Chapter 45
Frankie paced behind her glass-topped desk at Naked Runway, the borrowed Birkin perched on the edge. “I’d say it’s not you, it’s me. But let’s be honest. It’s Marcus.” She dragged it closer and reached inside.
Her fingers closed around a box of condoms. Her lips twitched. Marcus, smug and cocky, had once told her not to be afraid of extra-large because he liked room to think. She had paid him back by listing him as extra-small in the swinger ad. She tossed the box into a drawer. “Arrogant bastard.”
Next came the lipstick vibrator. She rolled it between her fingers. “With Marcus in my bed, you weren’t exactly needed. With Marcus gone… I should probably refresh your batteries.” Anger flared. She dumped it in the trash. No way was Marcus getting encore performances in her fantasies.
Her hand brushed glass. She pulled out a bottle of hot sauce, the label worn soft. She gave a weak laugh. “Some people have emotional support animals. I have an emotional support condiment.”
For a short time, she’d had the real thing.
Sir Hissalot. She hadn’t even said goodbye.
Just left a note warning Marcus she’d take out more swinger ads in every senior magazine on the racks if he so much as thought about regifting the one-eyed menace.
Her condo didn’t allow pets, but that didn’t stop guilt from sinking its claws in.
She sank into her chair and reached in again.
This time she pulled out her wallet. The same one Marcus had forced her to use the night he’d made her buy her own popcorn.
Back then, it had seemed odd. A grown man without a wallet.
Now she understood it had been punishment for her supposed sins toward Lola.
“Damn asshole still owes me popcorn money. I should send him a bill.”
Something crinkled at the bottom of the bag. She drew it out carefully. A folded newspaper clipping.
Curiosity flared, hot and sharp as she slowly unfolded it. Headlines didn’t usually scare her, but this one shouted back at her: MOB BOSS ARRESTED IN VILLA FIRE THAT KILLED AMERICAN-BORN WOMAN
Frankie’s breath hitched. Had Marcus slipped this into her purse? If so, why? Who was this mob-connected family to him?
She began to read out loud.
“‘In a dramatic turn in one of Sicily’s most notorious mafia cases, prosecutors charged Salvatore Romano, reputed head of the Romano crime family, with ordering the villa fire that killed American-born Elizabeth DeLuca and left her husband, Massimo, and their five sons missing.
Investigators believe the family was kidnapped and executed, their bodies never found.
“‘Prosecutors allege the blaze was retaliation for the murder of Romano’s only son, Salvatore Jr., gunned down three years earlier in a hit widely attributed to the DeLuca syndicate.
“‘During arraignment proceedings, Romano sneered at prosecutors and delivered a chilling remark: ‘If I have no heirs, why should he? No DeLuca son will grow to be a man.’ Whether confession or threat remained unclear, but prosecutors argue it proves the fire was not an accident. It was a vendetta meant to erase an entire bloodline.’”
Frankie lowered the clipping, her head spinning. Mafia wars. Children missing and assumed dead. Bloodlines erased. Why the hell would Marcus want her to see this?
She shoved her hand back into the Birkin, searching for anything—context, explanation, sanity. Her fingers brushed something small, wedged into the zipper compartment. A scrap of paper with a single pencil-scrawled sentence.
I’m just a boy offering the woman who stole my heart a grand gesture. ~M
Frankie’s throat closed. Mr. Uptight had remembered her confession about wanting a grand gesture and had given her one. Granted, she didn’t understand what made it grand. If it was the content of the article, well…there was nothing grand about that. At best it was a Grim Gesture.
“A for effort. F for execution,” she said, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach at the thought of the asshole giving her a grand gesture.
She glanced again at the love note. Could it be that this was the part he considered grand? If so, he clearly did not understand the assignment. An I love you declaration was not original material.
She scratched her forehead, trying to make sense of it.
Marcus must have placed the article and the note in her purse the night he had dropped it on her front porch. The night he’d abandoned her at the festival and then later revealed himself as Mr. Uptight.
What she had viewed as his cold proclamation that he was cutting her loose, he had apparently seen differently.
It hadn’t been rejection. It had been his attempt at a grand gesture. Complete with a love note.
