Forbidden

But since my father’s death, he’d been away more and more, and I couldn’t say as I blamed him. He’d lost a close friend when my father had been murdered. The moment that bullet had entered the back of my father’s head, Anthony had lost someone who was practically family, and seeing me only reminded him of what he had lost. I wasn’t the responsibility of Anthony LaSalla even though he had sworn to my father that he would forever protect and look after me.

Slipping into our usual booth opposite him, I looked up quickly to find Anthony staring intently at me. My heart stopped. It was disconcerting for anyone to pay that much attention to my every move—I did my best to blend into the woodwork. There must be something wrong.

“What? Do I have toilet paper on my shoe or something on my face?”

He almost smiled. His smiles had always been rare events—he wasn’t the joke a minute type. “No, I just forget sometimes how much you look like your father.”

“I do not,” I defended staunchly. “We don’t look a thing alike. I’m not an old Russian man.”

“No, you most certainly aren’t. But you have the same air about you.”

The waitress appeared at that point, and I ordered my boring usual—a cup of shrimp gumbo offered as an appetizer. It was also one of the cheapest things on the menu. I could see Anthony grimacing over a menu that hadn’t changed since Eisenhower was in office. He finally settled on his own usual—a pulled pork sandwich with fries and a Coke.

Taking a sip of my tepid tap water, I corrected, “We never had the same air. Father was—well, you know how Father was.”

Everyone loved my dad. I knew he was feared on the streets as being a killer and had a reputation of being beyond ruthless, but at home and around friends, he was charming and could light up the room with his boisterous energy. I, on the other hand, just hid behind an easel and only dealt with people if I had to.

Anthony didn’t say a word, just raised his eyebrow as he seemed to be studying me even more.

I sighed and laced my fingers on the tabletop.

His eyes narrowed on me enough to make me fidget with my napkin.

“Anyway, how have things been going with you?” I asked, deliberately attempting to change the odd energy I was feeling. “How’s Black Secrets?”

Anthony held my eyes for just a millisecond longer, letting me know that he knew exactly what I was doing. “All right. Busy.”

“Hiring?” I asked with a smile.

I was teasing him. As much as I would have died for a waitress job at Black Secrets due to the amount I could make in tips alone, Anthony had already made it quite clear that I would never be working there as long as he was alive. He had said time and time again that Black Secrets was no place for a girl like me.

“Funny,” he mumbled. But he continued to stare at me as if taking in every dark secret I possessed.

I shifted in my seat as surreptitiously as I could. He had a habit of doing that—of paying closer attention to me than I was used to anyone doing. Commenting on something I’d said that no one else had heard, making me feel special, as if I mattered much more than I knew I did. He did it in a very father figure fashion, as casual as a man like him could be.

And every time he did it, every time those all too knowing eyes settled on me, my core clenched.

I had been harboring a horrid secret throughout my late adolescence until now, one that I fully intended to take to the grave with me: I was in love with my father’s best friend.

It hadn’t happened gradually, either. I had been introduced to Anthony when he was invited to dinner one night, and I had lost my heart to him on first sight when I was just eighteen. My father was sadly resigned that I had chosen not to attend college, but we were trying to make the best of it. I came into the room and saw him sitting there—in my usual chair—and I knew I was a goner, that whatever gurgles of feeling I’d had for any boys before were no more than emotional indigestion. Anthony LaSalla was all man, and I instantly became hooked.

This man had reached out and grabbed a hold of my barely beating heart and made me feel alive, made me feel like I could do anything. He then quickly looked away and began talking business with my father. Confused with my rush of emotions, I took a seat as far away from my new obsession as I could get.

What I’d felt then toward Anthony had never gone away, and never diminished. To the contrary, the longer I knew him, the more acute my responses became. It got so that I could barely stand to be in the same room with him, and yet I couldn’t stay away. He and my father had always been close, and since they were in the same ‘circle of friends,’ they spent a lot of time together. I tried desperately not to feel the way I did, and was scrupulously careful not to reveal any of my feelings toward Anthony to anyone. There wasn’t another living soul who knew how I felt about him. I kept it all inside and smiled and laughed and ate dinner with them as if there was nothing more than me being Daddy’s little girl, curious about his crime and underground doings.