Transgressions by Carolyn Faulkner (the reading list txt) 📕

would set a bad precedent, and soon, every mob boss in the area would think it was perfectly fine to start encroaching on his territory. If that happened, before he knew it, he'd be a boss with no territory, no income and no crew.

As it stood, he was one of the richest, most powerful men in his business, and he liked it that way. In fact, he had plans for down the road, moves of his own he intended to make to expand and grow his business until it was insulated enough that a takedown of any kind—federal or rival—would be almost impossible. One of those plans was, eventually, to absorb her little engine. He had to hand it to her—she was a woman in a business that was ninety-nine percent male, and she'd done an amazing job of not allowing what her father had built to die on the vine after him, to be picked apart by vultures—and he didn't count himself out of that characterization in the least. In fact, since he'd worked for Don Cerone for so long, he would have the inside track on the best—most profitable—way to absorb it into his own business.

Despite how well she'd done keeping her family together, the other bosses didn't take her seriously, and her bottom line suffered because of it. She had to fight constant raids into her territory by other bosses who saw her—rightfully so, in some ways—as weak while trying to grow and expand her business in a town that had long since been divvied up in an effort to maintain peace.

There was nowhere for her to go—and that was exactly what had her standing here in front of him now.

His own plans for expansion were on the back burner at the moment, and he needed to put the kibosh to this right now, before it became something bigger that forced him to do something he really didn't want to do—yet, anyway.

And although it might not have been what his business management professor would have suggested, or even what her father and his old boss would recommend, the feel of her in his arms—unwilling as she was and cold as she was trying to be—had him thinking that he was going to apply a rather unconventional solution to this situation.

He was itching to simply flip her over his knee, which would have been so easy considering the fact that she'd gone so limp in his arms. He could do anything he wanted to with her now. It would be a mere flick of his wrist, and then he would have been able to see what she had on beneath that tantalizingly modest just below the knee skirt she was wearing. He bet it was pink, lacy panties—and his imagination ran away with him, picturing a matching garter belt and stockings—until he ruthlessly reeled it in.

He didn't need to go down that road right now, even if he did decide to give her the spanking she so richly deserved. He wasn't doing this to get into her pants—however much he might want to use it as a handy excuse to exorcise that particular demon from his past.

This was business, despite the fact that he was going to say something to her that he'd never consider saying to any other boss. He was going to keep his pants on while he did it, and hopefully hers, too, instead of doing what he wanted to do, which was to clear off his desk in a one-armed sweep and bend her over it—one way or the other—or one way and then the other.

He steeled himself against his own worse tendencies and reached up to cup her cheek in his hand, making sure her eyes were on him before he began. "Allegra Marie Olivia Cerone, I am only going to have this conversation with you once."

She had been giving him that bored adolescent look he'd so despised when she was an adolescent. He was even less enamored of it now that she was—supposedly—an adult, in a very adult occupation.

But the no-nonsense tone of his voice—its deep, lethal softness—wiped that look off her face in record time. She shuddered—once, just once—before she caught and subdued the telltale reaction. Then, when she looked up at him again, he knew that he had her full attention.

Enzo reached out to take the tip of her chin in his fingers, using his other arm to tuck her against him. "I want you to understand that no amount of encroachment into my territory is acceptable, at any time, for any reason. You do not get a free pass because of who you are. As a matter of fact, because of who you are, if I ever find out that your men have so much as set a big toe into any area in which I transact business, I will exact a payment from you that you will probably consider even dearer than you do money at this time."

She looked confused, as if she thought she'd missed something.

Enzo leaned forward, putting his lips almost onto her tiny ear and whispering, "I will call you on the carpet again, and, in that instance, I'm afraid that a warning—like you're getting this time—will not suffice. Instead, I will do something I've often thought your father should have done for you frequently while you were growing up. I will take you over my knee and paddle your bare behind until your backside is cherry red all the way down to the backs of your knees." He heard her outraged indrawn breath but easily stilled her attempts to break his hold on her by holding her just that much tighter without having moved in any other way, "And I promise you that, when you then vow to me—and you will eagerly do so to end the spanking, believe me—you will barely be able to summon the breath you need to reassure me that we will never, ever have to have this conversation again."

He