Demand (Careless Whispers #2)(26)

“Yes,” he confirms. “But even more, your showing up to a meeting I wouldn’t have allowed you to attend told him that you aren’t fully aligned with me. It told him you didn’t call me.”

“But if I hadn’t gone, it would have looked like you didn’t trust me. Or like we had something to hide.”

He closes the small space between us, towering over me, touching me nowhere, when I want him to touch me everywhere, anywhere. “I do not play Gallo’s games, and if you are to be by my side, you don’t, either. Period. The end. That isn’t up for negotiation because it’s about keeping you safe. Your safety is never a negotiation.”

“You can’t—”

He gently shackles my arm and pulls me to him. “I can and I will when it comes to your safety. Because I f*cking care way too much for either of our good. And if you want to argue that point, we will fight and f*ck this out in private.”

“When exactly are we going to do this fight-and-f*ck thing, because I think we’ll both feel better afterward.”

“We will, tonight. During and afterward.” Heat rushes through me, one part anger, one part lust, just as a sleek black Porsche pulls up beside us, the windows tinted dark. Kayden motions it inside the grounds and we follow to the other side of the gate, where he hits the button to lock us inside before withdrawing his phone.

We walk the broad expanse of the front yard while he makes a phone call, saying simply, “Open the garage,” before returning his cell to his pocket.

I watch the Porsche pull around the drive as the doors open. “Who’s inside it?”

“Carlo,” Kayden says. “Who is about to be reminded that I’m his moral compass.”

“Considering he’s amused at inappropriate times, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Don’t confuse amusement with lack of intelligence,” he says. “He’s cunning. He’s lethal and he misses nothing.”

“And the moral compass?”

“He has one, but he’s about to be reminded that mine is the only one that matters.” We reach the bottom of the stairs and he turns me to face him. “My men think you called me before meeting Gallo. Keep it that way and they might not ask questions. Don’t talk about it. Less is more, unless it’s with me.”

“Because they’ll see me as a weakness.”

“Yes.”

“Am I?” I ask. My cell phone rings from my coat pocket and Kayden’s jaw sets hard. No doubt he assumes it’s Gallo, as I do.

“Check it,” he orders softly.

Dreading where this might be going, I fish it from my pocket and nod. “It is. It’s him.”

“Decline the call,” he says, his mood shifting back to that dark edginess from the alcove.

I don’t hesitate, not after his comment about Gallo trying to divide us in some way, which the note he stuck under the door supports as true. I hit “decline” and shove my phone back into my pocket, and the mysterious note flutters out to the ground.

Kayden bends over and snags it, reading it and looking at me. “What does ‘I know’ mean?”

“Gallo shoved it under the bathroom door in the coffee bar, but he said nothing to indicate he knows about my past.”

“Of course he didn’t,” he says, balling the paper in his hand and shoving it inside his pocket, his jaw clenching at the sound of the front door opening.

“Less is more,” he repeats as we start to climb up the stone steps.

I hurry to keep up, my gaze lifting to find Adriel has appeared on the top step, dressed in jeans and some sort of polo-style Italian football shirt. His features are harshly drawn, the scar lining his cheek somehow more pronounced. When he looks at me, it’s brittle, and the only color in his eyes is ice. He’s pissed at my bypassing him today, and my struggle to find peaceful ground with him, and I’m thinking my telling Kayden about his disapproval isn’t going to help.

He speaks to Kayden in Italian and the two men talk on the porch. Eager to get out of the cold, I continue into the main castle foyer, almost running into Carlo. I back up, and I swear in morning light, dressed in jeans and a tan leather jacket and tan boots, he’s far more the Italian stallion than I remember. A man I suspect could f*ck you senseless and slice your throat, and I’m not sure why Kayden tolerates him.

Carlo is quick to remove the space I’ve just put between us, his eyes a bit too warm, too attentive. It could be flirtation, but my gut tells me that’s not the case. He’s testing me, trying to intimidate me, and I hold my ground. “How was coffee?” he asks, a cynically amused quirk to his lips, arrogance wafting off of him.

I want to step backward, but refuse to give him that reaction. I fold my arms in front of me. “Uneventful and uninteresting,” I say dismissively.

“Gallo is many things,” he says, “but we both know uninteresting is not one of them. Did he f*ck with your mind? He likes to f*ck with people’s minds.”

“Spoken like a man who’s been his victim.”

He gives me a deadpan stare and then smirks. “Ha. Ha. Aren’t you funny. And brave.”

There is something brutal in in those flippantly spoken words, almost a threat, or maybe it’s just that everything about the man is lethal. I stand firm, reaching for the respect I need to stand by Kayden’s side. “Brave because I said that to you, or brave because I dared to suggest I fared better than you?”