Not Mine to Keep: Chapter 1

Nashville, Tennessee

“You know, you might be the only person in all of Tennessee that’s ever had to look up this song.” A sexy southern voice flew over my shoulder from where I stood by the cash bar at a fundraising event.

“You caught me.” I smirked and swiped the music-identifier app closed to pocket my phone. Curious to see if this woman’s face matched her sultry tone, I turned her way.

“Whiskey on the rocks, please,” she ordered. “Make that Tennessee whiskey,” she emphasized, busting my balls for not knowing this apparently famous song.

Eye contact now made, and well, damn. A quick, flirty wink from her did something unexpected to me. Something that never happened unless I was on a stair-climber or hunting a bad guy: my pulse kicked up.

I lost sight of those light-green eyes when the bartender slid over her drink. “It’s on the house, Calliope.”

The fucking flirt. Not that I wouldn’t have done the same if I were a twentysomething bartender, but also, why’d he know her name?

She leaned my way to snatch a napkin from the stack near where my left hand sat on the bar, and I couldn’t help but inhale her sexy scent.

“Pardon.” Her pinkie brushed against mine, and she pulled away. A vision of those sparkly silver manicured nails biting into my back pounded into my head.

Yeah, I needed this woman. In my arms. Tonight. Well, once I dealt with the reason I’d been summoned there in the first place.

“And for you?” I assumed the bartender was talking to me, not that I’d yet ripped my focus from the woman.

“Clase Azul Ultra. Chilled,” I ordered.

“But that’s—”

“I know.” I cut him off before he warned me of the high price. “It’s fine.”

“Good taste in tequila. But a work in progress in your music preferences,” this beautiful woman surprised me by saying, one side of her lips hitching a touch as she swished the liquid around in her glass, our eyes locking once again.

I reached into my back pocket for my wallet, snatched four hundreds to cover the drink and a tip, then slid the bills onto the counter. “Work in progress, hmm?” I let the words pour out as slowly as the bartender was filling a glass with two ounces of tequila.

Her face was so breathtakingly beautiful that when she lifted her shoulder, it was the first time I allowed my eyes to travel south of her chin. It was normally a woman’s body I paid attention to first.

Sex. No intimacy. No fucking strings. That was all I made time for in my life. I was bored. Bored to death, lately, when it came to dating.

But bored was the last thing in the world I was, standing before this woman wrapped in a dress straight from a fairy tale my late sister would’ve loved. It was a match in color to her shimmery nails and had a deep V that gave me the perfect hint of cleavage without the whole show.

At my height of six-one, even with her in heels, she was still a few inches shorter than me.

“Do you plan to answer what felt like a slight insult?” I finally broke the silence that was marinating between us like one of my chef brother’s meals at his restaurant in Charlotte.

“When your eyes make it to my face, I’ll give you my words.”

Oh, this woman was smooth.

Music started playing from somewhere in the room. I think. And people were talking all around us. Well, I’m pretty sure they are. But the only sound, the only voice, I cared to focus on was Calliope’s. Because Little Miss Tennessee Whiskey had my undivided attention right now.

I met her gaze while accepting the drink from the bartender, contemplating doing the classic charm shit I did back home in New York. Not that I ever really had to do much in the way of trying to win women over. They knew I was a Costa and dubbed one of New York City’s top five wealthiest and most eligible bachelors. Of course, I had plans to be a bachelor until I met my expiration date.

“My apologies,” I began. “It’s not every day a woman tongue-ties me.”

A soft laugh from her dusted all over me, giving me chills, forcing me to check my glass to ensure I hadn’t been drugged given my odd reaction to her, but then I remembered I’d yet to take a drink.

“So you find me funny.” Swirling the glass so the spirit coated it, I took a sniff from the bottom lip, then inhaled it again before taking a sip. The tequila sat on my tongue, then I swallowed hard.

