For Angelo (Full-Length Standalone Italian Billionaire Romance) (7 page)

“If y-you say so.” That look he gave Josh wasn’t exactly easy to forget, it had been downright terrifying. “But…are you feeling fine now?” He wasn’t breathing so hard anymore, but —
 

She bit her lip, her anxiety returning.
 

One couldn’t be too sure…right?

“Maybe we should get you to a doctor—”

Angelo was exasperated and amused, but underneath that he was reluctantly touched at her concern. She looked like she was ready to call 911 for him.

“If there’s anything I need right now—”

Relieved that she’d be able to do something to help, she asked eagerly, “What is it? I’ll get it—”

“It’s you,” he said simply.

“Okay, I’ll get—what did you say?”

“I need you.” His hands on her waist tightened. “I want you to stay here with me.”
 

Had…she…really…heard…him…
right?

Lane slowly coughed. “Did you just, umm, say—”

He only looked at her.
 

Oh. Gosh. Gosh, oh gosh.
Lane was impossibly overwhelmed. She couldn’t have heard him say that. She must be dreaming—

His lips twitched. “Tesoro?” She looked up, uncertain if he was talking to her, and he said,
 
“You can touch me if you think it would help you believe this is real.”

Gosh.

Oh gosh.

GOSH.

Only Angelo Valencia
, she thought dazedly. Only Angelo Valencia could definitely get away with saying something so provocative—

Behind them, Josh said plaintively, “The bus is coming, Lane. We should go.”

She was about to answer, but then she saw the way Angelo’s eyes flickered so oddly. “What is it?”

“Lane, the bus is here.” The bus’ rumbling engine as it slowed to a stop partially drowned his words.

Angelo was staring at her like he was seeing her first the time.
“Lane.”

Entranced at the way he said her name like it was magical, she breathed in the same tone, “Angelo,” thinking all the while that maybe this was an Italian thing between lovers or would-be lovers.

“Lane—”

She was right. It was an Italian thing. So she repeated obediently, “
Angelo
.” Didn’t Italians love opera? Maybe this was some kind of custom and they’d break into a duet—

“
Lane.
I never knew your name until now.”

Again, she echoed his words, “I never knew—” Then his words sank in, and she gasped. “
You don’t know my name?”

“Lane, we really should go now,” Josh called desperately behind them.

She and Angelo paid him no heed.

“How is that even possible?” She was genuinely confused. She was one of his students, for heaven’s sake.

“It doesn’t matter.” Faint color slashed his high-boned cheeks.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or feel insulted. “Not knowing my name doesn’t matter?”

“No.” Before she could protest, he drawled, “Because I can always call you ‘mine,’ can’t I?”

Gosh. Gosh, oh gosh.

Silver eyes gleamed down at her with a mix of amusement and possessiveness. “And you’re mine…aren’t you?”

Lane’s first instinct was to throw her arms wide open and shout to the world,
‘Yes.’
Oh, how she would love to belong to him.

But she remembered the people who loved her, who painstakingly helped piece her back together again, and she knew she just couldn’t say ‘yes’ to him just like that, knew she owed it to her family to value herself a little more.
 

“If you want me to be yours, then why did you stand me up?”
 

Josh squeaked behind her.
 

When Angelo didn’t answer, she continued, “Why did it seem like you were avoiding me?” She knew he might think she was mad, but she wasn’t. She just wanted him to prove to her that her faith in him wasn’t misplaced.
 

“Why, Angelo? Why didn’t you even try talking to me again? And why,” she asked haltingly, and this was the most painful of all, “would someone so terribly old-fashioned like you be suddenly so touchy-feely with
that
model?”

“I can answer all that.”

His tone was flat, and yet she could sense there was a ‘but’—

“But first…”

She was right.

“I’m going to kill that boy for daring to lie—” He released her and took a dangerous step towards…

“I’m sorry,” Josh yelled even as he backed away and kept himself out of reach from the other man. Oh, shit, Angelo Valencia made him want to piss in fear.
 

Lane had turned around to look at him, asking, “What’s he saying, Josh?”

He paled. He wanted to lie, unable to bear what Lane would think if she found out what he had done. But then he took a look at the other man’s face—

Josh gulped. Heartbreak was better than being six feet under.

“He’s saying I lied to him,” Josh said dully, “and he’s right.”

****

Angelo watched Lane finally stop waving as the bus carrying the convenience store boy sped away. He remembered the pitiful, forlorn look on the boy’s face as he stared at
his
Lane from his window seat, and Angelo had the rare urge to do something as childish as roll his eyes.

The boy was lucky
, he thought grimly, Angelo had allowed him to leave town without blacking both his eyes out.
 

Beside him, Lane bent to pick up her bag from the ground and he automatically murmured, “Let me carry that for you.” As he took the bag, he said quietly, “You know he’s in love with you, right?”

