“Oh, I had you investigated. Very thoroughly.” He took a seat in the chair opposite her, undoing the button on his jacket as he did, and suddenly several members of staff seemed to materialize out of nowhere. “We will have what the chef recommends,” he said.
The staff melted into obscurity after that and Rocco turned his full attention to her, his dark eyes blazing with a kind of sharpness that seemed to cut through her. It was disconcerting to say the least.
A new waitress, one she had not seen before, set her white wine down in front of her. Charity grasped the stem, needing something to keep her hands busy.
“Hopefully that pairs well with the meal,” he said, looking pointedly at her drink.
“I will say, that is not my primary concern at this point.”
“It is always a primary concern of mine. I appreciate life’s luxuries. Good food paired with good wine, good Scotch and beautiful women. Which, I must say, Ms. Wyatt, you are.” He practically purred the last bit of his sentence, the roughness in the words rippling over her skin, making her break out in goose bumps.
What was wrong with her? She didn’t play this game. Didn’t go for flirtations and teases. She always had to keep her wits sharp, and that meant no melting around sexy men.
“I suppose I should say thank you, but I’m not going to. Because I feel like you’re only putting off the inevitable conversation we must have.”
“Perhaps I am,” he said. “They serve very good food here. I should hate to spoil the meal.”
Charity looked to the left and noticed a table full of upscale Manhattanite women staring at them. Likely wondering what a woman like Charity was doing with a man like Rocco. Just as those women read upper class from their perfectly coiffed hair down to the tips of their designer shoes, Charity read low-class pretender. Even a couture dress couldn’t fix that. She had all the hallmarks of a woman who was here on her dining partner’s dime.
She knew these things because her father had made a study of the upper class. Had learned their every mannerism, in order to inveigle his way into their midst. All the better to steal their money.
Charity hadn’t spent much time playing those parts. Especially when she’d been young, her function in her father’s schemes had been to play the part of wide-eyed ragamuffin. A downtrodden innocent who desperately needed help.
It was the role she would be reprising tonight. And while she wouldn’t thank her dad for abandoning her to face the music alone, she would thank him, albeit silently, for giving her the tools to fix the broken mess he’d left.
“The meal was spoiled for me before I came,” she said, injecting a healthy bit of conviction into her tone.
Rocco didn’t seem moved by it. He extended his hand, brushing her cheekbone with the back of his knuckles. She was so shocked, all she could do was sit frozen, a flash of heat radiating from her cheek downward. She looked at the table of women again, saw their sneers and looked down at her wine.
Of course they assumed she was a call girl. Sitting there in that dress in the afternoon. Either a call girl or a kept woman, although there were few differences. They thought they were better than her. Because they were born with what she couldn’t even earn.
But she was used to that.
“Come now. I do not want a difficult lunch partner.”
“You knew people would think this,” she said, her voice low, vibrating with manufactured emotion. “You knew they would think I was your...whore.” She made sure to meet his gaze. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
She nearly cringed at that overbaked line. But she was having a very easy time accessing this justified rage. She almost believed that she was nothing more than a wronged innocent. Almost.
He moved his hand back to her, and caught her chin with his thumb and forefinger, holding her face steady. And suddenly all her false anger was forgotten. “But, cara mia, that is what you are. You are here because I have offered you something. You are here because I’ve offered you a deal. And, do not forget, I bought everything you are wearing.”
He was a horror. Nothing seemed to shake him up. He was heartless. Which might be problematic.
She jerked out of his hold, and he lowered his hand. “Just tell me what you want.”
The waitstaff appeared again, placing food in front of them, and Charity’s stomach turned. She needed this to be over, soon. The longer this stretched out, the less likely he was to bend.
Rocco had no such issues with the meal. He ate slowly, in silence, relishing each bite. The minute stretching out longer, every second a torture. She didn’t want to say too much, and she really didn’t want to say too little. He seemed fine sitting in silence, letting her feeling of being a mouse caught in a trap intensify beneath the study of his dark gaze.
Worse, the longer he looked at her, the more acutely aware she became of the feeling of the soft, expensive lingerie that was beneath her dress. It was something about the way he looked at her. The fact that he knew.
She could see it in his eyes. That he knew exactly what she was wearing, and that he knew what she might look like in the items he had sent.
He was looking at her as if she was a possession, as if he owned her already.
And the fact was, he might. The longer she sat there, the longer she’d had to fully understand her potential fate and the circumstances she found herself in. She didn’t know what he would demand of her yet. But she knew the alternative.
Yet another thing he had accomplished by bringing her here. He highlighted the difference in their stations.
She was a waitress; she was a woman. Her ties to criminal activity were irrefutable, though she had never once been arrested. Her father was gone with the money he had taken from Amari Corporation, and he likely wouldn’t resurface even if Charity were brought to trial. Actually, if Charity were brought to trial he would be less likely to surface than ever. Because Nolan Wyatt would not stick his neck on the chopping block for anyone. Not even his only daughter. Not when it was between a life of luxury—albeit a temporary one—or life in prison.
Charity would be made the example. She would be brought to court, a scarlet woman who had stolen from a man who worked hard for his money. And she would go to jail. She could see it playing out now.
But he was prepared to offer her a deal. One that would mean avoiding jail.
Realistically, she wasn’t sure she could turn it down no matter what it was.
Even if it was the worst.
In that moment she hated herself for being such a coward. For entertaining the idea of selling herself in exchange for avoiding time spent in prison. But she was afraid. Jail was the big bad. Growing up, the law had been a terrifying prospect, men in uniform the enemy.
It was a fear that was bred so deeply into her that just thinking about it now made her break out into a cold sweat. She was afraid of the unknown, and while both options she was entertaining in her mind were unknown, one would be over much faster.
You don’t know that’s what he wants.
No, she didn’t know. But he had sent lingerie, and that said an awful lot.
And she wasn’t naive about men. Her father was a liar and a manipulator. And both in word and by example, he’d taught her how to identify other liars and manipulators. Charity wasn’t naive about anyone or their motivations.
She liked to be prepared for the worst. And in this case... Well, in this case it meant that Rocco had dressed her for the job he intended her to perform.
Another waiter appeared as soon as Rocco had cleaned his plate. “Dessert, Mr. Amari?”
“No—” the words left Charity’s mouth before she could