8. Nina
8
NINA
Nina
“ W hat’s your name?” I asked the butler as he led me up the stairs.
“George, Ms. Bardot.”
I studied his profile, amused that he’d stick to such formality. I wasn’t anyone to impress. As a working-class woman, I related more with him than the man I was supposed to be “dating”.
“Just call me Nina,” I told him, shaking my head at how surreal my life was becoming. In the span of hours, my existence had been shaken up and distorted so much that I didn’t know which way was up.
First, the audacity of Ricky betting on me—and losing. Then, the fear that Reaper and his bikers would come to capture me. Running into Dante was a strange occurrence, but the way he told me to “play along” as he kissed me and fingered me…
I moved my hand to the other arm and pinched slightly. Pain stung at the point.
Yep. This is real. I’m actually here , fake dating him .
It wasn’t a dream. Or in light of the bet Ricky lost, it was not a nightmare any longer, either. Dante had shown up at just the right moment and offered me an easy out. Like a hero in the books I liked to read, he’d suggested a solution to spare me from going to an awful gang of bikers.
Instead of trying to accept that my life had really changed this quickly in so many ways in such a short time, I zoned out and took in my surroundings. I felt out of place and dirty as George led me up the grand staircase. It seemed like I was touring a museum with all the fine artwork hung on the tall walls. And as I turned toward a pair of ornately decorated and carved double doors, I braced myself for the rest of this experience of being a fish out of water, of thinking the old story of a pauper and a prince could be reality.
The massive bedroom suite George guided me to enter was fit for royalty. For a princess. Someone with power and importance.
I stood there, gobsmacked, as I scanned the details. Creamy pink walls with crown molding that would be a bitch to dust and clean. Two chandeliers twinkling with subdued light. Like a sea of plush comforters and pillows, the bed waited for me to mess it up. Even the carpet was immaculate, so soft and smooth, looking brand-new to the degree that I worried my junky, falling-apart shoes would stain it.
“I…” I shook my head, slowly snapping myself out of this stupor. “I can’t stay here.”
George frowned. “Mr. Constella specified your guest room to be the nearest to his private quarters.”
I blinked, frowning at this perfect, luxurious place. “I heard that, but… No. I can’t.” I shook my head again.
“Is there something not to your liking? I can call the housekeeper and?—”
I lifted my hand to stop him from pulling his phone out from his pocket any further. “No! No. Don’t bother anyone.” Not on my account.
“Ms. Bardot?—”
“Nina. Please.” I swallowed past the lump of emotions clogging my throat. “Please don’t treat me like I’m some sort of star guest or important figure.” I added a light chuckle. “It’s making this all the more… weird.”
He nodded, rocking back onto the soles of his feet. “I see.”
I scrunched my face. “Do you?” I wasn’t sure if butlers were allowed to share opinions. I wanted his, though. Could this older man recognize how out of place I was here? How utterly different I was and that I couldn’t belong here, in this room or as Dante’s fake anything?
“I can arrange for you to have another room.” He raised his brows.
“No, please. No trouble.” I sighed and glanced around the room again, worried I’d break something or dirty a surface. “This is fine.”
He nodded, and I could have sworn he smiled slightly. “I’ll have Maura bring some clothing options in for you.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t even thought that far ahead, what I could wear tonight. I didn’t have pajamas. I had nothing but the uniform I'd had no chance to change out of since my shift ended. Thinking about clothes or personal belongings seemed so frivolous in this context. Figuring out how to adjust to moving in here to pretend to be Dante’s girlfriend was enough of a monkey wrench in my life.
How would I get my things? And how long would I even be here? Dante and I hadn’t put a time limit on this farce, but with his little warning that he was a busy businessman who wouldn’t be here to keep me company, I figured my presence would expire sooner than later.
And what am I even going to do?
Questions pinged in my head, too quick to answer, and all of them accumulating so fast.
