CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Paolo
I frowned. Fuck. Fuck! I should have turned around and walked out as soon as I saw that Gia fucking Santoro was here. I wiped my mouth and then placed my linen napkin beside my plate before pushing back my chair and standing. “If you will excuse me, I really need to go check on my date.”
Before I could even turn, my father spoke up. “Enough of this. She’s fine, I’m sure.”
“I’m going to see…”
“I’ll have one of my bodyguards check that she made it home okay,” he assured me in his smooth voice. He used that tone that drove me crazy. It was the one that warned whoever he was talking to that they better fall in line with his command if they knew what was good for them.
“It won’t take a minute,” I said pushing my chair in and turning to leave.
“Paolo, sit down.”
I turned to look at my father. I was well over thirty. Why did he still treat me like a child. And why did I turn into one when he used that voice?
Maybe it was because I’d literally seen him kill people.
I sat down, staring out into the hallway in the hopes that I could catch a glimpse of Jelly, but she was long gone.
“This will be better anyway,” my mother beamed. “It will be easier to catch up with Gia now that your… date… is gone. Less distractions,” she smiled. She’d said ‘date’ in the same way she would have said ‘skunk’ or ‘serial killer.’
I sighed with resignation. I’d have to make it up to Jelly as soon as I possibly could. In the meantime, I’d have to pretend to enjoy this dinner.
“So, Gia,” I said, pulling my chair back out and settling into it, “tell me about yourself. What have you been doing all these years since I last saw you?”
She gave me a sultry smile. “Oh, this and that. After Yale I went to the University of Bologna to get my law degree.”
I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from rising into my hairline.
The University of Bologna was the best school in Italy, and it was one of the best in the entire world.
And she was a lawyer. This was a hell of a lot more impressive than Layla VanHorne had been.
“That’s wonderful. What type of law do you practice? ”
“I’m a divorce attorney. I’m taking a break right now, actually. I’m between firms.”
God. Divorce attorney. That would be fucking depressing. “That’s great,” I lied. I cast a quick glance at my parents and wondered how angry they’d be with me if I asked her to take them on as clients.
Probably pretty pissed.
The rest of dinner went by quickly, and I was surprised that I actually had a decent time. For someone horrible enough to resort to blackmail, Gia was intelligent, funny, and knew all of the good gossip about everyone we’d grown up with.
“So, you’re saying he went to clown college?”
“Yes.”
“First off, I didn’t know that was a thing, and second, he’s the last of the kids in our town who I would’ve thought would want to entertain people…”
“Well, you left before middle school,” she reminded me. “He changed a lot in middle and high school.”
“He must’ve,” I muttered, lost in thought about the kids from our town I hadn’t thought about in decades.
“Why don’t you two kids go out? Have a few drinks?” my dad asked.
I looked at my watch. “I didn’t realize how late it was.” I had intended to leave as soon as I possibly could and go check on Jelly. If she was feeling bad, though, she’d probably be asleep now.
Gia leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Remember our deal.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to, actually. I need to check on Jelly…”
“Jelly.” Gia interrupted me and got a pensive look on her face. “I feel like I’ve seen her somewhere before. And not at the hospital, either. Now where could that be, Paolo?”
Fuck. “You know what?” I forced a smile. “Drinks sound good. Gia, you up for a trip to one of West Bay’s best bars?”
“Always,” she smiled at me in a seductive way that made me nervous.
“Let’s go to the rooftop bar at Bahia Del Sol,” I said, standing. “Thank you for a great meal,” I said going over to hug and kiss my mother and father. When I bent over to say goodbye to my dad, he held onto my shoulders for a second.
“Don’t screw this up. She is your future, Paolo, if you don’t want to ruin all of our lives by making us lose the business.”
I swallowed hard. It had been months since Dad had said anything about that.
I’d hoped he’d been exaggerating and had just let it go.
Now I had to talk to Raphael, and soon. I hoped my father was just being dramatic and trying to control me.
I knew Raphe was Dad’s right hand man. He would know the truth about our father’s threats.
Was Dad really that intent on me coming back into the business?
Did I really have an arranged marriage with Gia Santoro?
Would that even be legal?
And most importantly, if I didn’t marry Gia Santoro and we lost the contract with the Santoro family, would my family business go bankrupt? God. This was too much.
“Shall we?” I ignored my father, walked over to Gia, and offered her my arm.
