Page 15 of Ruled By Wizard

“I can be cool.”

Marco gave her a disbelieving look and bit his lip.

“I promise I’ll remain calm,” she assured him, emerging from behind the desk. “I’ve already forgotten about it.”

Taking Marco by the arm, she started guiding him toward the door.

“My padre could teach him a lesson. He is also a dangerous man.”

Natalia almost rolled her eyes. Antonio was the least dangerous man she knew. Compared to Wizard, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

“I’m sure he is,” she managed with a straight face. “I just prefer to fight this battle on my own.”

Marco balked at leaving the office. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you. Perhaps I should have spoken privately to Rocco instead.”

“No!”

Forcing herself to lower her voice, Natalia gave him a reassuring smile. “I certainly don’t want Rocco involved. He’s still on probation, and he would expect your father to quit working for The Last Riders. Arden said it was a large construction job and that Antonio was thrilled to rehire some of the workers he’d been forced to lay off when new contracts stopped coming in.”

“That is true …” Conflicting emotions crossed Marco’s face as he struggled to decide what he should do.

“I can fight my own battles, Marco. I have been doing it for a long time,” Natalia told him reassuringly. “I can handle Wizard without resorting to bloodshed or involving Rocco.”

“If you need our help—”

“You and your father will be the first people I ask.” The lie fell easily from her lips.

Finally satisfied that she wouldn’t go off the deep end—as she normally did—Marco left to take his position at the front of the restaurant.

Natalia softly closed the door behind him then leaned against it. She needed a few more minutes alone before returning to the kitchen. Wizard had already caused her to ruin one tray of rolls that day. She wasn’t going to let him cost her anything else.

She didn’t know what infuriated her more: that he was willing to share her or that he was so confident she would succumb to him. She had never given him any indication that she was attracted to him.

His certainty gave her pause.

She was attracted to him, but she would rather burn off her left nipple than let Wizard discover that damning fact.

He exuded a challenging sexual allure that any woman in her right mind would avoid. Whenever their eyes met, her body tightened with desire. Her sexual side wanted to discover whether he could fulfill the promise she saw in his gaze. Together in bed, they could become an inferno—one capable of destroying everything she had worked so hard to achieve.

The fact that Wizard had bet he could persuade her to have sex with him and two other men proved he was exactly the type of man she had believed him to be—one who cared nothing for women beyond satisfying his own sexual desires.

That he had escaped retribution for his attitude was obvious. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bragged about winning the bet in front of his friends.

Her Italian blood demanded that she take Wizard down a peg or two. For once, where he was concerned, she wasn’t going to tell herself no.

CHAPTER 5

FREE BEER

Groaning at the sound of the alarm on his nightstand, Wizard pretended not to hear it until the grating noise got on his nerves. Slapping it off, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stared groggily around the room.

Sunlight crept through the sides of the tarp that provided the only barrier between him and the great outdoors.

Yawning, he tried to remember when his life had become hell. He searched through the fog in his mind for several minutes before remembering that expanding his room had been his own bright idea. He’d wanted to turn it into something resembling an apartment instead of a room where he could fuck his life away.

Yeah, it wasn’t the brightest idea he’d ever had.

Scratching his chest, Wizard turned his head at the soft snore coming from the bed behind him.