37 Chapter Thirty Six: Friends

" Maybe," Becca answered while staring out the window and Leo felt the urge to pinch her squishy cheeks. He stretched out his hand to Becca's cheeks but she quickly noticed what he wanted to do and made a sound of disapproval before swatting his hand away. Glaring at him again when she heard him chuckle.

" How can you be this cute?" Leo laughed on seeing the vicious dagger glares his little kitten was directing to him. Becca's teeth clenched, grinding a curse, and decided to change the topic.

" Why are you driving tonight? Where is your driver?" She asked and Leo took a glance at her before returning his attention to the road.

" His wife is in labor so he went to the hospital, it was on short notice. Besides, I like it this way, now it's just the both of us." Leo said and Becca didn't miss the passion and tenderness in his voice. The tenderness that confused her, that made her feel conflicted.

The same one that scared her.

Becca might have acted like she had her shit together like she was living the best life but deep inside she was just an empty void. Becca acted like she was okay, fucking fooled everyone around her to believe she was happy but couldn't fool herself.

She couldn't lie to herself and over the years she thought that the best thing for her to do was to shut people out, to limit the number of people in her life, so it would be way easier to hide her broken parts.

To protect herself from being vulnerable again. To prevent people from seeing her vulnerable, she pushed everyone away, even her own family sometimes, and most especially men.

She had sworn off men for all eternity.

She had never fantasized about a guy unless he was fictional and had no chance of ever meeting her in person but recently, she had caught herself thinking about Leo... His body more than she liked.

More than she wanted.

She had never experienced anything like this despite meeting a lot of good-looking men in her life, her life was filled with them. But with Leo, things were different. Even without him knowing, Leo was melting down Becca's tall walls of ice. Forget melting, he was fucking demolishing them with a bulldozer, leaving her open and exposed to him.

Vulnerable.

He was invading her in every single way possible and Becca was still yet to figure out whether she liked him doing it or not. All she knew was that it felt different.

New. Exciting.

Something she might be willing to give a shot despite him being forbidden fruit.

" Leo, can you please give me your phone?" She asked and he looked at her with creased brows for a second before nodding.

" Okay." He responded and fished out his phone from his pocket. " Here you go." He unlocked it and handed it over to her without even asking why she needed it.

The level of trust he had in her was astonishing.

Becca took the phone from his hand, stared at it for a little while then took a deep breath before saving her number in it. She didn't know if what she was doing was a good idea or not. It wasn't reasonable, well according to her logic it wasn't but part of her wanted to let go of all the hurt and be happy. To open up and let people in again, to give Leo a chance.

That part of her was the part that had a crush on him. Becca didn't even know if she would regret doing it later, all she knew was that she wasn't repulsed by Leo's presence or by his touches.

His not-so-innocent insolent touches.

She handed the phone back to him and looked away so he wouldn't see her blushing face. Leo looked at his phone and the smile he already had on his face widened, almost touching his forehead. He turned to Becca and saw her looking out the window but when he saw how pink her neck looked, he knew she was blushing.

To tease her a little, Leo dialed Becca's newly saved number and her phone in her purse started ringing. Since Becca wasn't looking at him, she didn't know he was the one calling her and picked up the call.

" Hello?" She said immediately after answering the phone and still had her eyes fixed at the window.

" Hey, beautiful," Leo responded and Becca instantly recognized whose voice it was. With the phone still on her ear, she whipped her head to him and saw him holding his phone to his ear as well. Then he tossed her a sensual smirk then disconnected the call. He leaned in closer to her and pecked her on the lips. " Thank you." He whispered and her blush deepened, feeling her heart turn to goo.

She nodded and saved his number as well. Saving it as Leo with a fire emoji in front of it because of the most obvious reason. He was hot.

" So what's the function about?" Becca asked since she realized that she didn't know what she was attending or where it even was.

Again, the level of trust.

" A family friend's birthday party, one I have to attend but didn't want to go alone because I'm going to die of boredom there." He answered in a complaining tone and Becca giggled.