“Of course,” she smiled up at me, and I had a flash of guilt.
Jelly was lying at home feeling awful, and I was taking a beautiful woman out for drinks.
Jelly would understand, though. She knew the pressure my parents were putting on me.
And she didn’t even know how much worse it was.
The thought of Jelly not being able to get a job in West Bay because of anything Gia might say about her left me feeling ill.
I was just going to have to hope she’d understand.
***
When we got to Bahia Del Sol and made our way to the rooftop, the drinks flowed freely, the conversation was good, and I almost got lost in the company of a beautiful woman.
In a word, I was drunk. This was never a good thing, but it was especially not good when you were out with a woman who was not your girlfriend.
It was even worse when that same woman was blackmailing you.
Gia was all over me, and though I wasn’t encouraging her touches and lingering glances, I wasn’t exactly batting her hands away, either. I was doing my best not to piss her off.
“I know where I want to go next,” she purred, running a finger down the front of my shirt.
“Where’s that?” I asked nervously, hoping she wasn’t going to invite herself over to my place for a night of wild sex.
“I want to go to Cayenne. Your sex club.”
“Ohhh.” I was not taking her there. I mean, she could go, but not with me. “I can have my driver take you there. Just tell them you know me and they’ll give you a week’s pass. You won’t have any problems. You’ve been there before anyway.”
She pouted and pulled on my tie. “But I wanted to go with you.” She leaned closer with each word, staring at my mouth.
Danger signs were flashing through my mind. This night that had started with me determined for my parents to accept Jelly as my girlfriend had taken a strange detour. “I’m sorry, Gia, but Jelly is my girlfriend. I don’t go to Cayenne anymore, and I don’t plan to ever again unless I’m with her.”
Now she looked mad. “We’ll see,” she said in a mean voice that had me frowning.
“Do you want me to drop you there?” I asked, standing up.
I felt like someone was staring at me. I looked around and saw Leo Salazar. I waved at him, and he walked over to us. His smile was muted; he didn’t seem like his usual cheery self.
“Hello,” he said, and I looked at him weird. What was his problem? “Who’s your friend?”
“Oh, sorry.” I turned back to Gia. “This is Gia Santoro. I grew up with her. Her parents and mine are good friends.”
“Ah. Where’s Jelly?” he asked, and I knew then why his smile was dimmed.
“She wasn’t feeling well, so she went home.”
His smile dropped altogether. “She went home sick and you came out for drinks?”
“Ummm… yes.” It sounded bad when he said it like that.
“I thought you were introducing her to your parents tonight.”
Count on Leo to be up on everyone else’s business. “I did. I mean, they’d met her before, but this was a dinner for them to get to know each other…”
“But Gia was there?”
I turned. Gia wasn’t smiling at Leo. His infallible charm would’ve worked on her if he’d tried to use it… but he wasn’t. Not even a little bit.
“Yes.”
“And Jelly went home sick.”
“Right.”
“Okay, then.” He looked pissed. “Y’all have a good night. Nice to meet you, Lia.”
“It’s Gia,” I called after him. I don’t know why. He kept walking anyway. “That was strange,” I said, as Gia stood up to join me. “He’s normally the nicest and funniest of all the Salazars.”
“That was a Salazar?” she asked accusingly.
“Oh, sorry. I guess I didn’t say that while he was here.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said, her smile tight. “I’ve wanted to meet them for a while now.”
“I can introduce you another time.”
“Fine.” Her smiled brightened. “Can we pose for a few pictures before we go?”
Before I could protest or even think about why pictures might be a bad idea, she’d passed her phone to a willing waiter. Then I was forced into some sort of late night photo shoot. We took pictures all around the rooftop of the bar.
Finally, she was ready to go. I had my driver drop her at her hotel.
She tried one more time to get me to go to Cayenne with her, but I wasn’t biting.
She also tried to get me to go up to her hotel room.
I didn’t go for that, either. She might have the type of body I was into and she might be gorgeous, but she had nothing on Jelly. Nothing.
I had to promise that I’d take her out again the next night in order to get her out of my car, and then my driver pulled away from the curb. “Where to, Mr. Lanetti?”
I thought about going to Jelly’s condo but decided it wouldn’t be very nice for my drunk ass to go wake her up. “Just home.”
“Not Salazar Heights, sir?”
“No. My penthouse, please.”
“Certainly, sir.”