Sold To Mr. Milano - Daniella Wright Page 0,38

I knew he was recalling the state of raging madness I had been in from the moment he picked me up from the Mendozas.

“How would you behave if you were being held against your will?” I argued, responding to thoughts he hadn’t said out loud. “I was a free woman when you found me in that market. I knew what I was doing. You really had no right to buy me like that. Nor should anyone have the right to buy any human being like a slave. And now...I’m stuck here. Away from my home and my father.”

My breath quickened as he stepped closer, erasing the gap between us. He wrapped his hands around my arms and demanded that I look deep into his eyes.

“I promise I will take you home,” he said earnestly. “I didn’t have a plan when I snatched you up at the market, and I haven’t ever since. But I don’t have the time or energy to keep someone like you under constant watch, always worrying about what you’ll do next. I’ll just have to take the risk of whatever you’ll say to your father about me and where you’ve been.”

I didn’t expect him to give in so easily, but my heart swelled with the promise of going home. “When?” I asked impatiently.

“We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

I would have cried if he wasn’t standing so close and watching me so carefully. As I fought back my happy tears of relief, I found myself getting lost in his dark eyes. I didn’t want to admit it, but there was more to him than I thought. Which only made things even more confusing...If he did care enough about me to rescue me and promise to take me home, why had he left me alone in that dark, cold hell hole after I gave into him?

“Why did you leave me last night?” I asked finally, afraid of what he might say next.

His voice dropped to a low rasp. “Maybe...because...you scare me.”

I knew it pained him to admit it just as much as it pained me to consider another side to him. Maybe he wasn’t the evil Alberto Milano I had grown up believing in. Or maybe he was, but there was more to him as well. Perhaps he could be both good and bad. Was such a thing even possible? My father and I had only ever believed in black and white facts. There was right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. To consider that someone could be on both sides of anything was hard to fathom.

But I didn’t have much time to consider any of that too deeply. Alberto’s eyes stayed locked on mine and soon he was closing his eyes and slowly sweeping his lips over mine. It was far softer than anything he had shown me the night before. It was dangerously sweet and I quickly found myself not caring if Alberto was good or bad. No truly evil man could kiss like that.

He pulled away just enough to speak. The sexy scratch of his voice struck me in my core, almost enough that I missed what he was actually saying. Almost.

“You see...I do have my ways of making you talk. You just told me everything I wanted to know. I found your weak spot.”

He smirked, and I felt a rush of renewed rage pulse through my veins with a fury. Had all of it been just to make me talk!? Surely, he wasn’t that clever and calculating...Enough to have sex with me and then lure me off on this walk just to get me to confess everything.

I felt stupid for doubting his wickedness for even a second. I didn’t know which one of us I was angrier with, but I didn’t care. My hand reared back, and I wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face. I flattened my palm and thrust it towards his cheek, intent on wiping that smug little expression away.

But his hand shot forward and caught my wrist in a tight grip. With that, his mouth lunged back to mine and somehow, once again, I didn’t care about any of it anymore. There was no good or bad or anything to confess. I forgot about feeling duped or which one of us had lied to the other more to get what we wanted. There was only me and him and the feeling of our lips and tongues intertwining.

I melted against him and opened my mouth