security man?” I’m surprised to find that he still isn’t sure. I was convinced all this time that he’d got answers and had solid proof it was him. He has never mentioned doubts before.

“No. He was paid to look the other way by the asshole who tried to take you. I fucked up by putting him down before getting information. It’s not normally my style but seeing him hurting you … I reacted.” Alexi looks away, strangely sombre suddenly and I reach out and touch his hand. I hate it when he gets that sudden look of remorse, as though he thinks his heinous act or a reminder of it will send me running like a bat out of hell. It’s little insecure moments of knowing he can be inhuman and cold with his mother’s words running around in that brain that no one could love a monster like him. I know that’s what it is because my mother left me with the same damage. No one could ever love a worthless little whore who gives men what they want for money.

She was wrong.

Alexi loves me.

His mother was wrong too.

I love him.

“Is that what you did in Miami too? Just reacted?” I don’t know why this comes to mind now, other than wanting to know why he half killed a man that night. We touched on it last night but it was fleeting, and we didn’t delve into details too much.

Another scene in my head of his worst side coming out to play when I least expected it. I have never managed to shake that image. How precise, controlled and violent he can be when he sets his sights on targeting a man. How disconnected he was and the way his brother and cousin had to physically bring him back to the present. He was gone, and it scared me. Knowing he can just zone out and destroy someone like that.

He can definitely hold his own as a fighter, it was almost fluid and instinctive to annihilate another human, all while his mind was God knows where. I wonder if it’s like me when I disconnect while being hurt, my mind taking off to protect its sanity—maybe not. I guess I’ll never understand the red mist that overcame him that night.

Alexi looks back at me, expression softer and slides his fingers around mine, enclosing my hand gently, pulling it closer to him. Warmed by my reaching out to him.

“I came looking for you to say sorry for acting like an asshole. I was drunk and I knew I overreacted. I just saw you with some guy all over you and you were pushing him away. I thought he was hurting you and I didn’t stop to ask questions. I guess seeing some asshole trying to choke you on my desk left a mark and I saw red. It’s an instinct to protect you, I just lost sight of when to stop. The jealousy came when you defended him.” He looks down at our joined hands and frowns at the admission. Another thing he probably hated. My ability to make him jealous of which he had no control, and it made him snap at me and lash all his anger my way once he’d stopped half killing a man. Out of control, bruised from a rejection then told off when he thought he was being my hero.

No wonder he got so mad at me and then took off to cool down and put some distance between us. He didn’t dump me there to make me suffer; he left so he wouldn’t make things worse between us. He was hurting, just as I was.

“It wasn’t about ownership then?” I watch him carefully, feeling stupid now I really think about his actions that night, and he shakes his head. It never dawned on me he would see me in danger and swoop in without stopping to ask.

“Only because you are mine to protect. I would never let anything happen to you. No matter what.” Alexi leans towards me, closing the gap, eyes locked on mine and I don’t hesitate to meet him halfway, getting the kiss he was angling for and it sends my stomach into sizzles and butterflies. Soft, gentle kissing, unobtrusive but fully effective in turning me to mush. We linger together even after he pulls back, his nose brushing mine and there is a moment of something pure and intense before my feeble, fearful self pulls back.

Always shitting a brick at the dumbest moments and running away. I have no courage.

Alexi ignores my fast separation and the way my cheeks colour with it. Suddenly uncomfortable with how easily he draws me in like a moth to a flame. Leaving myself open and vulnerable, despite the pep talks to stop doing that.

“I shouldn’t have said the things I said to you after. I’m sorry. I don’t think, I just react in my normal mode of being a complete asshole. I have a temper.” He mutters it a little defeated, voice low, and again that urge to wipe away that look from him spurs me forward.

“I think we are both guilty of throwing around names and insults when we fight. I’m not innocent in how I am to you. I know I can be extremely vicious. I have been a bitch as much as you have been a jerk.” My face flushes further as I admit it, knowing my sharp tongue and violent outbursts towards him in the past are no better than him calling me a whore or being a dick to me. We can be pretty volatile and explosive when we lose our temper. Too alike in so many ways. Fuelled on impulsive rage and anger towards each other. Equally passionate, even in a negative way.

Alexi’s cell phone rings, breaking the seriousness of our conversation and he looks down at it with a heavy sigh.

“Mico must be here already, he must have been close by. Let’s go, London. We’ll come back here. I promise.”

Alexi jumps to his feet and holds out a hand, eyes much brighter and a ghost of a smile on that face. Leaving our undrunk coffee sitting and I don’t hesitate to follow, grabbing his hand in mine again, warm skin on warm skin and sliding to my feet beside his taller height. I would follow him anywhere after last night.

Comforted in knowing he intends to spend another one here after this. Our own little secret place to just be. Watch him stop me coming back here for a repeat.

“Showtime.” He smiles at me, before grabbing both our jackets, throwing them over one arm, and his keys from the table as he leads me to the door in commander mode. Pulling me with him while fastened in his grasp securely. Ready to face reality after our break from it.

