I walk over to Pepper, squat down to pet her. I don’t look at him when I answer. “Because I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“When I call you, you answer.”

“Doesn’t work that way.” I say, standing, spinning on my heel. I’m about to walk away when he captures my wrist, his grip firm, more firm than he’s ever been with me. I make a sound, try to pull free, but he tugs on my arm, kicks my feet out from under me so I fall face down onto his lap. “What are you—”

He slaps my ass hard ten times in succession.

I’m gasping, instinctively reaching back to cover the spot. He captures my wrist, so he has both now, and holds them in one of his hands. I crane my neck to look up at him. He keeps his eyes locked on mine and rubs one hand over my ass, then spanks it again, ten more times on the other cheek.

“Stop!” It fucking hurts.

“When I call you, you answer, Natalie.”

I tug at my arms, but his grip is vice-like.

“Do you understand?” he asks.

“Let me go.”

“Do you fucking understand?”

“Yes!”

He gives me one more hard smack before releasing me, and I stumble to my feet. I feel hot, embarrassed, and I’m clutching my ass.

“I just want you safe.” He gets to his feet.

I step backward.

He’s wearing a suit, the jacket of which is hanging over the back of a chair. He gently moves Pepper’s head off his foot before he walks toward me.

I’m mute as he approaches. There’s a darkness to Sergio Benedetti. It clings to him, like a shadow. It’s the one thing that scares me about him because I trust that he won’t hurt me. And I believe that he wants me safe. I may not understand it, but I believe it.

But this shadow, it’s not one he casts. The opposite. It seems to cast itself over him. To have a claim on him. Some strange, powerful hold over him.

“You shouldn’t have hurt him,” I say when my back’s against the wall and he’s standing inches from me.

“You couldn’t protect yourself so I did it for you. Besides, this isn’t important. That idiot isn’t important.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t want—”

“How does it work?” he asks, one corner of his mouth curling upward. He looks me over, leans his forearms against the wall on either side of my head. “Huh?” He dips his head closer, inhales, touches the scruff of his jaw against my cheek. “Explain to me how it works.”

I look up at him, at his midnight eyes. I smell his aftershave, remember what we did last night. My body remembers too.

“How does it work, Nat?”

I hate the nickname. Always have.