For Angelo (Full-Length Standalone Italian Billionaire Romance) (21 page)

“She must be very understanding if she doesn’t care about the parties.”

“It’s not like that between us,” he said finally. “We’re taking things a day at a time. That’s all.”

“I see.” Dylan eyed his friend curiously, wondering if Angelo knew just how unconvincing he sounded. A man who was simply taking things one day at a time shouldn’t care about another man waving hi at his woman. Did his friend know that?

Pretending he didn’t notice the contemplative way the rockstar was studying him, Angelo changed the subject, asking, “Will your band make it tonight?”

Dylan nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I came here for, actually. I wanted to see what kind of setup we’d have.”

Angelo nodded, knowing how meticulous Minuit Rouge was with their every performance. “I’ll accompany you to the basement.” He paused.

Dylan’s lips twitched. “Go on, say goodbye to your girl.”

Angelo decided not to dignify that with an answer.

Lane straightened when she saw Angelo heading her way. “Is something wrong?” she asked anxiously right away, noticing the frown marring his forehead.

“No, nothing. I just need to accompany Dylan to the basement.” He paused. “Will you be fine if I leave you with Fico and Umberto for a while?”

Oh. “I know you don’t believe me, and I know you have a reason not to because of what happened the first night, but I
swear,
fainting isn’t an everyday thing with me.”

“Of course.”
 

Lane bit her lip, knowing that Angelo was only being polite. It was clear in his gaze he was still unconvinced. Taking a deep breath, she said, “You’ve never asked me why I want to attend to your parties.”

“Because you’re jealous,” he answered promptly.

She winced. “That’s true, but that’s not the
only
reason, or even the most important one.”

“Enlighten me then.”

“I want to be a part of your life,” she said simply.
 

Dylan took one look at Angelo’s face when his friend came back and said sympathetically, “That bad?”

It was only when they were clearly out of the girl’s earshot did Angelo speak, but it was not at all what the rockstar expected.

“Lane has a certified phobia of rich people.”

Dylan blinked. That was definitely one for the books as well.

“But she tells me she wants to attend tonight’s party.” Angelo shoved his hands in his trousers’ pockets. “If you were in my position, would you let her?”

As they turned the corner and took the stairs leading to the basement, Dylan said slowly, “It depends why she wants to go.”

“According to Lane, it’s because—” Angelo’s tone took a self-mocking note. “—it’s a part of my life.”

Ah. Dylan glanced at his friend. “You do know what that means, don’t you?”

Angelo frowned. “What?”

The rockstar halted in his tracks. “You clearly don’t.” He shook his head, thinking that Angelo reminded him too much of his old self. “She loves you—”

That word again,
Angelo thought.

He said mildly, “Have I mentioned that we’ve only—” He paused, needing to search for the proper word to describe what he had with Lane. “—we’ve only started seeing each other a few days ago?”

But Dylan only shrugged. “Bree knew she loved me the first time we met. I didn’t, but I already knew she was special, even back then.” He looked at his friend. “So you tell me, man. Is she special to you?”

Angelo’s lips tightened.
 

And that
, Dylan thought,
was his answer
,
and whether Angelo knew or not was immaterial.
“Just out of curiosity,” Dylan murmured, “how do you stop her from going to your party anyway? You had one last night, right? Do you tell someone at the gates not to let her in?”

“She lives here.”

Dylan was stunned. “I see.”
 

“And if I don’t want her to go to the party, I lock her up.”

“
And she lets you
?” When Angelo only looked at him, Dylan’s eyes widened in understanding. That innocent-looking girl was a masochist?

He clapped his hand over Angelo’s back. “You lucky bastard.”

Angelo was bemused. “Lucky for what?”

“For finding the one you’ve been looking for years,” Dylan answered easily. “She’s your perfect match, man. So if she wants to go to your party, I say let her, and she might surprise you.”

Chapter Thirteen

“This is such a bad idea,” Julieta said direly for the fifth time in the past twenty minutes. Granted, it wasn’t as bad as the time Signor V locked Lane in her room and stood her up, but—

It was still bad.

Feeling sick to her stomach at the look on her friend’s face, Lane protested, “You’re making things worse.”
 

Julieta stared stonily at her friend, who for once did not look like she had been styled by a blind, man-hating prude. In her pretty silk dress, Lane’s beauty was actually allowed to shine, her dark curls tumbling down her bare back, her brown eyes made bigger and deeper by her mascara.

It was just too bad Lane could only see her date through security cameras.

The thought made Lane’s scowl worsen.
 

Damn you, Angelo Valencia.

“Can’t you just smile,” Lane begged. “Please?”

Julieta bared her teeth.

“Umm, never mind.” Lane nervously shifted in her seat, using her feet to swivel her chair from left to right. The guards normally manning the mansion’s control room had been temporarily reassigned, allowing Julieta and Lane to view tonight’s party in private.

Twelve sixty-four-inch screens were mounted on the wall in rows of four. They showed every section of the house, with the camera in the receiving area revealing Angelo standing tall and gorgeous in a dark suit while he spoke with his secretary.

