Chapter 4

JOVAN'S POV

The worst pain I'd ever felt aside from taking a kick to the balls was getting my head smashed into a wall.

I woke up with a banging headache and it felt as though my head was a bit swollen at the side as I struggled to get off the bed.

A….bed?  Since when did hotel lobbied have…..? Wait!

Just as the pain increased, so did the memories of last night came rushing back. I was in bed with Trisha kissing then the door opened and he……

“For a second there, I thought you had passed on.” A voice in the room said and I turned in the direction.

There he was, the devil himself, twirling a flute of champagne with his leg crossed over the other and a devilish grin on his lips.

“Where am i?” I winced in pain.

Lorenzo took a sip, then replied. “ Your new home.”

Nahhh I know my house and I'm not stupid enough to use bland colors for the interior design.

“What did I tell you? I told you to stay away from Donatella but what did you do?” He rose up to his feet like he had all the time in the world.

“Donatella wants me and last time I checked you're her brother not her boss.” I fired back.

“Really?” He chuckled. “For a man who is in my territory, you sure have guts.” He moved over to the side of the bed and I shifted to the edge of the bed.

“Not only did you meet my sister, you took her on dates, and you had the guts to phone sex her!” The slap came like a gust of wind and it snapped my head to the side.

He'd busted my lips. Lorenzo didn't stop there, he pulled me by my collar, forcing me to stand up to my feet. He was much taller and his breath was hot on my face.

“You know what I like about people like you?” He smirked. “I like how bold you are and I must tell you, that boldness will drag your ass to hell.”

He pushed me back and I lost my balance and fell onto the bed.

“I want to leave.” I said. “I can sue your ass for kidnapping and assault.”

Lorenzo looked at his bodyguards and they laughed. What the hell was funny in what I had just said?

“You can't leave except I want you to and the only way you can leave is if you're on your best behavior.”

“Coming from a man with the worst behavior known to man!”

He shrugged. “You can't command wealth like mine and not step on some toes.”

I rose up to my feet. I was a wealthy man just like him who had people taking orders from him and I was not going to let him go as he pleased.

“I am going to leave.” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “And I dare you to stop me.”

I tried the door anyway because I was not going to sit in a velvet room and be told no by a man who had assaulted me. The door opened, which surprised me, and the two mountains in the corridor did not, and I stood there doing the math on whether I could get past them before they rearranged my face.

The guards wanted to stop me but Lorenzo signalled them to stand down. Only if I knew that I was better off in the room than where I was.

A man, probably six feet, hell seven feet stood at the entrance with his sleeves ripped off. He cracked his neck and it sounded like it was bones breaking.

“Just do as Mr. Lorenzo says,” he curled his hands into fist. One blow and I'm pretty sure I would be toothless at my young age.

I came back inside. I was not going to give him the spectacle of watching me try and fail. I straightened my shirt — still on, shoes gone, which somehow felt more violating than the abduction itself — and I looked at him across the room.

"What do you want from me?" I demanded. “I know you didn't knock me out and brought me here for nothing.”

He crossed the room and stopped close enough that I had to make a choice: step back or hold my ground.

I held my ground. I was not going to give him that either.

"Everything you owe me," he said. “Every quarter and penny.”

His voice up close was quieter than I expected. The kind of voice that didn't need to be loud because the room always went quiet for it.

I stared at him. I ran every interaction I had with a Lorenzo Vael through my head in the four seconds that followed and I came up completely empty, which meant one of two things: either he was operating on a grievance I had no memory of, or this was something else entirely and the grievance was a story he was telling himself.

"I don't know you," I said which was the truth but he quite believed it.

Something moved across his face. Brief, controlled, but there — like a door that opened a crack and shut immediately.

"No," he agreed. "You don't."

He turned away, went back to the chair and sat down and picked up the cigar like I was a meeting he had already concluded, and the dismissal of it — the sheer, breathtaking audacity of being kidnapped and then dismissed — made something ignite at the base of my spine.

"You don't have the right to keep me here,"  I said.

Silence.

"Lorenzo."

He looked up at the sound of his name from my mouth. Something shifted in his expression — almost imperceptible, but I was very good at reading rooms and better at reading men.

"You can't hold me indefinitely. I have people who will notice I'm gone. I have lawyers on four continents. I have—"

"Therapy," he uttered. “You're going to therapy.”

“What?” I stared at him in disbelief. Either he had had too much champagne or he was naturally stupid.

"I've arranged one for you," he continued, completely calm. "Sessions start tomorrow. Non-negotiable."

I stared at him for a full three seconds.

"Therapy?"

He nodded.

"You kidnapped me and now you're sending me to therapy."

"Consider it a courtesy." He gave a mock bow. “And guess what?” He smiled. “I'm your therapist.”

"Go to hell," I said. "Respectfully, go directly to hell, Lorenzo Vael, and take your courtesy with you."

“Well I'd like to take you with me.”