“Only as humorous as not recognizing an iconic song by Chris Stapleton.” Another wink from her, God help me. When had a wink from a woman ever made me feel, well, anything? “At least you had enough good sense to want to learn it.”

Mmm. I had enough good sense to know this wasn’t a woman I’d be walking away from tonight.

“Is it that obvious I’m not from around here?” I stepped away from the counter at the realization the bartender was too keenly tuned in to our conversation.

She followed me over to one of the high-top tables a decent distance away from the bartender’s continued scrutiny. “You’re not quite Mr. City Slicker. And I’m betting you go to these types of events all the time.” That teasing, sexy tone, and the way her tongue skirted the line of her lips, had me forgetting I was a city boy. “But yes, you stand out.” She indulged me with a smile. “In a sea of other rich people, I can still tell you’re not from around here.” She flipped her long, wavy blonde hair to her back as she gave me a slight nod.

I exhaled and counted back from three while reminding myself that although my little sister, Izzy, liked to joke my superpower was making women fall in love with me with just one look, I was never the one to become mesmerized.

And yet here I was, captivated by Little Miss Tennessee Whiskey. A.k.a. Calliope. A.k.a. mine.

“Maybe it’s your eyes. Something about them makes me—”

“Never seen gray eyes, Calliope?” My turn to tease, to drop my tone a bit lower. Lay on my charm. Channel my superpower. Because for one night, yeah, I wanted this woman to love me. Well, in the bedroom.

“Callie,” she rasped instead, her gaze flitting to the bartender as if putting two and two together on how I knew her name. “That’s what everyone calls me.”

“Except the bartender,” I blurted.

Her green eyes, rimmed in dark liner, narrowed on me. “We’re friends,” she whispered without breaking eye contact. The woman could beat me in a staring contest, which was saying a lot. I’d won quite a few bucks in middle school from staring down assholes who challenged me.

“He wants to be more than friends,” I said as casually as possible. “He used your given name like a term of endearment.” A quick pause before I couldn’t help but be blunt. “And men aren’t friends with women like you without hoping for more one day.”

A curious eyebrow lifted. “I think there was a compliment buried in there. But I guess you could say we’re more like . . . work friends.”

Her decision to clarify and ease any potential concerns I had about Wonder Boy over there as he did a trick with the shaker had me taking a step closer, and I discreetly inhaled her perfume.

“We play together,” she murmured.

“Play?” The word rolled from my mouth almost in slow motion, and I eased back to afford us both more breathing room.

Red inched up her tan throat and moved into her cheeks, and she followed the hot path with her free hand. I didn’t take her for a blusher, given how she’d initiated the conversation with me tonight. But there it was. “Sorry, I mean music. We jam together.”

This had my attention. Not that she’d ever lost it. “You’re a musician?”

“No,” she said with a chuckle. “A teacher, actually.”

“Music teacher, then?”

She closed her eyes and tipped her face as if feeling the sunlight wash over her instead of the chandelier lights overhead. “No, high school history. I wouldn’t begin to know how to teach music. It’s just . . . part of me, if that makes sense.” She opened her eyes and added, “Music is my hobby. Side-gig thing.”

The woman had such an innocent, ethereal look about her. Gorgeous eyes. A nose with the slightest lift that wasn’t overpowering, and wrinkled in a cute way when she smiled or laughed. Soft cheekbones. Luscious lips that’d be even more sinful once swollen from kissing.

She was elegance and grace all packaged inside that sparkly dress, and I was more than likely the antithesis to her.

I also had no clue to her age. Twenty-three? Twenty-eight? I couldn’t tell. But I had a hard limit of twenty-five as the youngest I’d sleep with, so I hoped she was closer to the latter. Thirty-five or older with no desire for kids or a husband was preferable when it came to the women I took to bed.

I probably should have walked away. But I didn’t. In fact, I stayed glued in place when she tossed out, “Not that you’d know about side gigs.”

Those light-colored eyes flew over my simple black suit as I continued to study her, and she went ahead and studied me right back.

