I struggled with the dueling sensations as I got in the elevator and rode down to the basement where Adriano usually waited to take me to work.
Seeing him in the black Beamer brought me mild satisfaction, and I smiled at him as I got into the backseat.
“Good morning, Addie.”
“Hey,” he grunted, completing our morning ritual. He wasn’t exactly the most verbose man. Then, as he pulled out of the parking garage, he met my eye in the rearview mirror and added, “Glad you’re good after yesterday.”
Warmth moved through me like a summer’s breeze. “Thank you, me too.”
“Acted like a real donna,” he told me with admiration clear in his gravelly voice. “Made us proud.”
Donna like the queen in a chess set or the queen on a playing card.
Donna like a female boss.
Bruno had called me that a few times, and Frankie. I hadn’t noticed until then what a compliment it was and how much it meant coming from men like these.
I leaned forward to pat his boulder shoulder. “You guys are rubbing off on me.”
It could have been wishful thinking, but I thought I saw a faint blush stain his deep olive-brown cheeks.
When we arrived at my office building, I prepared to alight from the car at the curb, but Adriano didn’t pull over the way he normally did. Instead, he idled beside orange cones and a sign that pronounced the cordoned-off area a construction zone.
He rolled down the window and yelled at a passing man. “Hey, do me a solid and make space in the cones, yeah?”
The twentysomething hipster he’d called to gaped at him, obviously disconcerted by the sight of the massive Italian man leaning out the window at him.
“Well?” Addie grunted, his thick brow pulled low over his eyes.
Instantly, the kid shot into motion and made space in the cones so Adriano could pull the car into the space and park. He even moved the cones back into place after we were settled.
Addie moved toward him on his lumbering gait, the kid visibly cowering, then offered a handshake with a bill folded discreetly against his palm.
“Grazie,” he offered with a smile that was anything but friendly on his rough-featured face.
The kid accepted the handshake with a tremulous smile and took off.
When Addie turned to face me, there was laughter in his eyes.
I shook my head at him. “You eat children’s dreams for dinner, don’t you?”
He cackled lowly as he escorted me to the door. I didn’t say anything when he followed me into the lobby, but when he went to step through the security barricade with me I held up a hand.
“What are you doing?”
Reaching into an inner pocket in his leather jacket, he produced a security badge with the name Adrian Smith on it.
Despite myself, I laughed. “You couldn’t think of anything more original than Smith?”
He shrugged.
“Okay, but why do you have that? I’m safe in the building,” I insisted, crossing my arms to level him with my coolest stare.
“Boss’s orders,” he responded.
I was really coming to hate that phrase.
“What’re you going to do? Sit outside my office all day?”
He shrugged again. “Not if I don’t gotta. You’re supposed to text if you need to go somewhere.”
I rolled my eyes. “And if I don’t check in like a toddler?”
“Your funeral,” was the response.
We stared at each other, Addie’s face totally blank, mine a mask of indignation.
“New boyfriend, Lombardi?” Bill, one of the associates on the Salvatore case with me, called as he passed through the check-in security beside us.
I shot him my middle finger.
Addie grinned. “Yeah, we really are rubbin’ off on you.”
A breath huffed between my lips as I tried to expel some of my exasperation. “Okay, I have no plans to leave the office until this afternoon. I’ll text. But for God’s sake, please do not escort me up to my office like a child. This is my job. I’d like to retain whatever professionalism I can still muster.”
He blinked at me, and for a moment, I thought he was unmoved, but then he reached out and patted me––hard––on the shoulder in agreement. I watched him turn on his heel and walk back out of the building, where he leaned against the glass wall beside the doors and lit up a smoke.
I sighed, knowing that was as good as it was going to get.
But as I moved through security and into the elevator, a little smile crept over my face.
Because apparently, not only did Dante care about my safety but the guys did too.
And that felt better than it should have.
I was eating lunch in the conference room while I tried to figure out what to do about Dante’s illegal gambling and racketeering charges when movement at the door caught my eye.
“Hi, Elena,” Bambi said almost bashfully, a curtain of thick blond hair sweeping over her shoulder to partially hide her face. “I’m sorry for disturbing you at work, but I-I wanted to continue the rest of that conversation we never got to have.”