Not just in relation to Santagato either.

After I shower in my bathroom and get dressed in my usual figure-hugging dress and sleek hair and makeup, I wander back downstairs to the club to see what needs doing. Alexi never came upstairs with me, waiting for Santagato to show up and I have no doubts they are probably in the second floor VIP lounge as we speak. I’ve only been up here for forty minutes since we got back, and we didn’t come far. The club is literally minutes from his old bolthole and I already miss it. The way he is when we were there, the break from reality to be with that version of him, I’m already craving it.

It feels odd to be here now, back to life as though nothing’s happened at all; when, in reality, absolutely everything has changed. It’s only been two days and yet it feels like a week has passed since the night I thought he was dead.

My entire existence has been tipped upside down and dropped on its head magnificently. No wonder I feel so shaky and fragile in myself today. I feel like someone has held me by one foot over a cliff and I’m still dangling there.

I make my way down to the ground floor, hungry and hoping the bar girl Cheyenne is on. She makes a mean grilled cheese and we skipped breakfast, even though it’s almost noon already. We slept soundly thanks to a lot of alcohol and now I’m starving, and aspirin has numbed my pounding head to bearable. Hunger pangs are so intense I feel faint and just desperate to eat.

I’m surprised to meet the entourage of men coming towards the lift as I come out on the ground floor and realise this is Santagato’s party showing up late, which Alexi hates. He is the only one allowed to run behind schedule otherwise it makes him rage.

A handful of Carrero familiars behind them, but no Mico as he only dropped us off then left to go run errands or some nonsense. Alexi and Santagato side by side in front of his own group of heavies too.

I come face to face with both as I step into the lobby, unaware. It’s so sudden I take a sharp intake of breath and almost trip over nothing. Surprised and unprepared for this chance encounter and not mentally on the ball.

Like a complete love-sick idiot, I smile brightly at Alexi as soon as I lay eyes on him. It’s impulsive and I know I do a full-on swoon smile the second I see him, but I literally cannot help the reaction. He is now in shirt and trousers, which he keeps in the office for a quick change, and back to tailored sexiness, clean-shaven and swoon worthy. He must have got changed and ready down here while waiting on his late guest.

I regret it as soon as I feel my face do it and know I just fucked up completely.

He has been getting to me on major levels, and I just failed at hiding it because I spent a night with him while being wooed to heaven and back. Such an amateur move and I know better than this. Gut cringing inwardly with a tight contraction and shame washes over me at such a faux pas.

Alexi throws me an icy glare that’s usual for his normal arsehole self but because of how he has been the last few days, it hits me like a slap. It’s a telling off and a bump back to reality. A pang of hurt in my heart that he looks at me so harshly and brings back a million memories of what it feels like to be out in the cold where he is concerned. Something I didn’t need a reminder of today when I’m sensitive from an over excessive night and should have spent the day on the couch instead. He’s instantly pissed at me and my mood dies a horrible death.

“Ahh. The sexy Miss Walters.” Santagato leers at me and I throw him the same smile I gave Alexi to cover it with an ‘I’m just in such a smiley and overly friendly mood’ but Alexi butts in. Fury all over his face and I honestly cannot tell if it’s real or not. Knowing him, most likely genuine.

“Don’t you have work to be doing?” He snaps at me and it sobers all the love-sick stupidity right out of me. Faced with King Carrero and not an ounce of warmth. The wrath of a wanker and I instantly know my place when in the presence of his allies.

Worthless woman. How could I forget?

“I umm.” I stumble over my words, stunned at how he is talking to me when only an hour ago I was his world, being kissed and reassured and romanced. Now here I am, getting overly distraught at the change in him and unable to deal with this right now. I was becoming too used to the other side of him and how sweet he can be, and this is like being kicked in the chest by a mule. My stomach tightens and an undeniable lump lodges in my throat threatening to choke me to death. It’s like he just threw a bucket of ice water over my head when I wasn’t looking; I’m reeling, which is screwing up my ability to compose myself for a quick recovery.

I’m way too emotional from being hungover already and this will push me right over the edge. Even though I know I’m being far too sensitive, and I should evaluate this without emotion. Take it at face value and nothing deeper.

“If you have nothing better to do, then bring coffee up to the lounge, pronto.” Alexi dismisses me, tone giving nothing away except irritation and pushes past as though I’m an annoyance in his way; nearly toppling me off my feet and I almost burst into tears at the rough handling. I catch sight of Jackson in my line of vision, walking behind the men who are all piling into the lift as he throws me a concerned look.

“I’ll help you, Miss Camilla.” He throws me a warm smile, a gentle hint that he sees I need comfort. Probably spotting the mist of tears in my eyes and I keep my back to the men, so Alexi doesn’t see that he has wounded me with just an attitude change. He would only get angrier at my obvious show of distress in front of these people.