Would I still go to work? I had to. How would I make a living? Did he plan to pay me to stay here and hide as his girlfriend? No, that didn’t sound right, either. He said we’d need to be seen together, out of this monstrosity of a palatial home.
All at once, I was struck with all the ways I hadn’t thought a single thing through. I was the conservative one when it came to risks. I never took them, opting for the safe and easy route through life and staying off the radar. Yet, I hadn’t put any sense of planning into telling Dante that I’d pretend to be his girlfriend. Details had to be smoothed out. Agreements and conditions had to be discussed and negotiated. We hadn’t talked about anything , and I felt stupid not to pay attention and be a smart, logical person about any of this.
I’m only human. I’d been running on fumes after my long shift, tired and spent. Then with the fear of being taken by the bikers, I’d shifted to the fuel of adrenaline to power me through the night. Once Dante kissed me and made me come, though…
I huffed out an exasperated breath and ran my fingers through the remnants of my unraveling braid.
The soft click of the door behind me was the only signal that I was now alone to let these facts sink into my brain. Not wanting to appear dumb or unthankful, I spun to see a panel of polished wood.
“Thanks,” I said anyway, too late for George to hear. I bet he wasn’t supposed to talk with the guests, anyway, being the hired help and all.
I looked at the bed, then glanced at the door open to a view of a fancy bathroom. Torn with the need to press a button for a do-over of the night, I wondered if I should give my weary brain a rest by slumping onto the mattress and passing out or if I should clean off the grime from work.
Walking through the huge bathroom, I considered how different this was from what I was used to. A shower stall separate from a wide claw-foot tub. So much lighting and ample, fluffy towels. Everything gleaming bright and clean, spotless and new. I felt like a speck of dirt in a state-of-the-art showroom.
So lost in my thoughts and awe about my lodgings, I jumped when a soft knock sounded on the door to my room.
“Sorry to interrupt, Ms. Bardot.”
I hurried out to catch a housekeeper setting a small stack of clothes down. “Nina,” I corrected.
She dipped her body lower. A curtsy. She freaking curtsied to me. I huffed a laugh and tried to wrap my head around it all.
“Please let me know if you should need anything else for the evening.” She stepped back as I lifted the corner of the folded pajama set atop a stack of similar soft garments. Pajama sets, nightgowns, even lingerie.
“Oh, this is too much,” I protested.
She backed up another step, lifting her hand in argument. “Oh, not at all. We have everything you need in this house.” With a sweet smile, she reached for the door. “Should you need anything, just use the landline and choose the button for housekeeping.”
I gawked at her, nodding dumbly as she backed out of the room—executing another curtsy—then left me standing there bewildered. The stack of clothing she’d just dropped off likely cost more than two months of tips—good tips.
My fingers felt too grimy to pick up the options and check them out. I felt too dirty after a long night of work. “Shower first,” I muttered to myself.
It would take a solid night of rest for me to properly sleep on all of this. Dante’s rescue. His extreme generosity. This enormous shift to the world of the rich, even if I was only pretending to belong in it.
As I showered, I tried not to freak out about how Cinderella-ish this was of me. It was simply too much to think about, too much to stew on. Once I cleaned up and dressed in a nightgown, I dropped into bed and drifted to sleep.
Dreaming of bikers roaring after me should’ve had me waking in the morning with restlessness, but surprisingly, I slept well.
I sat up, yawning, and wondered what the hell would happen next. It would take me a while yet to adjust, but I understood the basics. I was here to pretend to be Dante’s. It wasn’t safe for me to go home at the risk of seeing Ricky or the bikers. And Dante likely wouldn’t be here to help me settle in.
But someone else will be.
Curious if and when I would meet Eva, I got up and changed into the casual loungewear that Maura had left with the pajama selections from last night.
No sooner than I dressed and brushed my teeth and hair had someone knocked on the door.
