Cazzo, now I’m getting soft for other people, too. What in the hell is wrong with me? I definitely need some fucking sleep.
Jenna
“It’s time to seal the deal,” my father pronounces. He’s sitting behind his great walnut desk, snipping the end off a cigar. I’ve been summoned here, to his office, the mafia princess to the king.
The knot of anxiety I’ve carried under my ribs from the time I was old enough to understand my future cinches up so tight I can’t breathe.
“Junior Tacone asked about you. He knows you graduated college. I can’t put it off any longer.”
I curse the tears that spring into my eyes. But it isn’t fair. I’ve been trapped into this marriage since I was nine months old. Signed over to marry a man ten years older than I am. A man who never wanted me, either.
I guess that should be my one comfort.
“Did Nico ask for me?” My voice wobbles.
My father lights the cigar and puffs.
I hate cigar smoke. I can’t stand the way my dad blows it in my direction like he’s never heard of second-hand smoke health issues.
“No. I don’t know what the fuck Nico’s problem is. If he thinks he’s going to disrespect this family by refusing to marry you—”
“But I don’t want to marry him,” I wail, for the four hundred and fiftieth time.
My dad points an imposing finger at me. “You’ll do what you have to do to solidify the bond between our families. That’s the one fucking thing I ask of you. You don’t have to get your hands dirty, don’t have to be a soldier like your brothers. You marry who I fucking tell you to marry, and you do it with class. The way your mother raised you.”
And this is the answer I’ve heard my entire life.
I swallow back the bile rising in my throat.
“The families have been bonded all these years just with the marriage contract. We don’t need an actual wedding to solidify things.”
“Enough.” My father waves a hand. “I’m sending you to Vegas. You tell Nico Tacone to start making wedding plans. The time has come.”
Sondra
After three days of a luxury vacation on Nico Tacone’s dime, I decide it’s time to go back to work. And I’m fully aware what that means.
He warned me, thoroughly.
He’s also honored his word and stayed away. No contact, unless you count his talking to Corey. But I haven’t had any leads on a professional job and this one is better than nothing.
Oh, who am I kidding? Going back to work means I’ve decided to offer myself up like a virginal sacrifice to Nico Tacone.
He’s like an addiction. I want to stay away—I really do. I know it’s the right thing. But the excitement produced by the thought of seeing him again is too hard to resist. I want to be near him again, to sizzle and sear under the flame of his desire for me.
Quit the job. Move back to Michigan. Use your degree, the voice of reason argues.
Mine, says The Voice of Wrong, pawing the air in the direction of Nico’s suite with cat claws.
So I show up to work and pack my housekeeping cart like nothing happened.
”Feeling better?” Marissa asks.
“Yep. It was a stomach bug.” I feel a little guilty about lying to her, but what can I do? The real story is too bizarre to share with anyone but Corey.
I’m hoping she bounces back from the Dean thing soon. She came over to the suite the night it happened and the two of us drank a couple bottles of wine until we were cursing all men and vowing to never let each other date a loser again.
Which, of course, meant Corey tried to talk me out of my infatuation with Tacone. So now I’ll have her judgment to face on top of whatever trouble I get myself into today. But she’ll be there to pick up the pieces for me.
Maybe that’s the lesson in all this. I pick shitty men, but there are people in my life who love me and would do anything for me. That’s a gift all on its own.
I clean the other suites first. In the second one, I run into the guys I saw on the first day.
“That’s the one,” one of them mutters to the other as they leave and I go in.
“What one?”
“The housekeeper Nico’s obsessed with.” The door clicks shut. It’s not really new news. I know he has a thing for me. But hearing it from a stranger’s lips makes it more solid. More real. More exciting. I have a bounce in my step as I clean.
When I’m finished, I head into Tacone’s suite. He’s not there, which is definitely for the best. It’s a stay of execution. So why, then, am I so disappointed?
I’m almost finished with the last room when I hear Tacone’s keycard in the lock.