He’d dropped it off, and then he’d gone back to the manor and waited for her to come to acknowledge his effort.
And she’d been a no-show, which he would have interpreted as a fuck you.
And yet, he’d followed her to the town square the next day, where he’d proceeded to declare his love publicly.
This, even though he’d no doubt presumed she had found the article, read every word, and decided his effort was not only laughable but so puny that it hadn’t warranted her dropping her revenge plans.
What was she missing? Unless… Goosebumps formed on her arms.
Was it possible he and his brothers were the missing children? That they’d somehow survived and ended up in America?
Was that what he’d meant when he’d said, right before he’d walked back to the damn golf cart and driven away, “Thanks for not telling my secret?”
She’d assumed he’d meant thanks for not telling everyone about his connection to Gi Gi.
If the article was about his family, then his choosing to ghost her during the ambush interview hadn’t been about him prioritizing his ego-fueled preference for privacy above her needs.
It had been about survival. He and his brothers’.
She recalled that on the first day they’d met, he had told her his middle initial stood for Dick. Was it really for DeLuca?
“Am I reaching?” she asked the Birkin. “Am I trying to turn a sales rack asshole into a couture hero?”
It seemed farfetched, yet if she was right and the Grant brothers were the missing DeLuca brothers, then he’d absolutely done the only thing he could when the journalist showed up.
Frankie had never been threatened by a mob boss, but if she ever had, it didn’t take a criminal to know you’d want to avoid having your face plastered on a national television newscast for the bad guy to see and remember he wants you dead.
Her eyes burned, and her chest clenched.
If her assumptions were right, Marcus had trusted her with the most vulnerable part of himself, and that’s what made the news clipping a grand gesture. “And I turned his efforts into a revenge punchline.”
In her defense, her anger had been, and still was, justified. He had manipulated her as Mr. Uptight. His actions had been high-handed, inappropriate, and flat-out cruel.
In his defense, his choices had been fueled by loyalty. He had acted on behalf of a friend’s ruined dreams. Which, while it didn’t excuse the deception, made it human. Understandable, even.
Now that Ziggy counted himself her friend, Frankie would burn down kingdoms to defend him.
Protecting a friend didn’t erase what Marcus had done, but it explained the bone-deep instinct behind it. Emphasis on explained…not absolved. No way did it give him a get-out-of-consequences-free card.
But his actions could be deemed pardonable after a suitable amount of groveling, followed by a considerable amount of penance for his decision to crawl into her bed without admitting he was Mr. Uptight.
The door eased open. As if she believed her thoughts had conjured him, Frankie’s gaze snapped toward it.
Not Marcus.
“Have I come at a bad time?” Ms. Birdie’s voice was unusually gentle.
Frankie, still holding the clipping, waved it toward her boss. “Is this about Marcus and his brothers?”
Ms. Birdie crossed the room with her quiet grace, glanced at the article, and raised a brow. “It is.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“His secrets were never mine to tell.”
“If Marcus and his brothers are in danger, why risk telling me?” Frankie huffed out a laugh with no humor in it. “Especially knowing I was on a revenge warpath.”
Ms. Birdie tapped the corner of the clipping. “I suggest you ask him that question.”
Frankie’s chest ached. And damn it, not for herself. For him. He’d looked so damn sad the last time she saw him. “He said he loved me, you know, and I laughed at him.”
A wry smile touched Ms. Birdie’s lips. “According to Ziggy, you lobbed Marcus’s feelings back at him with the same force you throw stilettos.”
Although there was no judgment in Ms. Birdie’s voice, Frankie bristled.
“Of course I did. It had been less than twelve hours since I learned I’d been sleeping with the enemy.
” Come to think of it, if anyone should be judging right now, it should be Frankie.
She leveled Ms. Birdie with a frown. “A situation I would have avoided had you bothered to tell me he was Mr. Uptight.”
“Exactly,” Ms. Birdie said lightly.
Frankie blinked. Exactly what? Ms. Birdie and her cryptic crap. It was infuriating.
Deciding she didn’t have the energy to figure it out, Frankie turned her attention back to the note and article.
Marcus had given her his heart and his scariest truth. No bargaining. No demands. Just his damn soul.