No tie tonight. Not my style. Just a plain black shirt beneath the jacket. Custom-made in Italy. Brioni, one of my preferred designers.

“What you’re wearing probably costs more than I make in a month. And my guess, your car back home is worth more than I’ll ever save up in this lifetime and the next,” she rambled, as if trying to explain why I wouldn’t know a thing or two about side gigs.

When her eyes zeroed in on my crotch, my dick decided to twitch in greeting; those long lashes of hers flitted a few times before she lifted her almond-shaped eyes to mine.

But also, it sure felt like she was suggesting my fancy car and clothes (her judgments of me . . . all accurate) were an overcompensation for something (not accurate, because my dick was not in the lacking department).

I’d happily reassure her she was wrong if I opted to be an asshole and invited her to my hotel room later.

“I actually have a side gig.” I sipped more of the tequila. “You could call it volunteer work, I suppose.” Since I work cases for free. “And I sure as hell hope you make more in a month than my suit costs, because you’re being grossly underpaid if that’s not the case.”

“How much is the suit?” She finished her drink and set it on the table already cluttered with abandoned champagne flutes.

I rid myself of my glass as well, deciding I wanted my hands available in case I needed to . . . what? Ask her to dance? Take her hand and lead her to the balcony I’d noticed earlier and tell her how I was a playboy prick (not my words, but you know, they’d been thrown my way a time or fifty) when it came to women?

“I don’t know.” I faked a light cough, suddenly feeling weird about being rich when it was normally one reason women flocked to me. “Maybe ten.”

“Thousand?” She gave me an honest-to-God hearty laugh, then topped it off with a hand to her abdomen. “Yeah, that’s three times what I clear in a month.”

“Well, that’s not funny at all. That’s fucking awful.”

“You’re right, that’s not funny. But the fact you thought I made over a hundred K a year is.” She licked her lips.

Why? Why’d you do that? Fucking A. Those lips would look spectacular wrapped around my cock.

“Anyway, I’m performing a song with the cover band tonight. For free, but hey,” she said while slapping a hand over my shoulder, “I’m accepting tips.”

We stared at each other for a moment before she turned to the stage full of instruments. And fuck if I didn’t want her hand back on me, but she rested her palm over her breastbone instead, and I couldn’t help but wonder what she’d be playing.

“Well, I should probably go. I needed some liquid courage to play in front of a crowd like this.”

I wasn’t prepared for her to leave, even if I could feel my phone blowing up in my pocket. I knew it wasn’t my burner, which meant it was one of my brothers or my sister calling, not the man who’d beckoned me to the event.

“I just realized . . . I didn’t get your name.”

“That’s because I didn’t give it.” I frowned, not a fan of my own response. It felt like a dick thing I’d say back in New York. Correction: it was a dick thing I’d said in New York. I muttered a pathetic apology. “I’m sorry—it’s Alessandro.”

She gave me an uncertain look, deciding whether she wanted to place my name in her memory bank or forget the entire conversation, given my first response to her moments before. “Why are you here?”

The curveball of a question threw me off, and I pocketed my hands, sending the next call to voicemail with a quick touch of a button. “I was dragged here by an old acquaintance.”

“Not a fan of charities where money is raised for our veterans?” Two quick, appalled steps back from me had me realizing my fatal error in speech yet again. Her gaze flicked to the sign that had a marine’s name on it: Michael Maddox. It was his and his wife’s event. They held fundraiser-type things all over the East Coast a few times a year. His way of paying it forward—a little different from mine.

“Not like that. In fact, I’m a veteran myself.” That was probably a curveball right back at her. “It was a long time ago. Army.” I felt the need to offer her a reason not to walk away from me. I never used my time in the military to try and bed a woman—it wouldn’t work in the circles I ran in—but something told me she’d have more respect for that than the size of my bank account.

“Well, thank you for your service. Even though you don’t want to be here, please consider writing a big check since you can clearly afford it. It’s for a good cause, after all.” She gave me a light, dismissive nod.

