Page 6 of Beautiful Disaster

“Blue eyes. Defiant, yet scared eyes,” he says, instantly dropping his hand. “And still, you gave in so effortlessly. You try to hide and fight, but you’re completely submissive to me. Interesting.” He scans my face again, processing… something. “Or is it fear that holds you? You wear both on your face. Huh. Unexpected. Could it be?”

I gape at him. “H-how…”

“For what I do on the side, I have to… Let’s just say I have to be good at reading people. Damn, it’s been a long time, though.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” I snap, quickly losing patience, while still reeling from my reaction to him.

“What’s your name?” he asks instead, his tone softer, his face now relaxed and curious.

“Jinx.”

“Your real name.”

“I’ll give you my real name on my fucking dead body.”

He nods, and his eyes twinkle. “Okay, Jinx. And how old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Hmm, a little young. A lot younger.” The man eases back and brushes imaginary lint off his black peacoat. “Too bad.”

“Too bad? Too bad for what? I assure you, I’m enough for, for… things.” God, I almost blurted out my past. Fuck, who is this guy?

The man regards me for a moment before he relaxes. “I’ll consider it.”

“Consider what, dammit?”

He takes the crumpled business card still in my tight fist, reaches into his coat to pull out a pen, and jots something on the back. “Here’s my direct number. Call me if you want something different in your life.”

“Different?”

“Structure. Discipline. Confidence. Trust. Freedom. You tell me.”

I swallow, take the proffered card, and shove it into my pocket. “Can’t. No phone.” I attempt to be a dick, but my words come out like a pathetic whine.

His grin stretches across his face. “That wasn’t a no. God, I love being right.”

I have to admit that I’m now more curious than afraid or angry.

He digs in his wallet again and pulls out several hundred-dollar bills. “This should cover the repairs to your phone.”

“Psh, you could’ve given me that earlier and saved us both the hassle.”

He chuckles as he puts away his wallet. “Then I wouldn’t have met you, Jinx. This is going to be fun.”

A noise draws our attention away. One of the store’s employees is loading up the back of a shiny black pickup truck.

“I have to go now. Call me when you’re ready.”

He walks off, but I call out to him. “Wait! Who are you?”

He looks over his shoulder and winks. “Mason Vitali.”

Hot name for a hot guy.

No, not hot. Not anything but an arrogant asshole.

I have no idea what just happened, and I’m still rattled. I pull out the card and read it: Mason Vitali, owner of Ristorante Vitali. Shit, we’ve eaten there before. It’s a popular, fancy Italian restaurant chain throughout Colorado that serves traditional, farm-to-table Italian dishes. They’re known to locally source their ingredients from smaller farms.