This Thing of Ours (The Gamblers Spin-off Novel) Page 7

  He stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him before taking a few steps farther into the room. His eyes skimmed over her. She was dressed in the same leggings and baggy shirt from the night before, and she couldn’t remember if she’d ever bothered to brush her hair or teeth that day.

  They were definitely a contrast in tidiness.

  He reached out a hand, almost touching the bruise on her cheek that looked darker and more intense now that the swelling had gone down. She took a hasty step back, hating the reminder of what had been done. How was she expected to forget if people kept bringing it to her attention?

  She plopped her ass on the sofa, in the spot she’d spent most of the day, then glanced over at Marco. “What are you doing here?”

  She tracked his movements as he rounded the couch and took a seat on its opposite end. Feet firmly planted on the floor, elbows resting on his knees, and head slightly bowed but turned her direction, he said, “We need to talk.”

  She picked at a few fuzzballs on the afghan she’d thrown over her lap. “About?”

  “Derek Miller.”

  She flinched as if he’d slapped her and plucked a few more fuzzballs from the blanket. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  She heard him sigh, and she rolled her eyes from her task to find him staring at the ground. “I know.”

  “But you’re going to make me anyway.”

  He nodded still staring at his feet. “I’m going to make you anyway.”

  She shrugged even though he wasn’t watching, then said matter-of-factly, “There’s not much to tell. He asked me out. I said yes. He kidnapped me. End of story.”

  “I’m sure there’s more to it.”

  “That’s all you need to know.”

  His head twisted her direction again. “Derek Miller isn’t his real name.”

  She nodded, acknowledging that fact but didn’t say anything because she didn’t know what his real name was.

  “No one from your school knows anything about him other than he attended class every Monday and Wednesday.”

  She nodded again, still not saying anything, but this time because she believed what he was saying.

  “I assume you at least have his phone number, but I’m sure it’s no longer any good.”

  She agreed again, her head dipping but still not speaking.

  His nostrils flared, and his eyes hardened. “You tried?”

  He’d misunderstood. “No, I just assumed that, too.”

  His features relaxed, and it was now his turn to nod. “I’ll need to know if he contacts you.”

  Gabby produced an unladylike snort. “You really believe that will happen?”

  He stared at her a few seconds, his gaze so intense she could almost feel his eyes burning her. “Yes.”

  She looked down at her lap and started picking more fuzz. “Well, if he does, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “You’re not going to have a blanket left.”

  Her hands stilled. “My nonna made this blanket.”

  “I met her once. She was a spitfire.”

  Gabby looked up in surprise. “How’d you know I was talking about my dad’s mom?”

  He looked at her stilled fingers before meeting her eyes. “You stopped picking, as if you didn’t want to harm it more because you know it can’t be replaced.”

  He was far too observant. She needed to remember that. “She gave it to me the year she died. It was a present for my thirteenth birthday.”

  “You’ve had it a long time.”

  “Do you have anything from when you were little?”

  He seemed to think about that for a minute, as if wondering how much he wanted to share. Or maybe he just didn’t remember whether he had anything.

  “I have a picture of my mom.”

  That surprised her. Didn’t he say she left when he was a baby?

  “It’s old and faded and was the only picture my dad had of her. She was young in it. Younger than you are now. She was beautiful.”

  She didn’t doubt that. For Marco to look the way he did, both his parents had to have been beautiful. “Do you look like her?”

  Marco blinked, as if suddenly realizing how personal their conversation had become. “Derek’s real name is Dmitri.”

  She’d let him change the subject and even went one step further. “His last name is Volkov.”

  His eyes chilled. “How do you know that?”

  Gabby’s fingers grew restless again, but this time she traced the pattern on the afghan instead of pulling at its threads. “I had the pleasure of meeting his father.”

  “And he told you his name?”

  “No. But while I was held…” She stopped, not wanting to talk about that part. “Let’s just say, I put two and two together.”

