Dangerous Beauty: Part Four: Beautifully Broken (45 page)

“I said no.” Reanna was not a damsel. She could handle this. “Kyle is busy. He has a lot going on at work. I’m not going to be the
‘pain in his ass’
type fiancée. I’m strong. I can fight my own battles.”

“But why?” Ronaldo shrugged, coming up to stand next to her as they waited to walk across a busy street. “Why fight your own battles when you don’t have to anymore, bubbles? For once, let somebody take care of shit for you.”

She shook her head. “Because I don’t need it. I’m fine,” she assured him. “He’s only calling. If it gets too annoying, then I’ll turn off my phone.”

She would have turned it off a long time ago, but she was picking up the kids from school today—Sofi and her cousins. Carter was supposed to call her and alert her about an hour before the cars were supposed to come and pick her up, take her to get the kids, then take them all to S.O.

This was actually the part of the day she most anticipated. She’d missed the kids so much.

“Whatever,” Ronaldo muttered, recapturing her attention. “I’m just saying that calling Kyle would make the damn calls from
abusive Braden
stop for good.”

Reanna frowned at his words, shaking her head emphatically. “Stop that, Ron. Braden isn’t abusive.”

Ronaldo snorted.

“He isn’t,” Reanna defended. “He’s a good man; a kind, charitable doctor. I made him act the way he did.” And that fact made her feel like shit. “I cheated on him right after he took me out on those lovely dates, after he confessed his love for me. He’s hurt, and it’s my fault.”

“Reanna, shut your
pushover ass up,” he snapped, making her flinch at his tone. “He ain’t had no good reason to talk to you the way he did, and I don’t care who you fucked.”

Reanna gasped. “Ronaldo, shh …” She held on to his arm, looking around them at all the nosey folks pretending to not stare at them. “People are listening.”

“I know,” he shrugged, “and I don’t give a damn, Rea. What I do care about is you, though. And I don’t give a damn what you did, ol' dude ain’t had no right coming up into your establishment and disrespecting you like that, period.”

Reanna’s features tightened as she turned away from Ronaldo. Yes, she knew he was right. Reanna was notorious for putting other’s feelings before her own, but in this situation was she not the wrong one? Yes, she was.

“I still don’t know how to tell Aniyah,” she said softly, taking Ronaldo’s hand when he reached out for hers, then lead her safely across the street.

Ronaldo didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he continued their journey until they reached their destination. They’d walked all the way from the studio to Tamara’s Manhattan store, which wasn’t that far, before Ronaldo finally stopped—once they’d gotten inside—turned to face her, and answered her question quick and simple.

“Don’t tell her.”

Don’t tell her?

Reanna’s brows rose in question. “Ummm, she’s my friend.”

Ronaldo chuckled. “No she isn’t, Rea. You done fucked that up. You may as well cut out the damn drama and let Kyle handle that for you as well.”

Seriously!

“What the hell is wrong with you, Ron? Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life now? Every time I come to you as a friend to ask for your help, your advice on how to handle something, you’re just going to tell me to go running to Kyle?”

“Yep,” he answered with a straight face, nodding his head up and down. “You’re damn right I will.”

Reanna blinked, her mouth agape. “That’s crazy.”

He frowned, smacking his lips slightly. “No it’s not. He’s your man, bubbles. Trust me,” he chuckled, “he wants to do this shit for you. Men like to be needed.”

She rolled her eyes. “Everybody likes to be needed in some way. That still doesn’t justify being needy.”

“You’re not needy.”

“Exactly!” she argued, trying to get her point across. “I’m not needy, so why the hell would you expect me to depend on Kyle to handle all of my dirty work?”

“’Cause he’s better at getting dirty.”

She groaned. He was impossible. “I’m not trying to be dirty, Ron. I just need to be honest with her. And I can do that
without
Kyle.”

