Page 40 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
“Try to sound less devastated.”
“I am adjusting.”
“To what?”
“To how much trouble you’re going to cause me in that dress.”
The compliment lands before I can dodge it.
I turn toward the dresser and reach for the earrings because doing something with my hands is better than standing there while he watches me like that. “You picked it.”
“I did.”
“So any trouble caused by the dress is legally entrapment.”
“You are using that word incorrectly.”
“I’m using many words incorrectly tonight. It’s part of the act.”
He crosses the room behind me, silent on the carpet. I see him in the mirror before I feel him, which doesn’t help as much as it should. His suit is black, his shirt white, his tie dark enough to disappear beneath the jacket. No visible weapon. No unnecessary jewelry. No effort to prove power.
That makes him look more dangerous, not less.
He stops behind me and reaches for the clasp near my throat.
I go still.
“It’s crooked,” he says.
“It is not.”
“It is.”
His fingers skim the back of my neck as he adjusts the necklace I didn’t ask him to touch. The contact is quick. Barely anything. Skin against skin, the graze of his knuckle beneath the line of my hair, the heat of him at my back.
My breath catches.
Not enough for most men to notice.
Stefano notices.
His eyes lift to mine in the mirror. “Careful, Maya.”
I hate my name in his mouth. I hate that it doesn’t sound like a warning when it absolutely should.
“I know how to work undercover.”
“Yes.”
“I know how to play a role.”
“Yes.”
“I know how to let men think what I want them to think.”
His thumb rests for half a second against the pulse at the side of my neck before he steps back. “Then tonight should be simple.”
It won’t be.
