Bellissimo Fortuna (Beautiful Fortune) Read Online Free PDF Page B

waiting on me were clues things hadn’t gone well with her father last night. “Why didn’t you call me?”
    “I just went to bed,” she lies to me.
    “Bullshit, Callie. Try again.” She doesn’t deny the lie she told, but she doesn’t answer me, either. I pull the car into the first parking lot I come to and stare at her. She is averting her gaze, staring at the empty space around us. “Turn around.” She doesn’t, and I’m fighting my frustration with her.
    I get out of the car and walk to her side, opening her door, and before she turns her head, I see the red mark that mars her skin. Holding her head in place gently, I study the cut on her temple. I try to control my breathing, but by her wide eyes show she is frightened, and that guts me. “Sweetheart, don’t be afraid of me.”
    “I-I’m not,” she stutters.
    “You look like it. You know I’m not him. But, you have to tell me what happened.”
    She shakes her head. Denying me the information I need, my mind is running rampant with scenarios, and all are ending with me killing the bastard that laid a hand on her. I tilt her head back, staring in her eyes, and let her see the concern in me.
    “He was waiting. With Marco.” I close my eyes, tamping down my temper. She stops talking, and I know I have to gain some semblance of composure.
    “Go on. Tell me everything.”
    “Bronson, you can’t say anything to him. Please, it will make it worse, and he is still my father. He can forbid me to see you.”
    “Over my dead body, Callie.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of.” I bark out a bitter laugh.
    “You know he can’t touch me.”
    “But he can make it difficult for us until I’m eighteen.” Fuck, she has a point.
    “Tell me. I need to know.”
    “They were drinking. He’s angry, but I don’t know why. I tried to explain it to him, and he lost it. He threw his glass, and it shattered. The pieces happened to scratch me.”
    I lean down and press my lips against the mark on her skin, breathing in her scent, trying to think, to do what’s right, only I don’t know what that is. My instinct is to buckle her up, go back to my house, and forbid her to leave . . . dare anyone to take her from me. I know that can’t happen. Just because I made my intentions known, her dad can still pull the age card, and he won’t be going against the rules, just delaying them. All reason is gone when it comes to her, which makes it dangerous. “Anything else? Do you have any more injuries?”
    She holds up her arms, and I see a few tiny scabs, most likely from the glass. In that moment, I count my blessings she didn’t hide them, that she trusts me. I know in time she will turn to me for everything she needs, all her desires and wants . . . I will own them and provide them for her. For now, I have to keep her safe and her dad pacified. No easy feat. I don’t know this man’s agenda, but I do know the next few years will be hell, and I have to play his game; there can only be one winner, and I don’t doubt for a second that it will be me. I take a few breaths to try and calm my racing heart and the heat raging through my body.
    “Bronson, don’t go to your dad about this. Please?” If she had asked me anything else but that, I would have agreed. I can’t justify not stepping in, protecting her, and the only person I know that I trust with her is my dad.
    “I can’t make you that promise. I need to do something, anything to stop this from happening again. Damn it, he could have really harmed you last night? Don’t you see that?” I keep thinking of what might have happened. If the glass had hit her, or a piece had cut her vein . . . my head is swimming with the need to shelter her.
    “It will only make it worse, you know that.” I do, but I’m willing to hope it may stop it for a while, to buy us some time. “Bronson, listen to me.” The hitch in her voice, the pleading of her tone, it’s enough to deter me.
    “For now, I promise. That’s