Emotions swept through her. Frantically, she tried to rebuild her walls, but they lay in ruins at her feet. Leaving her vulnerable.
“Did you set us up?” Frankie demanded. Ms. Birdie had a reputation for meddling in romance.
“Fate set you up. I merely stepped aside and let it keep its secrets,” Ms. Birdie said, clearly pleased with herself.
Frankie exhaled and set the clipping down. None of this mattered. What was done was done. She was in Manhattan. Marcus was in Gi Gi’s Crossing. Life went on. Her emotions needed to get on board with that. “I suppose you came here for a reason today?”
“I wanted to check in on my star editor and to give you a tip.”
“I’m fine. What kind of tip?”
“I thought you might want to know that Marcus has returned to Manhattan. According to my sources, he did so on the same day you came home.”
“You mean you haven’t spoken to him in person?”
Ms. Birdie shook her head. “He’s not taking my calls. It’s my understanding he’s keeping to himself. But I imagine if you reached out, he’d take your call.”
Frankie shook her head emphatically. “Not happening. Whatever we had, it’s broken. Beyond repair.” The words tasted like dirt because they were a lie. She had already ruled out a life sentence for his sins. The question was whether he had ruled one in for hers.
Ms. Birdie’s silence stretched, patient and damning.
Frankie glowered. “Please. One article and a Hallmark scribble don’t erase sabotage and sex under false pretenses.”
“Are you saying his admitting the truth repaired nothing? His gifting you his ultimate secret repaired nothing? Knowing he loves you repaired nothing?” Ms. Birdie’s voice rose with each nothing. “Is your intention, given what you now know, truly to do nothing?”
Frankie inhaled for five seconds and exhaled slowly. “Well. I guess the least I could do is send him a sympathy card. Blank inside. Let him do the work for once.”
Now that she knew why his privacy was so important, she regretted the very public revenge she’d chosen. Had she known, she would have still unleashed her wrath, but not via a swingers’ ad, and not in the middle of the town square where all the gossips had gathered to blather.
The mere thought of Marcus being in danger caused the hairs on the back of Frankie’s neck to stand and her heart to squeeze.
Or maybe, just maybe, her heart was squeezing because she loved him, too.
Was it possible to be in love with your enemy? If that were the case, it would explain the constant heartburn she had experienced since returning to Manhattan.
But love couldn’t undo the damage done.
Or could it?
How did one even go about finding out if love was enough?
With a grand gesture, an annoying voice whispered in her head.
Hell.
Now that she understood his connection with the article, she had to admit that Marcus’s grand gesture went a long way toward making things okay.
Sure, there were fights still to be had, but if they both fought fair, if neither of them burned any damn bridges to make a point, their fights wouldn’t be deal breakers.
The bottom line was that if Frankie wanted to find out if love was enough, she needed to reach out to Marcus.
And do what?
Apologize was the obvious answer.
Only, she didn’t do apologies. She didn’t accept them, nor did she give them. They were for the lily-livered. And that was not on the table for negotiations.
Marcus had understood that, and in lieu of an apology, he had risen to the occasion by giving her his scariest secret. She applauded his creativity.
She didn’t have a life-threatening secret she could hand him in return. Which meant she’d have to fall back on a traditional grand gesture. Something ripped straight from a romance novel. It would have to be loud enough to get his attention, and quiet enough to protect him.
Public to the world. Private in its meaning.
But in what universe did that unicorn exist?
Frankie tapped her finger against her lip.
“I can see the wheels turning. Do I want to know what you’re plotting?” Ms. Birdie asked. “If it’s murder, blink twice.”
“Tempting,” Frankie muttered. “But ever since you gave me the whole don’t burn your metaphorical bridges’ speech, my appetite for murder has sadly diminished.”
Ms. Birdie’s lips twitched. “That’s nice, dear.”
A poetic plan snapped Frankie’s brain back to the task at hand. One so swoony it had to mean she’d recently received a head injury. Otherwise, there was no way she’d consider such a sappy action.
If Marcus could risk his life to hand her his truth, she could risk her pride to hand him her heart.
He’d groveled for her in the middle of Gi Gi’s Square.
She’d grovel for him in the middle of Times Square.
“Ms. Birdie, I’m going to need a billboard man.”