I know this is because he’s with those men and this is just how he must be, but it doesn’t make it sting any less. He didn’t need to be so harsh or so believable in that I’m an uninteresting employee, one he has zero attachment to.

I should have stayed upstairs. I’m not mentally equipped today, and I will feel like shit now.

“I’ll get right to it, Mr Carrero.” I bite sarcastically, a tinge of upset in my tightening tone and throw my hair over my shoulder before heading towards Jackson. Refusing to let Alexi see me upset. I bite my bottom lip to curb the urge to burst into stupid tears and just focus on my refuge. My gentle giant, my friend, and the way he is urging me to him like the solid dude I know he can be. He would never turn demon prick on me just to keep face.

“Do so and make it snappy.” Again, with that sinister, cold, dickhead tone and I walk off at speed to hide just how much I hate this version of him.

He just undid so much in a two-second conversation.

Anger soaring in to push the pain aside and every damn doubt, fear and disbelief in me the other night swoops back in full force at the return of Tosser Carrero. Bruised and struggling to brush it off.

“Ignore him, Miss. This is just how he is sometimes. He has to keep up appearances.” Jackson pats me on the shoulder as I enter the kitchen, seemingly in the know, and he fills the large urn we have in here for coffee. I can feel his eyes darting from me to what he’s doing, but he stays quiet.

It’s a huge steel cannister thing that makes mass amounts of hot water quickly and is used for groups of businessmen who convene upstairs like a boardroom sometimes. Jackson readies two trays with mugs, sugar bowls and creamer, and I just stand there like an incapable fool, licking my wounds. Turning over the way he was being in my head and picking him apart until all that’s left is a pile of ashes.

“I’m fine.” I smile through my frown and try to wipe it off my face, telling myself I’m being overly sensitive. He is a wanker; I know this, and it’s expected of him to show that when he is out there with them

It’s Santagato—of course, he’s not going to show any hint of adoration of me around that man. Alexi has a persona, and he is just dusting it off and keeping his mask firmly in place. I’m forgetting the history with Santagato and what a threat he is to me and thinking like a lovesick fool. I need to find my own facade and put it back on the way he did, for when we are in front of these people.

We are not even a real thing yet and here I am getting hurt over him being his usually bossy cold self. His normal Alexi Carrero self. The version of him I should have been expecting when we got back here, I mean, wasn’t I mentally preparing myself for this on the drive home and reminding myself that his mask would re-engage under this roof? Of course, I was.

I have spent months with this version of him; I know what to expect.

Except it really is getting to me in crazy ways. Biting a little too deeply that after last night it’s so easy for him to just turn on the nasty once more. Maybe it would be easy to revert to treating me like shit and punishing me too. Look how smoothly he transitioned, and not even a blink of hesitation at pushing me aside. And I really can’t turn off how much it cuts deep.

That’s not love. That’s not the man who slept beside me last night.

Jackson nudges me a moment later, breaking the odd little daydream I was having as I turned over Alexi’s behaviour in my head, and I realise he has all the trays ready. Two of them because of the number of men upstairs and he slides the one carrying only the cups towards me, so he takes the weight of coffee pots and creamer. A true gentleman, as always. Alexi could learn a thing or two from his cousin.

“All ready, Miss. Want to lead the way?” Jackson gives me another gentle smile, a reassuring moment that he has my back and I snap myself out of it and lift that stubborn chin, reigniting that inner fire I possess. I’m being weak and stupid and well, at least it opened my eyes to his ability to revert to kind and reminded me why exactly I should pull back and be wary of getting too deep too fast with him. I almost let it slide last night but this morning, that little scene, has me back on the offensive and overly aware of how he plays me.

If Alexi wants to play cold and Mr Business, then I should follow suit and stop making more of it than it is. Be who he is used to seeing in this club. Fuck him.

I take the tray with a smile on my face that doesn’t go beyond my mouth and pull on my big girl pants. Willing to just dismiss this and get on with my day and not let it get to me. No doubt later he will come find me and confirm he was only being that way because of Santagato, or maybe he won’t, and I will realise that all of yesterday was bullshit.

I need to be tougher than this. I used to be tougher than this. I let myself second guess everything but not anymore. Don’t trust the man who can make you feel worthless so easily.

I walk ahead and get to the lift pressing it with my elbow awkwardly, waiting for Jackson to catch up as impatience and anger course through me, fixing my steel armour and putting my walls back up.

It’s a silent trip to the second floor as I gather my wits and pull my face together before I head along the narrow corridor to the entrance of the VIP lounge, my normal confidence coming back slowly.

The door is sitting open. I can hear low voices as we approach but not make out anything of what they are saying and steam ahead to obey my bloody orders.

“Boss.” Someone says loudly as we approach, and all the chatter stops. I guess it’s a minion signalling the conversation to end as we approach. To Santagato, I’m ears that should hear nothing, even though Alexi will tell me afterwards, anyway. I know he will. Even if he is a massive tosser of a man who deserves a punch in the balls.