Chapter 8
TOE-CURLING
DAPHNE
“What’s that?” Michelle moves my collar aside and gasps. “Did Leo do that again?”
I slap her hand away and cover the spot I thought I had concealed. “I fell,” I blurt out, but we both know it’s bullshit.
That bastard. He left a bruise on my neck where he bit me on the plane as I rode him through multiple orgasms. I no longer regret the claw marks I no doubt left on his shoulder either.
I now realize he’s quite fond of leaving a mark somewhere on my body, and not in a discreet place, which I’m sure is part of his master plan.
Michelle grabs the side of her head and grunts. “Are you fucking stupid, or do you have a death wish?”
At this point, I’m thinking a little bit of both. Why else would I be drawn back to Leo…repeatedly?
Angelo walks behind the bar and narrows his eyes, zeroing in on the hickey on my neck.
“Lower your voice.” I motion toward my brother with my chin, not wanting him to hear a word of our conversation.
She glances at Angelo and smiles like she’s covering our tracks and totally failing. “Answer the question.” She doesn’t even move her lips when she speaks.
“I ended things,” I tell her.
At least, that’s what I told him when I kissed him goodbye as we stood outside his plane on the runway. Even though we fucked like rabbits and he quite possibly may have given me the best orgasms of my life, I wasn’t sure I could see him again.
There is no future for us.
How could there be?
Our families are enemies, and by extension, so are we.
Michelle crosses her arms over her chest, cocking her head to the side and giving me a look. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” I scoff and wave my hand in the air. “Totally.”
She narrows her gaze. “He may be on the up-and-up, but we both know his father isn’t.”
“Neither is mine,” I remind her, but she knows my father just as well as I do.
Michelle grew up in the life too. Her father worked for mine until he passed away five years ago in a tragic car accident.
She wondered for a long time if it was a hit, but so far, we haven’t found any evidence.
My father swears there was no war going on and everything that happened to Eddie, Michelle’s dad, was accidental.
She glances up at the ceiling. “Is it really over between you two, or are you bullshitting me?”
“Yes. It’s really over,” I say, but I don’t even convince myself, and I know Michelle doesn’t buy it either.
“So, it was that good, wasn’t it?”
“What was?” I play stupid.
“The sex.” She shakes her head, annoyed with me. “You said he had a perfect penis and the best body you’d ever seen.”
“Girl.” I let out a loud sigh. “He was the best ever.”
“Toe-curling?” The corner of her mouth ticks up.
We’ve always been honest with each other and never hid anything before… Why start now?
“Everything curling. I’m in trouble here, Michelle. Real trouble.”
“Daphne, your phone is vibrating across the bar,” Johnny says as he lifts my cell phone up and stares at the screen. “Who’s The Best You’ll Ever Have?”
“Oh fuck,” I mutter and leave Michelle behind, marching straight to Johnny and plucking my phone from his grip.
Angelo looks at me, and I can see the questions already swirling around in his head. “Who you seein’, Daphne?” Angelo finally asks as I jam my phone into my purse underneath the bar. “It’s not the first time he’s called.”
I don’t turn around, keeping my back to him because it’s easier to lie when I don’t have to face him. “No one.”
The words are almost truthful. I’m not seeing Leo. Well, not anymore, at least. We aren’t a thing. We fucked. Okay, we fucked a few times, but that doesn’t make us a thing.
“You were MIA last night, and now you show up with a hickey on your neck again,” he says.
“Fuck,” I whisper and close my eyes, pretending to dig in my purse for something that’s not there. “I fell down. That’s what the bruise is from. It’s not a hickey, jagoff.”
“So, you fell and hit your neck?” His voice rises on the last word.
I lift my face to find Michelle staring at me, twisting her lips as she tries to hide her laughter. I give her a look that’s nothing short of deadly. “Something like that.” I stand, finally turning toward my brother and somehow keeping a straight face. “Anyway, I’m fine.”
“And the phone call?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Just some random dude.”
Angelo looks to Michelle and she nods, but there’s no smile on her face.
She’s the lamest liar on the planet. Although she’d be the first person at my side to fuck shit up, she’d also be the first one singing to the cops and confessing all our crimes, especially if Angelo were the detective.
She’s always had a thing for him, even though she tries to hide it. I’m not stupid or blind.
“Yeah. He’s no one, really,” Michelle says with the fakest laugh I’ve ever heard.
Angelo doesn’t say anything more, but his eyes are still on me. There’s no way in hell I’m telling him anything more than he needs to know. And right now, he doesn’t need to know about Leo.
I start to walk away, satisfied that the conversation’s over, when Angelo says, “Billy saw you at the little airport outside of town last night.”
I freeze mid-stride with one leg in the air, waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. My eyes are wide and locked on Michelle, and she looks just as horrified as me.
That fucker has been leading me on, knowing full well I was with someone, but playing stupid, trying to get me to crack. But I’m a pro. Growing up Gallo has taught me a thing or two…evasion being one of those skills.
“He said you were with some guy getting on a private jet last night. Billy said the guy looked familiar, but he couldn’t place his face. Well, not yet, at least. Did you take a little trip, sis? Maybe with the Best You’ll Ever Have.”
