Fate Book Two (7 page)

He wiggled his brows. “Not at all. I am proud of my body.”

Wow. A man who named himself after his penis. I’m speechless.
“So.” My eyes scanned for Paolo around the quasi-theater-style club—three tiers of booth seating overlooking a massive dance floor. I immediately spotted Nikki and her girl-posse. The women were already seated in the VIP section in a large booth, but where was Paolo?

My angry eyes quickly scanned the club.
There!
Paolo stood on a small walkway in front of their table, sunglasses still on, his back to them. And the way he stood there—one hand in his pocket, bathed in pulsing white lights, his lean muscled body in well-fitted black slacks and a tailored black jacket with a white dress shirt unbuttoned to chiseled pectoral level—made him look like he was a cardboard “hunk” cutout from a romance convention. His deep olive skin was just as tanned as the last time I saw him in Costa Rica, but he’d cut off the sun-bleached tips of his longer, espresso-brown hair. Now he sported a more stylish,
GQ
-looking hairdo cut just above the ears. His five o’clock shadow, however, was thick and black and the same as ever, accenting the squareness of his jaw and fullness of his lips.

I felt my insides quivering with rage. I was “this” close to losing it.
And that bastard has no right being so beautiful.

Yet even now, after he’d torn my heart to shreds, a part of me pathetically still wanted him. I couldn’t help it. His aura of masculinity and confidence was so potent that every guy in the club seemed repelled by him and every woman—even those with dates—had to force themselves not to stare. He was…

Perfect.

Not on the inside, Dakota. That part of him is ugly and rotten. Like a bad apple.

“By the way,” Horse chimed in, noticing my eyes pinned on Nikki’s table, “I must warn you that Nikki doesn’t want her picture taken inside the club. So I am going to have to frisk you.”

“Huh?”

He cocked one dirty-blond brow and held out his hands, reaching for my hips.

I stepped back. “Don’t even think about it.”

He stepped in closer, and at that very moment a guy walked by and bumped me into Horse’s eagerly awaiting hands. My palms landed on his chest, and he wrapped his arms around the small of my bare back. The lights flashed on his handsome face as he grinned. “Ah. Seems my wish was granted.”

I cleared my throat, feeling his warm, muscled body against mine. Paolo, who was just in my line of sight over Horse’s shoulder, jerked his head in our direction. Or had it been my wounded heart’s imagination?

I decided to test it out.

I smiled warmly and gazed into Horse’s green eyes. “And what wish might that be?”

He leaned his six-foot-one-ish frame down and whispered into my ear, “To rub my hands all over your body.”

I laughed pretentiously and swatted him playfully on the shoulder. “You’re a big player, Horse.” As I said those words, I thought I saw Paolo’s expression turn icy, but the damned sunglasses and strobe lights prevented me from determining if the stunningly handsome a-hole was reacting or just staring in our general direction.

Horse was about to say something, but stopped when a cell vibrated in his pocket. Yeah, I felt it against my hip bone. And after four months of abstinence, the stimulating pulse in Horse’s pocket was a bit too welcome.

“You going to an-an-answer tha-that?” I asked.

“Maybe.” He pulled me in closer.

I glanced at Paolo, hoping for some sign that he’d seen me—his jilted ex-fiancée—in the arms of a rather hot, blond, Italian man, but no such luck. Paolo turned his back and leaned into the table, his head bent toward Nikki’s attentive lips. Although his back was to me, I could see the way he kissed her was the way a guy kissed a woman he really lusted after—slow, sensual, no touching.

I felt the Grand Canyon in my heart widen just a little further. I’d been inside the club and in Paolo’s presence for less than five minutes, and it was abrasively clear that I meant nothing to him. I wasn’t even a blip on his radar. But Nikki sure was.

Horse shoved his hands between our bodies and dug out his device. He glanced quickly at the text. “I am very sorry, but I must take care of a few things for Nikki’s friends.” The way he spoke sounded like: “I am berry so-ree, but I muss take care ob a few tings…”

I had to listen extra-hard, so it took my brain a second or two to mill out the meaning. “Oh. Sure. No problem.” All I really wanted at this point was to catch Paolo the moment he left the VIP section. Sooner or later, the man would have to pee and that would be my chance to remove his man-parts.