Hopeless,
Julieta thought as she watched Lane sigh like a lovesick fool at TV-version-Angelo.

Lane suddenly shot up in her seat, exclaiming nervously, “The gates are starting to open!”
 

And so they were
, she thought darkly, which meant tonight’s party had officially begun.

She crossed her arms over her chest, and thought for the nth time,
This is such a bad idea.
 

Limousines, sports cars, and high-end SUVs filled the driveway, offloading their passengers one by one.
 

Her first glimpse of the kind of guests that Angelo welcomed had her sighing in relief.
Oh my gosh, thank you.
She closed her eyes in brief prayer.

Everyone looked so decent, like A-list celebrities dressed for the Oscars, chatting lightly and laughing with each other. A magnificent red carpet had been rolled out on the stairway, and the guests followed the trail until they reached the basement, which had been set up tonight to resemble an Egyptian courtroom.

Masks covered in gold dust were handed to the guests, and everyone –
everyone –
murmured their thanks with warm smiles.

“They’re all so polite,” Lane marveled. She had nothing to worry about, after all.

Realizing that the other had been deceived by the guests’ glamorous appearance, Julieta started to tell Lane the truth but changed her mind the last second.

Chi ama me, ama il mio cane,
Julieta thought.
Love me, love my dog,
and like it or not, all of this was now an integral part of who Angelo Valencia was.
 

Julieta didn’t really like it, but then she didn’t have to.

She wasn’t the one in love with her boss.

Several long tables had been set up in the basement, layers of gold and blue silk covering their surfaces. The dinnerware was a mix of porcelain plates and black utensils, complemented by miniature Sphinx centerpieces.

“The staff did a great job, didn’t they?” Lane beamed proudly.
 

“Yup,” Julieta said unhappily. The world-famous band, Minuit Rouge, had come up on stage, and as they began to play, Julieta knew their music officially signaled the start of the party’s first phase of revelry.

Dylan started to sing, and the guests clapped enthusiastically.

Oh, joy.
Julieta quickly crossed herself, hoping God would understand that she was not a willful accomplice of Angelo Valencia.

Julieta was staring hard at the screen. Try as she might, she just couldn’t figure out what was wrong in the picture, but her instincts told her that she was missing something. With Angelo supervising backstage for Dylan and his band members, she knew she had nothing to worry about on that front – for now.

But was this really it?

His party was more like a political fundraiser, so what was so dangerous—

A strange sound reached her, and she jerked in her seat.
 

Surely, that wasn’t—

She strained her ears, but when she couldn’t hear anything, she pressed the rewind button.

Lane listened harder.

And there it was!

Her eyes widened. It had been a moan, coming from the pretty blonde seated at the end of Table 4. Why was she moaning? And if she had managed to hear it, shouldn’t the others have heard it, too?

She replayed the scene and slowed it down as well, and this time, everything became clear.

The blonde’s date was doing something to her under the table—

Something like—

Oh my gosh, he was making her come!

Her gaze flew to Julieta.

At Lane’s horrified gaze, the other girl said flatly, “That’s Phase 1. See no evil.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a challenge for the couples to make out or even have sex, just as long as no one sees what they’re doing.”

Her gaze flew back to the screen. “You mean…everyone’s doing it under the table?”

Julieta pointed to a vacant seat. “See that? Her boyfriend’s under the table, giving her the time of her life.”

“What?”

“Yup.”

“But why would they agree—”

“Because,” Julieta said patiently, “it’s what they both want.”
 

As Julieta’s gaze bored through her, the penny finally dropped, and Lane realized that all the couples in the basement were sadists and masochists like Angelo…and her.

She gulped.

And this was the party she wanted to attend?

This was what she was fighting to be a part of?

An hour passed, and Lane was confused to see a new set of guests arrive while most of the first batch of guests left together with the band. “What’s happening?” The few guests who were staying went back up to the receiving area and put on their masks.

“This is the party’s second phase,” Julieta informed her.
 

“And that means…what?” Staff started distributing masks by the door, and the second batch of guests put them on right away, as polite and charming as the first set.

Seeing Lane’s expression of wonder, Julieta explained, “Signor V is strict about how the staff is to be treated. Anyone playing the diva or acting like a shithead is immediately blacklisted.” She flashed Lane an evil grin. “
Permanently
.”

Oh.
No wonder everyone was being so nice.

As the guests enjoyed cocktails in Angelo’s receiving area, the staff quickly went to work in the basement, clearing out the tables and replacing them with chaise lounges, love seats, and sofa beds, all of them also designed with Egyptian accents.

All of those were big enough to fit couples
, Lane thought, and she felt her stomach drop at the realization.

Staff radioed that the basement party were ready, and Lane’s eyes widened when tuxedo-clad men and women in black gowns seemingly appeared out of nowhere in the receiving area. Weaving so gracefully through the crowd it was almost like they were dancing, they ushered the guests efficiently to the red carpet without making it seem like they were in a hurry to do so.