" So you want me to die with you, is that it?" She asked with a smile and Leo laughed.

" Of course not, but having you there with me would help. You could take my mind off dying, you would be my distraction. My beautiful distraction." He said and caressed her cheeks. He then took a left turn and drove into an estate that looked like it was built with all the money from the US government.

It was as if he knew his way around the place, Leo smoothly drove his car into the garage and packed it there despite other people parking their cars outside.

His car seemed to be very special in this case.

Becca looked out the window again and saw the insane amount of cars parked outside. She then looked at Leo who turned off the ignition and got out of the car, walking around it to her door and opened it.

He took her hand in his, gently helping her out of the car, and put his hand on her back. Guiding her into the building.

" We seem to be a little late," Becca stated, after stepping out of Leo's car and Leo shook his head.

" We are honored guests not the hosts so we shouldn't worry about being late," Leo said as it was his excuse for always being late to events he was invited to.

Becca could hear talking, murmurs, and laughter coming from inside but as soon as they stepped in, everyone became quiet. The place would have been dead silent if it wasn't for the low sound of music playing. With everyone holding their breaths, afraid to breathe the wrong way, many pairs of eyes looked in their direction and it made Becca stiffen in Leo's hands. She didn't know why the place turned so damn quiet but knew that whatever caused it happened when they stepped it.

Becca knew she couldn't be the cause, she didn't even know those people, so it couldn't be her. Her eyes then trailed to the man beside her, the one that stood a foot taller than her, and looked up at him with curious eyes. Batting her lashes cutely at him.

Leo noticed her stares but before he could respond, a man who Becca assumed was the host approached them.

" Leonardo, Benvenuto. I'm glad you could make it." The man, who also happened to be the host of the event said to Leo and had a smile on his face. His hair was grey and looked old enough to be Leo's father.

" Grazie, Rodrigo. I'm happy you invited me." Leo responded and Rodrigo patted him on the back while Becca stood there looking like a lost kitten.

Rodrigo's eyes moved to the breathtaking woman standing next to Leo and smiled.

" And who is this beauty if I may ask?" Rodrigo asked and immediately dragged his eyes off Becca before he offended the untamed beast she stood next to. Despite how beautiful she was, she wasn't worth getting shot in the balls by Leonardo for.

" This is Becca, my—" Leo couldn't finish his sentence because Becca quickly cut him off as she had a hint of what he was about to say.

" Friend. We're friends." Becca answered quickly instead of him and Leo's eyes hardened upon hearing her response.

Although Becca decided to give Leo a chance, she knew what he was going to introduce her as and wasn't ready for that yet. Everything was still all new to her. The pace at which Leo was moving was a little scary and if any relationship was to develop between them, she wanted to take it slow.

Fast pace moving relationships scared her.

Before their relationship would begin to grow, she wanted them to start small and friendship sounded like the perfect place to kick off from. But despite her reason being totally understandable, Leo didn't seem to be in sync with what she termed them as.

' Friend! Fucking friends! Is that what she sees me as? Didn't what happen between us in the car mean anything to her? How dare she still keep me in the friend zone!" Leo yelled in his head, trying his best to stay calm so he wouldn't drag her back into his car and punish her for terming them with the wrong relationship status.

" Is that so? Okay then, I will leave you guys alone so you can enjoy the rest of the party. Mi scusi." Rodrigo said and walked away. Leo turned to look at Becca and for the first time, he glared at her. Feeling pissed. He thought they were way past friends already so what was she saying? She had to be kidding him?

When Becca saw Leo glaring at her, she dropped her gaze to look at the floor and nervously played with the sleeves of her dress.

" Friends?" Leo asked in both anger and disbelief. How could she dare call their relationship friendship when they were obviously long past that, huh?

But instead of seeing her fault, Becca swallowed the lump stuck in her throat and mustered a little confidence to look Leo in the eye.

" Aren't we?" She threw the question to him and his nostrils flared.