Dakota! He jilted you. Big. Time. You are not going to attack him. You’re here to get one answer: Why did he lie about loving you?

But I knew
that
was a lie. There was no answer on the planet that could justify what Paolo had done. Simply put, what I really wanted was to tell him what an asshole he was. I wanted to hurt him back. Not physically, but emotionally.

“Are you all right…um…” Horse paused. “I don’t actually know your name.”

“Oh. I’m…”
Oh crap, Dakota. Which passport did you use to enter the country? Ummm…
“Leah. I’m Leah.”

“Like the
Star Wars
princess.” He reached down and kissed the top of my hand, his lips lingering a bit too long.

“Uh…sure. Just like the princess.” Spelled differently, but who cared?

He dipped his head. “Well, princess, I will return shortly, but…” He lifted his head toward the crowded bar and raised his finger into the air. I turned and caught the bartender glancing at him. Horse then pointed down at the top of my head, and the bartender nodded.

“If there is anything you need or want,” Horse continued, “just ask; it will go on my tab.”

“Thanks?” I muttered, but Horse was already jockeying his way through the crowd of gyrating bodies. I glanced back at the bar, debating getting a glass of red wine—the only alcoholic beverage I’d ever tried and knew I wouldn’t hate—but decided against it. Who knew what I might do given my current state of agitation.

When I turned back around to torture myself with watching Paolo kiss another woman, he was gone. My eyes darted around the crowded club, searching. With so many lights and so many people moving around, it was like trying to find Waldo. But then, from the corner of my eye, I spotted a tall man with a head of dark, thick hair, moving to a doorway that likely led to the restrooms.

I wove my way through the crowd, ignoring a multitude of light gropes and unwelcomed solicitations. These men had no idea who they were messing with, but lucky day for them, because I had bigger Italian sleazeballs to fry. As I passed through the wide doorway and turned the corner into the dimly lit hallway leading to the bathrooms, I ran smack into Paolo.

“Whoa!” He grabbed my shoulders and steadied me in front of him. “Watch where you’re going.” Unlike Horse, Paolo’s Italian accent was noticeable, but crisp and easy to understand. Of course, Paolo had had linguistics training and could fake just about any burr, drawl, and inflection. In fact, he’d pretended to be Spanish when we’d first met.

“Excuse me? Why don’t
you
watch it!” I pushed him, but with his solid, well-toned body, much larger in proportion to mine, he barely moved.

No longer wearing his sunglasses, Paolo’s eyes narrowed into tight slits before he raised his palms, shook his head, and stepped around me.

Seriously?
Had Paolo dismissed me like a threadbare sock and walked away?

Now, I’ve done many things in my life that I’m not proud of, one of which was the time in high school, a few months before graduation, when I lied to my class about having a hot model-looking guy as my boyfriend who ended up actually being a real person that was paid to protect me—Paolo—and certainly there were times when I’d yelled at my mom for no good reason or had done other stupid things. However—big, big breath—I sensed this moment was going to contend for
numero uno
on my list: jealous, jilted woman tantrum in a nightclub.

I lunged at Paolo from behind, but I’d forgotten the man had spider eyes in the back of his head. He twisted and caught my wrist and then quickly spun my body, slamming my back into the wall. He pinned my arms above my head and used his body to keep me from moving.

He stared into my eyes for one long moment, and the world shut out. It was just me and him standing there. No one else. And despite not wanting it to, my heart remembered how in love it had once been. My brain recognized his scent as the smell of unbridled happiness—a place where every piece of me felt wanted. And as I felt the accelerated pulse of Paolo’s heart beating against my chest, a flicker of deep lust in those dark eyes, an unspeakable rage spread through me like a wildfire.
Well, you can’t have me. ’Cause that boat freaking sailed!

Yeah, I was mad.

I jerked my wrists, but he held on tight and growled, “What the hell is your problem?”

“You, you sonofabitch. Let me go.”