Shit. I’d failed to win her back over.

But then narrowed eyes greeted me as her arms folded over her chest, accentuating her breasts, and I did my best not to focus on the swell of her flesh. “Where are you from? Your accent . . . It’s faint, but there.”

Why’d it now feel like I was on the stand in a murder trial, and I was Suspect Number One in her eyes? I lifted my hands from my pockets as someone from the stage called out her name, but she didn’t look his way as she waited for my answer.

“Sicily. Moved here when I was eight,” I answered, my tone dropping lower as I finished my words, catching a slight wince of disapproval from her.

“You’re Sicilian?” Her voice rose in surprise.

“I consider myself American after being here thirty-one years and serving in the military, but yes, technically speaking.” Why was she so put off by that? The color that’d been in her cheeks was gone.

Her gaze flicked away from me, and I followed her eyes to a man in a dark suit fifty feet away who looked like a security guard trying to blend in.

When she opted to look at me again, that disapproval had morphed into fear. “He sent you, didn’t he? You’re another one of his . . . people, aren’t you?”

“Who sent me?” What in the hell was she talking about?

“My father,” was all she managed before a guitar player from the stage yelled at her, now on approach. He snatched her arm, and I sneered at his grasp, feeling the ridiculous urge to break every one of his fingers.

“Sorry,” she said to him. “I’m coming.”

I watched her walk away, and she shot me a quick backward glance before ascending the steps to the stage.

A guitar was handed to her, and she looped the strap over her shoulder before standing at a microphone next to the band’s lead performer.

I looked around in search of the mystery man in the suit who’d been watching her before. He now had his back to one of the pillars with a plate of food in hand, casually observing the stage.

Who’s your father? And why in hell would you think he sent me here?

I reached for my burner while waiting for the band to start, unsure what to think. Nothing from the man who’d summoned me yet. I swapped that phone for my personal one. I’d gone all day without being bothered by my family because it’d been off, but I’d forgotten I had powered it back on to identify the name of that song at the bar.

I opened the group text with my brothers and sister: Constantine, Enzo, and Izzy.

Izzy: Why are you in Nashville? And why aren’t you answering our calls?

I groaned, casting a quick look at the stage, and when the band started to play, I realized if I wanted to preserve my hearing, I’d best back up from the nearby speakers.

Me: Did you track me?

Izzy: Wouldn’t need to if you told us where you were or answered a call.

Me: I have a thing.

Enzo: In Nashville? What kind of thing?

I couldn’t answer that because they’d lose their minds if they found out who’d forced me to attend this event.

Me: I’m at a fundraiser for veterans. Owed someone here a favor. Plan to make a large donation.

I peered at the one wall of displayed items that were open for bids. I wasn’t sure what I’d be buying, but I was a man of my word, so yeah, I’d be making a big-ass donation. At least it wasn’t the kind of bidding that had landed Maddox married back in the day—winning a date or something like that. Or so the story went.

Me: I have to go. Stop tracking me.

Constantine: Stop ghosting us then.

Me: Clearly the intern you must be dating that’s half your age is rubbing off on you . . . I mean . . . ghosting? Really? That or you’ve been watching a little too much of the clock app.

Constantine: I don’t screw around with our interns, and you know that. And I don’t do social media, so I have no clue what you’re talking about. But given how often you wind up with your photo online, if I were you . . .

He left me to fill in the dots. Typical Constantine.

Me: Maybe you need to be screwing someone instead of worrying about where I’m at. wink emoji

I liked to ruffle my older brother’s feathers. I couldn’t help it. Even if I was nearly in the same age bracket of over-the-hill forty as him.

Me: I need to go. It’s impolite to be texting while at a charity event.

Enzo: Fine. But I’ll have the little jet on standby (since you took the bigger one) in case you need to be bailed out for doing God knows what while down there.

Izzy: Maybe he’s there for a girl.