Lane cringed at the question. “I wish I had known sooner,” she admitted. Because now, everything that used to puzzle her about Josh was finally making sense, and she couldn’t help feeling guilty at how dense she had been.

“I saw you kiss him,” Angelo said abruptly. He knew he was being pretty callous about it, but he simply wanted to get it over with.

Her eyes flew to him in horror. “You did?” She shook her head hastily. “I mean, you saw him try to—”

“Don’t lie,” he snapped.

“But I’m not lying,” she protested. “I had something in my eye, and he was laughing because I was being such a baby about it. He told me to close my eyes, then somehow he lost his balance—
oh.
” She paled. “He was trying to kiss me, wasn’t he?”

Angelo was torn between wanting to have his security go after the convenience store boy…and shaking the girl in front of him until maybe all her screws were in their proper places.

He said tensely, “Be honest with me, tesoro. I am no boy you need to lie to.
Did he kiss you
?”

She looked straight into his eyes. “No. He didn’t get to kiss me.”

Relief flooded him.

“I’ve never been kissed at all actually.”

Angelo sucked his breath. “
Dio, tesoro.”
Did she have to tell him that…now? Did she not realize how her words made Angelo literally ache to teach her all about kissing?

Lane started chewing on her lip, her anxiety evident.
 

“What is it?”

“Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe he really did lose his balance—”

“Are you kidding?” he exclaimed incredulously. “It’s the oldest trick in the book,
tesoro!
He was a coward, si? He did not have the guts to let you know of his feelings and so he tried to do that, so he would not be rejected.”
 

“I guess, but—”

“You guess?”
He had a greater urge to shake her now.

“It’s just so weird. I’m not the kind of person that guys have secret crushes on, you know what I mean?”

No, he didn’t, but clearly she was not being coy. She truly was that naïve about men.

“May I ask you a question?” He strove to sound polite.
 

Feeling like she was suddenly treading on thin ice, she said uncertainly, “Umm…okay?”

He took a deep breath, working hard to rein in the urge to murder her friend. “Would it please you to see me behind bars?”

She gasped, “Gosh, no! Oh, not at all!”

“Then you should know that it is certain to happen,” he said calmly, “if I ever find you in a situation where another man is able to accidentally kiss you.” He clasped her face. “So to avoid such an incident, from now on, I will be the only man in your life. Si?”

She bit her lip. “But I have male friends…”

“And they can still be your friends,” he said generously, “but you are not to allow them within three feet of you.”

“Umm—”

He released her face. “I will not, however, force you to obey me. Just be warned that we Italians are an incredibly possessive race, prone to violence when we feel we have been slighted—”

Paling again, she said quickly, “I agree.”

He smiled. “I knew you would see it my way,
tesoro
.”
 

She smiled back at him. Everything seemed right with the world whenever Angelo Valencia smiled at her like that.

But then his smile faded. “Now that you know I thought I saw the two of you kissing, you have the answers to your questions earlier.”

Oh.

“Him lying about the two of you going out stopped me from speaking with you, but my hunger for you did not abate. However, being confronted – or the thought that I was being confronted by your feelings for each other—”

She looked up at him, eyes wide.

Angelo only needed to take one look at her face to know what she was about to say, and he forestalled her immediately, saying, “And so that’s that.” His tone warned her from saying anything else.

The warning fell on deaf ears.
 

“Oh, Angelo,” she breathed.

He winced.

“It means—”

“Whatever you think it means, it is best to keep it to yourself.”

“—you were jealous!”

He scowled.

“Like a lovesick boy,” she continued dreamily.

At the same time, he dreamt of shutting her up.

“Angelo Valencia III, jealous!” She sighed. “Oh.”

Deciding to get the ball back in his court, Angelo said unevenly, “Yes. I was jealous. Is the thought amusing? Does it make you happy to know you have made me feel that way?”

Her eyes flew open at his tone, and when she saw the disappointment in his gaze, she gasped, realizing she had hurt him. “Angelo—”

“I never thought you’d be the type to…” He slowly shook his head.

Appalled at the thought that she had somehow hurt him, she scrambled to apologize, “I’m so sorry, Angelo. If it means anything, I was jealous, too.
Extremely
jealous,” she said feelingly. “You even made me feel depressed—”

“Is that true?”

“Yes,” she said fervently.

“But you could have dated other men to forget me—”

“No,” she denied right away. “That’s not possible.”

“Because I’m the only man for you?”

“Oh, yes—” She stopped. Wait a minute. Something wasn’t right here. Her gaze narrowed at his face, and Angelo gazed back at her innocently.

Yeah right!

“You were faking the entire time,” she cried out.

His teeth flashed in a grin, and then he was laughing.
 

“Sadist!” But his smile was so beautiful and infectious it was impossible not to laugh with him.

“That’s what I am,” he agreed easily.

“I knew it!” Her lips pursed in mock disappointment. “I had a feeling about you, from the very start.”