Mafia Heir

Chapter 8

Charlotte

There wasn't a more humbling experience in the entire world than walking down Park Ave on a Friday evening. It was the end of the work week and the sidewalks were flooded with people making their commutes home. No one smiled, no one spoke. In fact, most people just kept their headphones and their eyes down, barreling through the crowd desperate to get wherever it was they were headed. The only time you were even acknowledged was when someone bumped into you and grunted an apology—and that was rare.

I fought my way through the streets until I reached the restaurant where I was meeting Luca. Except when I looked up, it wasn't a restaurant at all. It was a hotel. The Catalonia, to be exact. One of the most renowned hotels in the entire world. This couldn't be right. Had I gotten the address wrong? As I stepped to the side to check the text he sent me, someone bumped into my shoulder.

"Oh, excuse me." I said, startled.

When I looked up, I was met with an icy glare that sent shivers sprawling across my skin. For a brief second, the man made eye contact with me, and his lips pulled into a smug grin. He turned away, ducking into the hotel and disappearing into a crowd of people. The moment between us was over in an instant, but it left me with an uneasy feeling that I couldn't shake. I had been consumed with feelings like this since the break in. Any slight noise at night and I was convinced they were coming back to finish the job. I was always on edge. Always anxious. Maybe it was time to get a dog.

I double checked the address Luca sent me, and sure enough, this was the place. There were three restaurants inside the hotel, but how he wanted me to figure out which one we were meeting at was beyond me. The building stood a towering eighty floors above me, each one peppered with lights from its guestrooms. As long as I lived here, the Catalonia was on my list of places to visit—only so I could say that I had been. There was no way I could actually afford to stay, and I had a feeling that a meal from the restaurant we'd be eating in would cost as much as my car payment. Or more.

Stepping inside, I took my phone out to try to call Luca, but it went straight to voicemail. As I found a seat to wait, I was second-guessing why I had agreed to this at all. If it really was business, like Luca insisted, dinner at a place like this was hardly the venue. Lunch would have been more appropriate. Or even a meeting in my office like normal clients. Nothing about Luca or our situation was normal, though. Something about Luca was hard to ignore, and as much as I would like to admit that I hadn't been pining over him for the last few weeks, that would be a lie.

I had thought about him a lot, but I had forced myself to shove him and his sparkling smile right out of my mind. He was dangerous, that much I knew for sure. And whatever he wanted with me would probably be dangerous, too. Luca was mature and experienced in a way that always made me feel like I wasn't measuring up in his company, and that was new for me. Confidence had never been my problem, but when I was around Luca, I immediately felt inferior. Submissive. Like if he looked at me the right way, there wasn't a thing in this world that I could deny him. The safe choice would have been to decline his order of my paintings and keep the space between us, but it seemed like neither one of us was into the safe option.

My phone pinged with a text from Luca.

Finishing up a meeting. Tell the receptionist your name and he will bring you upstairs. I'll just be a few minutes.

Upstairs? Like the hotel rooms? What kind of business did he think we were meeting about?

Reluctantly, I walked to the front desk.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" He looked less than enthused.

"Yes, my name is Charlotte,.. I'm here to meet Luca Catalano... about some paintings." A hot rush of blood filled my cheeks. Luca seemed like the type of guy who had a whole bevy of women meeting with him and I didn't want the man to mistake why I was here.