“Not until you calm down.” He grinned, as if enjoying the taste of a delicious dish. Then, I felt a very hard, manly bulge against my soft body. And angry or not, the feel of him, the scent of him whiplashed my mind to the night Paolo and I had almost been burnt alive in his cabin north of San Diego. We’d been hiding out there and were forced to run when a sniper, masked in the darkness of night, lit fire to the place, hoping to pick us off as we fled. Luckily, we slipped out the back, but when I could run no farther, Paolo had taken pity on me and allowed me to rest. Unsure if the sniper was on our heels, Paolo pinned me to a tree, shielding me with his large, solid body while he listened for footsteps. That was the moment Paolo lost control, and I right along with him. He went from being my bodyguard to a man. A man who tore at the button on my jeans and kissed me with the kind of reckless lust you could lose yourself in. I had taken his thick, insanely long shaft in my hand and stroked him hard while my mind ran wild with images of getting him inside me. I didn’t care that I was a virgin or about the rough bark biting into my back; all I wanted was him. Closer. Deeper. Hotter.

And now, with this man pushed against my body, I felt those erotic pulses pumping through my breasts and between my legs. Those body parts remembered what it was like when Paolo finally took me for the first time a few days later. They remembered the couple hundred times after that, too. The way he tasted on my lips, the way his naked skin felt against mine, the way he moved inside me…

Dakota, we’re talking Paolo. He knows exactly how to play you.
It was true; Paolo knew his power over women and never shied away from using it to his advantage, even with me.

“You dirty bastard. How dare you?” I raised my knee, but he twisted and pushed himself deeper into my body to avoid the blow.

A couple of guys passing by moved to intervene, but Paolo said something—in Italian, of course—to shoo them off. Whatever he said, it worked, too, because they scurried away and wanted nothing to do with our skirmish.

“Get the hell off me!” I barked, trying to twist my arms free.

“You are not going anywhere,” he said with a strangely thick accent, “except outside with the other street dogs.”

Street dogs?
If I’d had a blunt object at that moment, I would have used it. I really would have.

“You’re an asshole, Paolo. And I hope to God you die in a dark, lonely hole, begging for your life!”

Something strange flickered in his eyes. Was it amusement?

“Paolo?” he said. “You—” He laughed toward the ceiling and released me. “You—you think I am Paolo?” His shoulders shook with laughter.

What the hell?
I pulled the hem of my dress down and tried to process.

“Well,” he threw up his hands, still chuckling, “that explains it.”

“Am I missing something?” I seethed.

“
Si
. You,” he stepped in closer, “are missing something very big.”

“Mind elaborating?”

He looked me over. “I may be an asshole, but my brother, Paolo, isn’t worth the shit I took this morning.”

Brother? Paolo?
“Sorry?”

He laughed again. “You are serious? He never told you he has a twin brother?”

Twin brother? What a load of crap! Who the hell does he think he’s fooling?
I’d met identical twins and they were never exact. Something was always slightly different, even if you couldn’t put your finger on it. Maybe a slight difference in the roundness of the face or the pitch and intonation of the voice. This was Paolo. I would bet my life on it.

“First off, Paolo doesn’t have a twin brother.”

“Oh,” he chuckled, “because my brother told you everything. Yes, he is most certainly that sort of guy.”

Perhaps it was possible, but…

“If you’re his brother, then where is Paolo?”

“That asshole? Dead and buried in that hole you just mentioned, for all I know or care. Same goes for you, you crazy bitch.”

I raised my hand to slap him, but quickly found myself slammed against the wall once again. As I glared into those dark, almost feral eyes, the lights strobing on one half of his wickedly handsome face, the throbbing beat of the music all around us, I felt so sure I was gazing into Paolo’s soul.

“Are you going to stand there grinding me all night, Paolo?”

His square, unshaven jaw pulsed with tension, and then his eyes darted down for a fraction of a second, as if he actually felt conflicted about it. But that’s when something shifted inside the depths of his eyes. “You like that?” He pushed his hips forward a bit. “You like my cock?”

I blinked, unable to believe he’d said something so lewd and crude.

He rocked himself into me again. “Let me guess; you fucked Paolo and now you want to have a little taste of Felix. You wouldn’t be the first woman to be into twins.”

My jaw dropped, and he leaned in to whisper into my ear, “I can tell you right now, I’m not like him. I like it rough. And I never play nice.”

“Felix?” said a stern, feminine voice.