  Marco stood. “Come lock up after me.”

  Gabby’s head jerked up. “You’re leaving?”

  “It’s late. You need your rest.”

  As much as she’d wanted to be alone earlier, the thought of falling asleep and being vulnerable scared her now. “Will you… Will you stay with me? Just until I fall asleep,” she clarified when she saw his expression harden.

  His head jerked down, and she took that for assent. Throwing off the blanket, she stood from the couch and made her way to the bedroom, happy when she felt his presence behind her and knew that he followed.

  The bedroom was dark, but she didn’t turn on any lights. She knew her way to the bed and being part predator, figured Marco could see in the dark. She almost snorted at her thoughts. Marco would probably love that she thought that about him.

  She crawled between the sheets and heard a loud thud—which sounded suspiciously like a gun hitting her nightstand—before she felt the bed dip, then movement as Marco settled back against the headboard. She lay facing him, barely seeing his large shadow, one of her arms tucked under her pillow, the other clutching the covers under her chin.

  “Will you tell me another story?” she asked drowsily. “Something that ends happily, this time.”

  “Don’t have too many of those, streghetta.”

  “But you do have a few?” she asked around a yawn. She hated to think his childhood had been all bad.

  He sighed as if defeated. “I’d have to think about it, but I’m sure I can come up with a couple.”

  That made her a little happy but mostly sad. “Why don’t you tell me why you call me a little witch.”

  In the darkness, she heard his voice, gravelly and so low she almost missed his words. “That’s a story that doesn’t end happily.”

  Gabby sat huddled under her blanket in her customary spot on the sofa. At the rate she was going, it would have her permanent ass-print by the end of next week. She looked up as Olivia, her babysitter for the day, came in from the kitchen carrying two mugs of coffee. She’d been informed upon Olivia’s arrival that Angelica was up at the big house, spending some quality time with grandma.

  She’d been alone when she’d awakened that morning, the bed beside her empty. Not that Gabby had expected anything different. She was just surprised she hadn’t felt Marco slip away. She didn’t remember falling asleep, either. One minute, he’d been telling her a story about Fred and the next, nothing. She didn’t even remember whether she dreamed. She supposed she should be grateful for that.

  She pulled her hand from under the blanket and grabbed the coffee Olivia held out to her. “Thanks.”

  Olivia wrinkled her cute, pert nose. “We need to get you in the shower and out of this house.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with my face looking like this.”

  “It’s not that bad. I bet I can hide most of it with some makeup.”

  Gabby looked down at herself. She was still in the same clothes from two days ago, and she supposed she could use a shower. But leaving the house? She wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

  As if sensing her struggle Olivia said, “Come on. A little fresh air will do you good.”

  Gabby sta
red at herself in the mirror. Olivia had been right. With a heavy enough hand, she’d been able to hide all but a shadow of Gabby’s bruises with makeup. The long-sleeved sweater took care of the scabbed over scrapes and bruises on her arms.

  She still didn’t feel like leaving the house. In fact, after putting so much energy into getting ready, what she really felt like doing was crawling back into bed and taking a nap. She looked at it forlornly as she stepped from the bathroom.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Olivia said, materializing at her bedroom door.

  “Where are we going anyway?”

  “To the one place that makes all troubles go away. The mall.”

  Gabby loved shopping as much as the next girl, but for once, the allure of sales and shoes did not appeal. One look at Olivia’s smiling, excited face, though, had her keeping her mouth shut.

  With a defeated sigh, she made her way through the house then stopped, looking at the empty rack by the front door. “I lost my purse.” She wasn’t exactly sure when, but at some point, it had disappeared.

  “That’s easy enough to fix,” Olivia said, coming up behind her.

  Canceling the credit cards, sure, but the thought of going to the DMV to get a new license, yeah, not so much.

  “Besides, you don’t need a purse. I’ve got Nico’s black card.”

