His mouth flattened. “I told you not to mess with Franco or his crowd.”
“I wasn’t. I was avoiding him. Then Evangelina went off to talk to someone and he just swooped in.”
“What did he say to you?”
She frowned. “Something just seemed off in the way he was looking at me. I told him I wanted to go, but he wouldn’t let me... He started touching me. He said it wasn’t a crime to look at another man’s wife. That—” her chin dipped “—you were a smug bastard who should learn to share.”
Black heat shimmered in his eyes. “He said that?”
“Sì.” Her stomach clenched at the sudden stillness in his tall, lean body. “I’m sure it was all, what do you Americans call it? Bravado?” she said hurriedly. “That I was overreacting. I—I saw Silvio in my head. I went back to the night he hit me and I froze. I told myself to walk away, to come find you, but my legs wouldn’t work.”
The aggression in his gaze softened. “It’s common for a person put into a threatening situation to freeze. To shut down.” He shook his head. “It’s my fault. I should never have left you alone with this crowd.”
He wrapped his fingers around hers. “Let’s go.”
She followed him out of the tent. Balked when he headed toward the exit. “I don’t want to ruin your evening. I’ve already caused enough problems between you and Franco.”
“Franco and I already had issues. And you did not cause that scene. Franco did.” He put a hand to her back and propelled her through the crowd. “I was coming to find you to leave.”
The lights of Capri glimmered around them as they rode the glass elevator up to their penthouse suite. She started to feel silly as she studied Nate’s grim face. She had totally overreacted. Franco hadn’t really been a threat. He’d been trying to push Nate’s buttons. Hers. And she had let him.
Nate was probably wondering what in Dio’s name he’d signed on for with her.
“You okay?”
She sighed. “I feel like you’re always rescuing me. You must think I’m some kind of damsel in distress who can’t take care of herself.”
He shook his head. “This was my fault tonight, Mina.”
“No. It’s just—” She bit her lip. “I’m not normally like this.”
“What are you normally like?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Self-sufficient. Strong. I was eight when I was sent to that boarding school in France. I didn’t speak the language. I was brutally lonely. I learned to be a survivor.”
“You are,” he pointed out. “You could have allowed yourself to be a victim with Silvio. You could have married him and suffered a lifetime of abuse. But you didn’t. That took guts.”
She nodded. It’s just that she hated that person she’d been tonight. Hated everything being so out of her control. That she couldn’t seem to trust her instincts anymore.
“You’ve had your life turned upside down over the past forty-eight hours, Mina.” Nate rested his gaze on her face. “Cut yourself some slack. You need to honor your fear as well as put it behind you when you’re ready.”
He was right. She knew that.
“Have you ever considered taking martial arts?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure it’s my thing.”
“You should consider it. It’s very empowering for a woman to learn how to defend herself.”
“Do you do it?”
He nodded. “Karate.”
“How good are you?”
“A black belt. But you don’t have to be skilled to defend yourself. You just need to know the basics.”
“That’s very impressive,” she told him as he guided her off the elevator and into the penthouse. Also sexy.
He undid his jacket and shrugged it off. “I grew up in a rough neighborhood. I needed to protect myself. There were two ways to do that—with weapons or as your own personal weapon. I eventually chose karate.”
“Eventually?”
His dark lashes fanned down over his cheeks. “I had a few iffy years before I made that choice.”
She absorbed that piece of new information. She’d imagined being a Di Sione or half of one would have meant being brought up in luxury. The fact that he hadn’t had an entitled upbringing seemed to better reflect the man. The uncivilized edge beneath the veneer Franco had taken one look at tonight and walked away from.
He threw her a glance as he loosened his tie and undid the top couple of buttons of his shirt. “So? I could sign you up for some classes at my gym in New York.”
“I don’t know,” she said dubiously. “I’m not a very physical person.”
“You’re a gladiator, remember?”
Not much of one tonight.
“I can show you how you would have gotten out of that situation with Silvio if that would make you feel better.”
Her brow creased. “How? He’s far bigger than me.”
“If you knew self-defense, you could have. Show me what happened that night. I’ll teach you a couple of simple self-defense techniques.”
“Now?”
He gave her an amused look. “Now.”
She chewed on her lip. The desire to take back control, to wipe the fear from her head, was too strong to resist. “Sì. Please show me.”
He nodded. “Tell me what happened that night.”
“We were in my mother’s salon. I had just poured Silvio a drink. He was angry with me for telling him I had cold feet about the marriage. He—he grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward him and started kissing me. I was...surprised. He hadn’t been aggressive with me before. The kiss—it started to get...intimo.” Her gaze dropped away from his. “I didn’t like it so I tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let me go. Then he hit me across the face.”
Nate stepped toward her. “Show me how close you were to him.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“I need to know how far apart you were. How much room you had to maneuver. That determines what self-defense techniques you use.”
“Oh.” She thought back. “We were very close.”
“Like this?” He took her wrist and pulled her to him. The brush of his tall strong body against hers sent heat rushing to her cheeks. Every nerve ending in her body flickered to life, making her so utterly aware of him she could hardly look at him.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she murmured.
“Show me, Mina.”
“We were closer than this.”
“How close?”
She stepped into him until every centimeter of their bodies were touching from chest to knee. Her breasts brushed against his chest, her hips rested in the cradle of his, and Dio mio, this was not good. He was too overwhelmingly male. And she was having the opposite reaction to him than she’d had to Silvio.
“Where were his arms?”
“One was on my waist—well lower,” she corrected hesitantly. “The other, I don’t remember.”
Nate