“Yes?” I winced as I went to open it. Should I reply? Just open it? I wasn’t sure of the protocol. I was a guest, yet not?
I opened the doors to see a slender brunette. She stared at me, deadpan and unimpressed, and flicked her long, shiny locks of chestnut over her shoulder. Wearing a form fitting dress, she looked on point. Makeup professionally applied. Hair expertly styled. Skin flawless and glowing. And her dress and shoes were straight off a model—with a model’s figure to boot.
“You’re Nina?” she asked.
While she didn’t say it with too much snark, I caught a hint of her annoyance.
“Yes.” At least I didn’t have to correct her for calling me the stuffy and formal Ms. Bardot . “And you must be Eva?”
“Why must I be?” she retorted, walking into the room. This woman couldn’t be much older than me, but she moved with a sophisticated confidence and maturity, almost like she knew she would be in charge and counted on that never changing.
“Because… Dante said you’d help me settle in here.”
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms as she looked me up and down. “Settle in, huh? Do you actually intend to stay here?”
Uh… no? I wasn’t sure if I should say that, though. Did he tell her that we were fake dating? Do I tell her? Again, I lamented the few details I’d hashed out with him about our agreement.
“Because I can’t see you lasting long.”
Great. Just great. His niece had to have the mentality of my enemies in school. The mean girl. She was the queen of them, that was for sure.
“Why not?” I challenged.
She huffed, looking me up and down. I wasn’t wearing my uniform or crappy shoes. I’d showered and tamed my hair. I didn’t have much makeup to rely on, but I preferred the fresh-faced look, anyway. I wasn’t sure how she could see anything lacking in me on the surface, but I supposed for someone like her, she’d be able to detect when she was in the presence of someone inferior in class.
“You’re not his type.” She stalked closer, slowly and with a clear warning in her stern gaze. “And if you think you can get your way with my uncle and manipulate him at all, think again.”
“Whoa.” I held up my hands with my sarcastic reply. “Easy, tiger.”
“When it comes to my uncle—and my cousin—I will never go easy on anyone barging in here and being an imposter trying to look like they belong.”
She was uncannily accurate with that assessment, and it perturbed me. How could I look so different for her to target me as an outsider? Was it in my posture? The way I spoke or held my head up? I had no clue. For the next several hours, though, as she gave me a tour of the place and then ordered me a wardrobe, I was granted further examples of how I wouldn’t ever belong here.
The lavish décor. The top-line items in every room of the house. And all the expensive, designer clothes coming for me soon. Eva, with her icy tone, was right. Nothing suited me here. Nothing made this feel like a home. I was an imposter. As the day dragged on with her securing the essentials for me, I wished that I could catch even the slightest glimpse of Dante. Just to have a visual reminder of why I was doing this, of how this mattered.
I saw nothing of him. It was only me and Eva as she ordered so many things I gave up trying to calculate the gluttonous spending. I couldn’t justify it. Sure, I couldn’t go home, but maybe George or another soldier could go there and pick up some things for me?
I would have felt more comfortable with something familiar. Once Eva left me in the evening, I grabbed my phone and contacted Tessa. I needed her comfort now more than ever.
She answered quickly, worried about the news that I had “quit” at the steakhouse. Even though we didn’t want anyone to know that we were pretending to date, I told Tessa the truth. She wouldn’t tell anyone, and I needed at least one independent source to know of my whereabouts and why I was here.
“So, that’s what I was doing,” I summarized. “I wasn’t at home getting ready for another shift of waitressing tonight. I was here , at his place, tolerating his icy bitch of a niece as she tried to make me look presentable and show me where to go in this mansion.”
“She’s that bad, huh?”
I felt awful to complain about Eva. I’d only just met her. I didn’t know her to judge her. Likewise, she didn’t know a damn thing about me, but she was clearly judgmental.