  The twinkle in Olivia’s eyes had Gabby smiling for the first time in what felt like forever. Maybe getting out wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  Leaving the house had been the worst idea ever.

  She’d like to say everything had been entirely Olivia’s fault, but in the end, she knew most of the blame landed solely on her shoulders for not having a backbone and telling Olivia no.

  It had started with the beauty salon. Olivia had thought it would cheer her up to have her hair done. Gabby hadn’t disagreed. It had been a while since she’d had her hair trimmed and being pampered for an hour had sounded nice. It had gone downhill when Olivia had persuaded her to change her look. Sure, Gabby had argued, putting up a feeble attempt at standing her ground, but in the end, to make Olivia happy, she’d given in, thinking it was only hair and it would grow back.

  Big mistake. When she’d finally been allowed to look at herself in the mirror, she’d almost cried. Gone where her long locks, sheared to the tops of her shoulders. Her once dark, nearly black, hair had been transformed to a medium brown with blonder streaks that Gabby thought made her look like a zebra. Olivia had called them highlights. Yeah, not. More like neon lights with the way people had gawked at her.

  But, looking on the bright side, she did feel like a whole new woman, and maybe that’s what she really needed. Besides, she could always dye it back.

  The second mistake came when Gabby, still reeling from the hair fiasco, was talked into buying a puppy. A yellow Lab, to be exact, so definitely not a small dog and probably not the best choice when becoming a first-time doggy momma.

  It wasn’t that Gabby was anti dogs, but more like, with her uncertain lifestyle, she’d never wanted the responsibility for one. She could barely take care of herself. A fact that had become painfully obvious five days before.

  Olivia hadn’t listened to her excuses, though. Instead, she’d loaded Leo and Stan—their respective bodyguards—with enough doggy paraphernalia to last five doggy lifetimes.

  And it had been at that point, Gabby had declared Olivia crazy.

  But sitting in the car on the way home, a squirming puppy in her lap, panted puppy breath hitting her face, and a wet little tongue attacking her chin, Gabby had to reluctantly admit that maybe, just maybe, not all of Olivia’s ideas had been bad.

  Chapter Ten

  Marco wasn’t sure why he was there—again—other than he’d felt compelled to make sure Gabriella was okay before he went home for the night. So, there he sat, in his car, outside her house, hoping for a glimpse of her so he couldn’t use needing to see her with his own eyes as a pathetic excuse to get out of his car and walk up to her door.

  He’d spent the day chasing shadows, trying to get a lead on Ivan Volkov, but he’d come up blank. The guy was a ghost. Discovering the whereabouts of Derek/Dmitri had been a bust, too. He wasn’t sure how many heads he would need to beat, but he wasn’t giving up until he got his prize—both Volkovs six-feet under.

  The Russians had been on their radar for a while. They’d slipped into town, trying to horn in on their gambling operations. So far, they’d been beating them back. Guess Ivan didn’t like having his ass handed to him and decided to up the game by taking Gabriella. Stupid on his part. You don’t fuck with the Conti Family and live to tell about it. And really fucking bad on Dmitri’s part that Marco took it personally. That fucker had signed his own death warrant the moment he’d laid eyes on Gabriella.

  Marco checked his watch. Almost eleven. Too late to hope for a glimpse of Gabriella. Guess he was knocking on her door after all. He’d spent so many years purposely avoiding her it felt foreign for him to actively seek her out. He’d interacted with Gabriella more in the last few days than he had in the last few years, and it was playing havoc with his emotions—emotions no one thought he possessed. But he knew he had them. Discovered them on Gabriella’s eighteenth birthday. His reaction to her had unnerved him, so his words to her had been cruel. He’d broken something in her that day. At the time, he’d thought it had been for the best, and if he were honest, it probably still was.

  He made his way to her front door. The lights were still on in the front room, so he knew she was awake as he rapped his knuckles against the wooden surface.

