Chapter 12
DAISY
What is the most dangerous creature in the world when it’s pissed off?
Answer: The best friend.
The coffeehouse is a hippie-dippie-style place with two speedy workers manning the bar, their hands flying over machines and cups and mugs with such expertise that they seem to make mountains of coffee without spilling a drop.
Almost as soon as those drinks are made, they’re gone, as other people pop in and grab their online or pre-ordered drinks from the counter.
I spot Michelle right away, her messy blond head a stark contrast to the dark wood at her back as she sits against the farthest wall, arms crossed and two drinks already placed in front of her.
Fuck. I’d hoped if I made it here early that I could grab her regular drink and start off with at least a little leeway.
She must be big mad if she’s here earlier than me.
It’s fine, I assure myself. Just fake it ’til you make it.
Pasting on a false smile, I march forward, hands clutching my purse strap.
“Michelle, hey!” I hurry up to the table and drop down across from her before lifting the cup in front of my chair.
“Chai? You know me so well. Thanks, babe.” I take a liberal sip and almost regret it as the scorching hot liquid nearly scalds my tongue right off.
Coughing and setting the cup back down, I wave a hand in front of my face as my eyes begin to water. “Wow, that’s… good,” I say.
Michelle gives me her nastiest stink eye—the kind I know she usually reserves for assholes on the subway. Ignoring it, I glance around the coffeehouse and begin to chatter animatedly, hoping it’ll dissolve some of the tension rolling off her in waves. “Wow, this place is cool,” I say.
The coffeehouse is decorated in an antique style that makes it feel like an old, rich lady’s private home.
Quiet jazz music hovers in the background, disrupted only by the occasional sharp blaring sound of the machines behind the counter.
I reach for my chai again, lifting it back to my lips much slower this time as I test the heat and then take a careful sip.
Michelle continues to glare at me, but she takes that moment to lean forward and lift her own cup to her lips.
Eyeing me over the rim, I offer her my most sincere smile before I start talking again.
“Okay,” I say, “I know you’re mad, and I’m sorry for not contacting you before this past week.”
“Mad?” She sets her cup down. “Oh, no, I’m not mad, Daisy. I’m fucking furious.”
I wince. “Right.” I nod. “And I’m sorry.”
“All right,” Michelle snaps, arms moving to cross over her chest, making the thin, loose T-shirt she’s wearing stretch tight over her front. “Care to explain why I came home from work days ago to find all of your shit gone and a note telling me that you’d moved out?”
I shrink back into my seat at her raised brow and sharp tone. “To be fair, I didn’t move myself out,” I tell her.
“Oh, I know,” Michelle says, “but you damn well should have called me anyway. What if I’d gone to the police?”
Now that she mentions it, it was curious that she hadn’t. “Why didn’t you?” I ask.
Michelle gives me a look that is a question all on its own: Are you stupid?
“You’re married to a guy who’s in the mafia,” she whisper-hisses at me. “What the hell do you think would happen to me if the police showed up at his door? What do you think would happen to you?”
“Giulio wouldn’t hurt me,” I say. At least, I don’t think he would.
He’s taken my attempts at cooking pretty well and even given me credit cards—which I’d been hoping to start using on this outing.
Maybe if I take my bestie for some retail therapy, she’ll be in a more forgiving mood.
I lift my cup and take a sip before licking a bit of cinnamon off my lips.
The muscle beneath Michelle’s left eye begins jumping, seizing, and thrashing as if the dang thing is at a rave. Oh no. That’s never a good thing.
I sink further into my seat and then tuck my head back, half expecting her cup to come flying at me.
To my surprise, however, Michelle takes a long, slow breath and then flattens her hand on the table between us.
“I’m only going to say this once,” she says, voice low.
“I didn’t think I’d have to because I thought you had more common sense, but alas, perhaps I gave you too much credit. ”
“Hey—” I sit up a bit, ready to defend myself. Her glare sends me cowering back in my seat to wait for my tongue-lashing.
“If you ever go a week without letting me know that you’re okay when you’re in a dangerous situation again, I’m going to personally take each of your books and rip the covers off before burning them in a big-ass bonfire.”
The gasp that settles in my throat chokes me up, and I gape at her in horror. “You wouldn’t,” I manage to croak out.