" Friends don't kiss each other passionately, Becca. Haven't anyone told you that before?" He took a lung full of air, still staring at her. Well, it could have been worse. At least she didn't say business partner, now that would have been infuriating. Frustrating even. So friends wasn't so bad but still wasn't correct either.

" I... I'm.." Becca tried to answer but couldn't find the right words to say. She looked down again, not able to keep eye contact anymore

' Was he angry that I said we were friends?' She asked herself despite knowing the answer. Leo Kane didn't want to be just friends with her, he made that clear from the way he stared at her during their conference meeting and made it even clearer when he staked his claim on her in front of her doorstep. When he kissed her breathless.

" Forget it. Let's find our table." Leo said and she nodded. They walked to the table reserved for them as one of the esteemed guests. Once they got seated comfortably, the other people in the room finally felt free to breathe and went back to what they were doing but were careful not to annoy Leo in the process.

Becca and Leo sat facing each other at the same table. Leo's eyes as usual were intently fixed on Becca despite being pissed at her while Becca's seemed to be all over the place. Her eyes stared at literally everything in sight except at him. And unknowingly for Becca, it wasn't only Leo's eyes that were on her that night.

" Bro, you got to stop looking at that woman, she's sitting with Leonardo. You will get us into trouble." Alvaro whined when he saw his brother, Viktor, staring at the woman sitting with Leo. Though he thought she was beautiful, jaw-dropping even but the fact that she was with Leo made her automatically off-limits. Viktor looked at his younger brother and snorted. Both of them were Rodrigo's sons.

" Relax, I'm not doing anything illegal here." Viktor said to his brother who stared at him with an 'are you kidding me' look on his face.

" You have been secretly staring at her like a thief for ten minutes now. If Leonardo finds out, he's going to cut off your dick and feed it to his hounds." Alvaro said, wondering why his brother would be foolish enough to play with fire like that. Forget fire, it was too cold to be compared to Leo's rage. Molten lava was more like it.

Viktor turned to face Alvaro and sighed.

" My worrywart of a brother, I have asked dad about her after I saw him talking to them and he said that they are just friends," Viktor said and his brother shook his head, refusing to believe what his brother just said.

" There is no way that they are just friends, have you seen the way Leonardo looks at her? He practically eats her with his stares." Alvaro said, trying to make Viktor back off but instead found him staring at the woman again.

" She's gorgeous and looks like she could be my type," Viktor said with a smile on his face while Alvaro scoffed.

" The only women that are my type are ones not associated with Leonardo Kane in any way." Alvaro retorted while his foolish brother kept looking for death.

Just as Viktor's eyes were still fixed on Becca's back, Leo looked up from Becca and stared Viktor straight in the eyes.

Viktor felt his soul practically leaving him when his eyes met Leo's angry ones.

" Shit! He saw me." Viktor panicked, tapping his brother's shoulder.

" What?" Alvaro asked slightly confused.

" Leonardo fucking saw me staring at her," Viktor said, shaking like a leaf, and turned Alvaro's head to look at Leo who was heavily glaring their way.

" Holy shit Viktor! Run! Leave as fast as you can." Both brothers were now panicking and shaking in fear.

" To where?" Viktor asked, clutching his hair.

" Out of the fucking continent. Good luck." Alvaro said to his brother who instantly took off running out of the room.

Leo's predator eyes followed Viktor's every move till he disappeared out of the place, intentionally giving the fucker a headstart to run as far as he could. He then turned to Becca and caressed her face before placing a kiss on her forehead.

" Stay put, okay? I will be right back." He said to her and stood up from his seat. Becca stared at him in slight confusion then nodded obediently

" Okay, don't stay too long." She responded and he smiled.

" I won't." He said and walked out of the place.

Leo strode to the garage where he guessed Viktor would be, trying to escape with his car and it turned out he was right. He saw the motherfucker trying to get into his car so he could make a run for it. Leo then increased his pace and slammed Viktor's back against the door of his car.

" Where the fuck are you going?" Leo growled and grabbed hold of Viktor's collar. " Why the hell were you looking at my woman?!"