Married to My Enemy

My bottom lip trembling, I threw myself into my father’s arms. “Thank you so much, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome. Anything for my princess. I’ll call the Romanos and let them know that the whole deal is off.”

“I’m sorry if I’m messing everything up.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. You haven’t messed anything up. He did. And trust me, that’s his loss, and he’ll pay dearly for it. Not to mention, he’ll have his own family to answer to.”

CHAPTER 18

Giovanni

“Hello?” Mrs. Marino’s voice answered on the third ring.

“Hi, Mrs. Marino. This is Giovanni. How are you today?”

“I'm all right, Giovanni. How are you?”

“I’m pretty good. Is Arianna home?”

“She is, but I think she’s still sleeping. Have you tried calling her cell?”

“I have,” I said. “But it keeps going straight to voicemail.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Marino. “Well, as soon as I see her, I’ll tell her to give you a call.”

“Thank you so much,” I said.

I felt somewhat better knowing that Arianna had made it home safely, but something still just didn’t seem right. With it being nearly noon already, I couldn’t fathom why she wouldn’t have her cell phone turned on by now. And considering that she’d left the nightclub fairly early, it wasn’t like she’d had a particularly long night—unless she hadn’t gone straight home. While it had crossed my mind to ask Mrs. Marino if she knew what time Arianna had made it home, I refrained from doing so, figuring that such an action would sound a bit alarming, not to mention stalker-like.

Regardless, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I didn’t want to be too paranoid about it, but a part of me felt that she was back to avoiding my calls for some reason. It was like we had gone all the way back to square one and I was finding out the hard way.

Figuring there was no need for me to sit in my apartment stressing, I got up, showered, got dressed, and headed to my father’s office. I typically didn’t volunteer myself for extra work with my old man, but right about now, I desperately needed a distraction, and I was pretty sure he could give me enough busy work to provide that.

The instant I entered the building, I was met with the typical glances and waves, yet something still seemed off. People seemed a little more unwilling to meet my eyes.

I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone these days, I thought.

As I neared my father’s office, I heard his voice drifting through the door. I recognized his business-voice and suspected he was on a serious phone call. I paused outside his office for a moment, listening and wondering if it turned out that I wasn’t going to have to look for busy work after all.

“A sanitation problem, eh?” he said. “Yes, of course, it needs to be overseen. We’ll figure it out, I guarantee you that. It’s what we do after all.” There was a brief pause in the conversation before he continued. “Sounds like this is a bigger problem than normal.”

Announcing my presence with three knocks on the door, I then pushed it open and entered his office. My father looked up at me, his neutral expression turning into a glare and making me feel like his gaze was practically stabbing me. I froze in my tracks, startled by the continued grimace he directed at me.

He cleared his throat and then redirected his attention to the phone call. “Yes, I’m certain. Just let me know when and how soon. Should I call you or you want to call me? Yes, all right. That’ll work.” He paused again, taking another opportunity to glare at me.

I slowly crossed the room, wracking my brains to recall if there had been anything I’d forgotten to do for him. But my mind drew a blank, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he kept looking at me that way.

“Listen, I’ll call you back later. Some other business just came up that needs to be taken care of,” he said. “Yes, you too. Goodbye.”

Dad hung up the phone, and then he stared silently at his desk for so long that the moment quickly grew uncomfortable.

“Uhm…bad timing? Should I come back later?” I asked. He didn’t respond, but he did glance up at me. For a second, I almost thought his amber eyes looked red with fury. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know, Giovanni. You tell me.”

I folded my arms and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. I was already trying not to worry myself sick over Arianna, so the last thing I wanted to do was play word games with my father. Sometimes the man could be truly infuriating. Whatever was bothering him, I wished he would just spit it out already.

I sighed. “I’ve got nothing to tell you, Dad. And honestly, I’m just not in the mood. I came by to see if there was anything you needed me to help you out with today, but maybe not.”