Enzo: Alessandro wouldn’t even travel to another borough in NY for a girl. You think he’d fly to TN for one?

And my younger brother loved to give me as much grief as I gave Constantine. It was the circle of life, I supposed.

Me: Goodbyeeee.

I turned off my phone so they couldn’t bug me anymore and focused on the band. Well, on Callie softly singing behind the lead singer; her fingers moving perfectly over the strings of her guitar. A true pro, from the looks of it.

When our eyes met, she boldly stared back at me, and the playful, teasing looks she’d given me when I’d only been a stranger in a suit were gone. Unable to handle the sight, my attention settled on her hand as she flicked the strings. No . . . fingered? Stroked?

I needed my late sister, Bianca, who’d been a writer and basically a human thesaurus; she’d tell me the word I was trying to think of, as well as make fun of me for sounding like a sex-starved teenager hoping to get laid for the first time. Fingering the strings should not have popped into my mind while watching her strum the guitar. Fuck, even strum still sounded sexual to me right now. What was this woman doing to me?

Before I could contemplate writing a quick check, then ditching the plans to meet up with the man who’d sent me the invite—along with his demand to show up, or else—my burner rang. About fucking time.

I forced myself to walk away from Callie and took Gabriel’s call outside on the balcony. “Where are you?” I nearly barked out.

“Not there.”

“That’s obvious. Why am I here, though?” But really, why? I massaged my temple with my free hand as I went over to the railing, taking in the view of the river.

“I need to hire your secret little security firm that you and your family run on the side.”

At his words, my arm fell and I bowed my head. “You’re out of your mind.” And apparently, our firm’s existence was no longer a secret to criminals. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad.

“It’s a long-term gig. Three months. Maybe six,” he went on. His Italian accent would have stood out way more than mine had he been the one talking to Callie.

“Are you high? What’s wrong with you?” Realizing the song was coming to an end, I faced the main room. “There’s no way in hell my family would—”

“You’re indebted to me, Alessandro. You owe me a favor.” He repeated his words in Italian, as if trying to nail in his point.

A debt was a debt. Even when it came to a criminal. And this criminal was my former childhood best friend, so the lines were murky as fuck. The man had saved not only my life years ago but also Constantine’s while he’d been on a mission for the US government (a story for another day). Two lives saved in my world really meant two favors, so I was lucky he’d only demanded one from me “when the time comes.” And now was that time.

Ensuring no one was within earshot, I hissed, “No kidnapping. No killing good people. And anything else that’d send my soul to hell will be a hard no as well.”

He laughed. “My friend, your soul is already heading there. But maybe this is your chance to redeem yourself.”

“We haven’t been friends in decades.”

“Don’t you wonder what would’ve happened had you stayed here instead of moving to America?”

Gabriel was one of those guys you wanted to hate, but he made it damn difficult, because he’d been the one to take the punches for me when I was bullied and Constantine wasn’t around to do it. He was also the guy who’d give you the shirt off his own back so you didn’t freeze. But he was a bad guy now. He’d chosen the dark side. He’d made the choice, and I had to drill that into my damn head.

“What do you want?” I was done with the back-and-forth.

“I told you, I want to hire you. I need your help taking down Armani DiMaggio.”

My stomach dropped, and a chill flew down my back despite the warm May air. “The head of the most powerful criminal organization in Italy?” I swallowed the knot in my throat and added, “And . . . your boss.”

“Sì,” was all he gave me.

I closed my eyes and sighed. “And how do you propose I do that?”

“By marrying his daughter.”

“Come again?” My eyes snapped open, and that chill turned into an ice storm in my veins.

“I’ve been watching you on the cameras, and I believe you’ve already made her acquaintance.”

The band was now playing a new song, but she was no longer there. “Calliope,” I said under my breath, putting it together.

“No man can resist a siren like her, and that woman drew you straight to her. And now, if you want to save her, you’ll need to make her your wife.”