Giving a flamboyant smack of his lips, and a dramatic roll of his eyes, Ronaldo crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, whatchu gon’ do then, Miss Independent?” He made a sharp ‘come on’ motion with his hand. “Tell me. What’s your big idea …
‘Oh I’m so sorry, Aniyah. I didn’t mean to fall in love with your boyfriend—oh, oh no, please don’t slap me’
.” Standing still and looking her up and down after his horrible impression of her, Ronaldo pursed his lips, obviously waiting for her to answer.

Dramatically blinking her eyes all the while giving him a striking look of disgust, Reanna smacked her lips right back at his ass. “
That
was horrible.”

He shook his head. “No it wasn’t.”

“It sounded
nothing
like me.” She was not whiny, and she’d move before she let anyone hit her … that is if she could get out of the way fast enough. She wasn’t really much of a boxer—which didn’t matter anyway because nobody was going to hit her. “Aniyah is not going to hit me, Ron. She wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t know what you think this is, bitch. That hoe is gonna hit cha’.”

“No she’s not.”

“Yes, heifer, she will.” He held up one finger. “You stole her man.” Two. “Said man is fine as fuck.” Three. “He’s powerful.” Four. “He’s a damn billionaire.” And Five. “He knows how to hit it right.” He gave a loud clap of his hands. “Now you tell me again, that after this bitch put in almost two years of her time with this man—that you
stole
and
are marrying
—why the hell she ain’t gonna slap you.”

He waited, and waited, and waited some more until Reanna just sighed, dropping her shoulders forward.

“Shit,” she cried. “She’s gonna hit me.”

How am I going to train for a fight when I have so much to do today?
She was going to get her ass kicked.

Looking stupid as ever with a big, fat, smug smile on his face, Ronaldo shrugged his shoulders. “Like I said, hoe. Call your fine ass gangster fiancé and tell him to handle it for you.”

“Fiancé?”

It was seriously the first time the sound of her sister’s voice made her jump out of her damn skin.

“Mara!” Reanna exclaimed, surprised by her sudden presence.

Her brows rose. “You’re jumpy again,” she said softly, a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes pulling at her lips.

Okay, maybe it was the second time Tamara’s voice had made her jump out of her skin.

“Hey girl!” Ronaldo greeted, skipping over to give Tamara a hug.

Once he moved out of her way, Reanna looked to her sister with bright, wide eyes.

Smiling a bit too big, she chuckled nervously. “Mara,” she sang, walking up to her little sister with her arms outstretched, “did you miss me?”

She accepted her hug, but Reanna noticed the lack of enthusiasm in the way she embraced her.

“Of course I did,” she answered, pulling back from the embrace. “But it sounds like you had a great time.”

Feigning ignorance at the words, Reanna shook her head. “W-what?”

“Who’s engaged, Rea?”

And yes, Reanna’s heart did stop. Judging by the way her sister had asked the question, Reanna could clearly see Ronaldo had actually been right this time.

Tamara was not going to be happy about the engagement …

Long day … too long. It was dragging as if for the sole purpose of torturing him, of keeping him away from his ladybug, from Reanna … Speaking of Reanna.

Why the hell hasn’t Reanna called me yet?

She had texted not too long ago, but only to confirm that she’d be picking up the kids. And after Kyle had finally finished handpicking the team he wanted to protect his beloved and his perfect little lady bug, he’d expected a call from her, hoping that she’d missed him as much as he missed her. But still nothing—no call, not even another text. Reanna had gone silent, and though Kyle wanted to call her himself to find out why, he hadn’t gotten the chance to yet. Every time he thought he had a moment of down time, something came up; either a call, or an impromptu meeting. It was irritating. Especially since his main focus was still on whether Reanna was having a good day or not. A woman newly engaged didn’t usually go this long without contacting her fiancé, did she?

Kyle wasn’t sure, but he was beginning to worry. Maybe her day wasn’t going too well, or maybe she was waiting on him to call her—

“Valente, are you busy?”

The sound of his office door opening suddenly caught his attention, pulling him from his thoughts.

Davina Delavigne …

Kyle had been expecting her.