Brown eyes flecked with gold narrow on my face. “I would,” she assures me, “and I would dance around that bonfire… naked.”
“You… you… monster.” I have no other words for the horror that she’s threatening me with. “Do you even know how rare some of those editions are?”
Michelle sits back and crosses her arms over her chest again. “Don’t care,” she snaps. “You could’ve been dead or held captive, but you obviously weren’t, and still you didn’t call me or let me know you were okay for a week—a week, Daisy.”
I slump in my seat. I’ve never felt lower than I do right now as I stare back at Michelle’s face and see the telltale gleam of emotion in her eyes.
As if she realizes just how precariously close to crying she is, Michelle turns her head and blinks rapidly.
When next she looks at me, the gleam isn’t nearly as bright.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, reaching past the chai in front of me and taking her hand in both of mine.
Michelle sniffs and struggles to pull it away, but I hold on tight.
“Seriously,” I tell her. “I really am sorry. I know you’re right, and I promise I won’t do something like that again. Not if I can help it.”
Her hand feels cold in mine, but I stroke my thumb soothingly over the back of her knuckles—knuckles scraped raw in some places by tiny little cuts and scars from the days she spent working on her family’s farm.
“I was fucking scared.” Her voice is quiet but no less emotional.
I squeeze her hand roughly at the sound. “I know,” I say, my chest clenching.
“And I’m mad at you,” Michelle continues.
I nod as if that’s par for the course—to be fair, it usually is.
Though I’ve never fucked up quite this bad.
In my heart, I know that another reason I put off texting her is because I’m not entirely sure that meeting her is safe anymore.
I joke and laugh through it all, but the fact is, my situation is shit-my-pants terrifying if I think about it too hard.
Giulio isn’t my friend. He’s my husband, and not one that I chose. He seems nice enough, and I have to admit that his insistence on taking care of me—moving me into his place, offering me credit cards to spend his crazy mob money, and giving me my own room—is nice, but I’m not stupid.
Giulio isn’t taking care of me because he likes me. He’s doing it for two reasons:
1. To keep up appearances
2. Because he can’t trust me, so he wants to keep me close and under his thumb
My hands on Michelle’s loosens when she leans forward and picks up her cup.
I sit back in my seat and eye her as I contemplate downing the rest of my drink and asking if she wants to get out of here.
No sooner has that thought crossed my mind, though, than Michelle pipes up, acting much more like her old self than this worried, frazzled creature who isn’t really her.
“So, tell me…” She sips slowly at her drink, giving me a look over the rim. She finishes and sets it down. “Have you and the mafia man had sex yet?”
I glare at my chai. If we’re gonna have this conversation, vodka would have been the better choice. I pick it up anyway and take a long, slow sip as I try to give myself time to come up with an answer.
“Well?” Michelle presses.
A groan rumbles up my throat. “Chelle,” I whine, setting my cup down. “We hardly know each other. What makes you think we’ve had sex by now?”
One perfectly sculpted brow arches. “Since when have you been such a prude?”
“I’m not a prude,” I say, aghast. “I’m just…” I circle the top of my cup with a finger. “Not into the whole ‘fucking strangers’ thing.”
Michelle watches me with keen eyes, and try as I might, I can’t exactly keep my expression as neutral as I want. “You totally want to, though!” she squeals excitedly before leaning forward. “I can tell.” She points at me. “That’s your ‘I’m not getting laid, and I’m horny’ face.”
I gape at her. “I do not have a—” I shake my head. “There’s no way you can tell that by my face.”
Michelle snorts. “Have you seen him naked yet? Tell me he’s got a six pack, at least.”
I remain mulishly silent and she gasps. “An eight pack?”
I bare my teeth at her, but from her amused expression I know I look less like a threatening wild cat and more like an angry kitten.
Bitch. The truth is, I’ve only caught Giulio without his shirt on once when he was coming out of the bathroom, and it was like someone had taken all of my “dear diary” requests at fourteen and stacked them straight into a single man’s body.
“Ripped” is an understatement. Giulio La Rosa has a body to die for—and if I’m not careful about how I proceed with my relationship as his sort-of wife, I might actually die for it.
Because, aside from the money and nice apartment, there are other things about my new husband that remind me of what he is.