  The door swung open, and he stood in shock for a few beats before stupidly yelling the first thing that popped into his head. “What the fuck did you do to your hair?”

  And discovered blurting his thoughts had been stupid when the door slammed back in his face. His hand automatically reached for the handle, quickly pushing the door open before she had a chance to lock him out.

  She was still standing in the entry. He wasn’t good with apologies, but for her, he’d try. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  She made a noise in the back of her throat and rolled her eyes. “Yes, you did. It’s okay, I hate it, too.”

  “Then why’d you slam the door in my face?” He didn’t understand the logic. Were all women so complicated?

  She shrugged, giving him a non-answer that wouldn’t help him in the future and the movement caused her to jiggle something in her arms. He’d been so focused on her hair, he hadn’t noticed the puppy she held.

  “You got a dog?” What the fuck? He’d seen her less than twenty-four hours ago.

  “Olivia talked me into more than just changing my hair. I’m happy she got one out of two things right. I love him,” she said, dipping her head. Her and the pup’s noses brushed, and a little pink tongue came out, licking across her lips. Was it possible to be jealous of a dog?

  Fuck, yeah, it was.

  And then she said something that shook him to his very core. Looking up and giving him a hesitant smile, she said, “I named him Fred.”

  He didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. Something was burning his chest and choking his throat.

  She must have read something in his expression because she quickly said, “I hope that’s okay. He doesn’t really know his name yet. I can always change it.”

  He swallowed, opened his mouth but words still wouldn’t come out. He took a lumbering step forward, reached out, his large hand covering the entirety of the back of her head, and pulled her to him. His lips were on hers before he even realized what he was doing.

  Soft—was his first thought.

  Need—was his second.

  He’d startled her, he could tell, because her lips parted on a gasp. He took advantage, needing to taste her, at least, this once. He slipped his tongue past her lips, encountering her heat and the soft velvet of her tongue as it tangled with his.

  She moaned, and his hand fisted her hair, tilting her head back, gaining him bet
ter access. He was soaring, almost dizzy, as his heart rate increased.

  His dick grew impossibly hard, and his head started screaming at him, telling him to stop. Pull back now before it’s too late. But it was already too late. He would never forget this moment. Never forget the feel of her lips. Never forget the taste of her on his tongue.

  Never forget the single moment in time when he, Marco Bianchi, was good enough for Gabriella Conti.

  Then the moment ended. The dog yapped, drawing their lips apart—his, still tingling, hers, plump and shiny. He took a step back, the hold in her hair loosening until he released it altogether, letting his hand fall to his side.

  Her lids slowly rose, revealing glassy eyes as they locked with his. She took a breath to speak. Her chest rose, drawing his attention to her tits, and her lips parted, but he couldn’t bear to listen. Anything she had to say—good or bad—would break him, so he gave her his back.

  He didn’t remember finding the front door and opening it. He blocked out her shouted, “Marco, wait,” as he stepped through it, shutting it behind him. Didn’t look back at her door as he got into his car, started it, and drove away. Didn’t look in his rearview mirror to see whether she watched him leave. And didn’t think of her once his entire drive home.

  Okay, so that last one was a lie.

  “So, what’s got your boxers in a twist?”

  Marco looked across the table at Frankie. They were sitting in a booth in the VIP section of Club Con, the most profitable of Nico’s nightclubs. The club served two purposes, the usual “legal” club entertainments in the front, and the illegal poker games in the back. They’d stopped by to check on the latter. Frankie and Johnny had wanted to stay for a drink.

  Marco reached for his beer and took a sip. He should have gone home—the loud music was giving him a headache—but the thought of his empty condo held no appeal.

  He should be used to it—the emptiness and loneliness—and he had been until a week ago when he’d kissed Gabriella, and everything had changed. It had been stupid. He had been stupid. He still wasn’t sure what the fuck had come over him. He usually had better control than that.