“I think she’s very protective of Dante and her cousin.” I rolled over on the bed, lounging on my stomach instead of my back. As I traced vague circles and shapes on the top of the comforter, I sighed. “And I can’t fault her for that. You know, family is family.”
Tessa snorted a laugh. “Yeah, right. Don’t look at me for votes of confidence about a family. It’s kind of wild, though, that you worked for Dante and didn’t even know it!”
I shrugged. “I guess it can be a small world, after all.” I hadn’t told her that he made me come last night. The finer notes about how he’d asked me to play along with him could be something between me and him, not anyone else. I admitted that he’d kissed me, and that seemed to be enough to convince her of this plan.
“And you say he’s not bad on the eyes?” she teased of my summary a few moments earlier.
“Not bad?” I groaned. “My God, girl. He’s so fine.” Slapping my hand over my face, I tried to contain the wide, giddy smile that spread across my lips. “Something has to be seriously, morbidly wrong with me.”
She laughed along, sounding so far away on speakerphone. “Why would you think that?”
Aside from the sheer lunacy of entering a fake relationship just to get out of a forced handover to lawless bikers?
“Lusting after an older man?” I huffed a weak laugh. “He’s so much older than me.”
“Age is just a number. This only means that he’ll know what he’s doing.” She giggled. “In every way.”
Oh, he does. I didn’t want to wonder how many women he’d practiced on to be able to so quickly and effortlessly finger me and make me come so hard like that. I merely appreciated that he could and that he’d chosen to show me. “He’s…”
“He’s what?” Tessa asked, excitement clear in her tone.
He was so much I couldn’t sum it up easily. Generous, giving, cocky, and strong. Powerful and sexy, and so very masculine. “He’s very smart.” It felt like a cop-out and a compliment at the same time. He was intelligent and had expertise in pleasuring women.
“And hot?”
“Oh, fuck, Tessa. Definitely hot. I can’t stop thinking about…” The urge was so strong to come clean and tell her that he got me off. Yet, I stalled, biting my lip and holding back on this confession. I wanted to keep the memory of him to myself.
“About what?” she urged, still laughing. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Him.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the whole truth. At moments, flashbacks of his kisses and touches lit me on fire and renewed that instant desire he’d stoked in me. I wouldn’t tell her that, though. I greeted her and explained that I was pretending to date Dante to avoid that bet Ricky had made. It’d taken several long minutes to calm her down from the anger about that news, but still, I couldn’t outright lie to her. She was my best friend. Best friends were privy to scandalous ideas like pretending to be a Mafia lord’s girlfriend. While I knew she wouldn’t blab about what Dante and I were doing, I felt sheepish to admit that we’d kissed and that he’d taken the play-acting so far as to actually get me off.
I sighed. “I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Well, that’s sappy,” she joked. “You’ve got it bad for him, huh? Even though it’s just pretend?”
I sighed, wishing I could properly explain how much Dante revved up my desire.
At the sound of a throat clearing behind me, I flinched and dropped my phone to the bed. I spun, finding Dante standing at the doors. I hadn’t closed the one all the way, it seemed, because I hadn’t heard the hardware click while being opened.
He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his hip slanted against the wall. His bemused eyes were trained on me. At the first hint of a smile or smirk on his lips, I knew he’d heard it all.
“Uh…” I fumbled with my phone. “Gotta go.” I disconnected the call and hated how furiously my cheeks heated. To say I was embarrassed would have been the understatement of the year.
He’d caught me talking about him as though I were some foolish, lovestruck woman so far removed from his level of maturity.
“Have a productive day?” he asked, interested but more so, amused.
“Yes. Eva was a tremendous help.” Shit. How long was he standing there? I hoped he didn’t hear me complaining about his niece.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
I mentally groaned. What else did you hear just now?
“Good night, Ms. Bardot.” With one dip of his chin, a half nod, he turned and left me cringing and blushing in the throes of humiliation.
“Night,” I called out weakly, wondering how I’d face him again after that.