Quickly straightening in his seat, attempting to refocus his thoughts on work for now, Kyle smiled and motioned for the woman to enter the room.

“I’m free. What’s going on?”

There were a million different things that the woman could possibly want to talk to him about, and each issue was highly critical. He needed to focus. He’d call Reanna after this, or maybe he’d instruct his men to bring both her and Sofia by the office after Sofia got out of school.

When Davina entered the office, Kyle gave the woman a smile, knowing that she’d roll her eyes at him in return. It was her usual response when he smiled at her, so he hadn’t expected anything different.

As usual, the lovely Ms. Davina was dressed in her work attire. Much like Carter, the woman preferred the simple, yet professional pencil skirt look. She’d paired her knee-length skirt with an off-white, elbow-length blouse, and a very gorgeous pair of black pumps. She was definitely an enticing sight with beautiful, straight, shoulder-length hair; even her black glasses were sinfully sexy. Had Kyle not been as gone over his new fiancée—the stunningly perfect, Reanna Pierce … who, in his opinion, was the sexiest woman he’d ever laid eyes on—he’d have been putting more than a few of his old moves on Ms. Delavigne right now. But no. Surprisingly, since the day he’d met her, Kyle did not think of Davina as anything more than a colleague and dear friend.

Plus
, there was also the fact that Davina Delavigne was taken. She didn’t know she was, but she was. Not only was she taken, but she’d been claimed by one of the craziest motherfuckers in the Salerno Organization, and every man knew it, too. It was actually pretty funny to Kyle. Not one man—both in, and associated with S.O.—would ever approach her for fear of feeling the wrath of the man whom she belonged to.

Lucca Salerno.

“I finally figured out who the Bonaduccis have on their side,” she said, a slight smile on her lips as she entered his office, closing the door behind her. “I almost thought I never would, but I know who they aligned with.”

Kyle nodded, knowing that whatever she found was probably big, seeing as she made the trip up to the twenty-seventh floor. Though they were good friends, Davina rarely came upstairs, or rarely even spoke unless she was either working, or someone engaged in conversation with her. She and Kyle had only gotten to know each other because they both worked late often, and one evening, they’d decided to eat dinner in the middle of the office together. Kyle had had some extra food, and decided to not be a dick and offer her some. It had taken a lot of prompting, but Kyle rarely failed at charming his way into even the darkest of hearts. Now Davina adored him … much to Lucca’s dissatisfaction.

The woman still rarely spoke to Lucca, unless she was telling him to shut up, which was actually the reason why Lucca often blew up in her presence—just to have a chance to talk to the woman.

Kyle wanted to laugh at that, but he resisted. Fucking Salernos. For crazy motherfuckers, the giant bastards were the biggest lovesick saps Kyle knew.

“The Medici family, Gambino, and they are currently wooing Pascatorre.” She walked into the room and took a seat on the large couch on the opposite side of his office. She chuckled softly then crossed her legs. “Do you believe that?” she asked, her own expression suggesting she thought it was bullshit. “Pascatorre basically begged to be in Nathan’s inner circle, now they say he may turn his back on him? I’m finding that hard to believe.”

“Wooing him, huh?” Kyle asked, reaching forward to grab his mug of hot coffee. There was never a time when he needed it more than now. “I don’t think so. We’ll have to check into that claim a little deeper. Pascatorre is devoted to Nathan, he’d never betray him.”

She nodded. “Which is why I went to him and inquired about the Bonaducci clan. Guess what he did?”

“Told you everything?”

She smiled. “Everything he knew, then once again pledged his devotion to Nathan and the Salerno Organization, saying that he’d meant to give the information sooner, but Nathan is a hard man to reach.”

“Unacceptable,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “He and Nathan need to meet face-to-face about this. I’ll set the meeting myself.”

“I agree,” she nodded, “we can’t lose Pascatorre.”

“He’s too valuable of an associate.” He motioned for her to move forward. “Give me more. Anything else?”