I spin around on one heel like I’m a freaking ballerina and stare down my brother.
“I don’t have to tell you anything. Mind your own business.
” He dips his head, and the corner of his mouth tips upward, making me angrier.
“I don’t ask you who you’re screwing, and you don’t get to ask me, big brother. ”
I give Michelle a smile, feeling mighty impressed with myself and my ability to hold it together even under Angelo’s penetrating gaze. Well, to be fair, my back was to him most of the time, but still.
“I don’t care who you’re with, Daphne. Just be careful and be smart.”
Careful—I had been careful. Leo was careful because he knew there were eyes on us. Smart. That was something entirely different. If I were smart, I wouldn’t have agreed to the one date, and I most definitely wouldn’t have banged him, officially becoming a member of the mile-high club.
I stalk back to the bar, grabbing my purse and phone from under the countertop. “I’m always smart, Angelo. Always,” I lie.
I march out of the room, making my exit, and head to the alley. I’m already listening to Leo’s voice mail when the door slams behind me.
Daphne. I can’t stop thinking about you. You said goodbye, but I know you didn’t mean it. I’ll be at your place tonight. Don’t shoot me.
I can’t wipe the smile off my face, but then I remember the possibility of one of us winding up dead.
Me: It’s too dangerous. Someone saw us at the airport.
I tap my foot, waiting for him to text me back, but when nothing comes, I take a step back inside. I’m not even three feet down the hallway when my phone finally rings.
“What do you mean someone saw us?” I can hear the worry in Leo’s voice.
“One of my brother’s friends works at the airport. He ratted on me.”
“Fuck,” he hisses.
“I don’t think we should see each other again, Leo. It’s too dangerous. You were careful, and someone still saw us.”
“Do they know who I am?”
“Since the guy works at the airport, I’m sure he can figure it out.”
“The plane’s registered in the company name.”
“And which company would that be?”
He still hasn’t told me much about his work besides the fact that he’s in no way involved with his father’s business. I wasn’t going to push the subject, but since he brought the topic up, I think, what the hell. Why not?
“Excellence Hotels.”
“Like the Excellence Hotels?”
My brother’s wedding was at the Excellence. Now, the reason for Leo to be at the hotel made perfect sense and how he knew which couple was celebrating in the grand ballroom that evening too.
He wasn’t stalking my family, after all.
“Yes,” he replies.
“Are you, like, the CEO or something?”
“I own the hotel chain, Daphne.”
My mouth hangs open. I knew Leo was wealthy, I knew Leo had class, but never did I think he was the owner of one of the biggest and most elite hotel chains in the country.
“Well, okay,” I say, still in shock from the truth bomb he just dropped on me. “We still shouldn’t see each other again. When I said goodbye, I meant it.”
“We’ll talk about it tonight,” he says and hangs up.
I gawk at my phone in disbelief.
He hung up on me.
Fucking Leo Conti just hit end on our conversation without letting me get another word out, and I had plenty to say.
“Are you working, or are you going to chitchat all day?” Angelo asks, scaring the living hell out of me.
“Jesus,” I mutter, grabbing my chest. “I’m coming.”
Angelo stares at me. He knows something’s up. I just hope he doesn’t find out who I’ve been seeing because I know he’d have something to say about it. He hates my father’s business as much as I do.
I jam my phone into my back pocket and walk toward the bar, brushing against his shoulder as I pass by.
I’m busy pulling down the new bottles for tonight’s service when my mom pushes through the front door, carrying an old bicycle frame in her arms with the biggest smile on her face.
“Look at this beauty.” She lifts the rusty heap higher when she approaches us.
“It’s… It’s…” I don’t know what to say to her. I know she wants to hear how wonderful the hunk of junk is, but I just can’t seem to find the right words. It’s a rusty mess, but to her, it’s a work of art.
“It’s great, Ma,” Angelo says quickly, saving me before I utter something I know I’ll regret.
Her smile grows larger as she rests the frame on the floor. “I know exactly what I’m going to make, too.”
My mother has become interested in reclamation art or, as I call it, junk. When my father was sent away to prison, Ma needed to find a hobby to pass the time, and why she didn’t pick up crocheting or knitting, I’ll never understand.
Instead, she takes what other people throw out and repurposes it to create a “work of art”—her words, not mine—that no one ever wants to buy.
I feign interest because well…she’s my mom, and I can’t be disrespectful. “What?” I ask, but I don’t really care to know the answer.
She holds the frame with one hand and takes a step back, staring at the rusting disaster. “Picture this.” She waves her hand between the frame and herself. “I’m going to use this as the base for a coffee table. Maybe I’ll use glass for the tabletop. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?”
“Sounds great, Ma,” Angelo says, always the one to kiss my mother’s ass.
“Ass-kisser,” I mouth, rolling my eyes so only he can see.
“Daphne wants it for her living room,” he tells her with a shitty smirk. “She’s been talking about getting a new coffee table for a long time.”
My mom starts to clap, excited at the thought of me finally displaying a piece of her work in my place. “It’s serendipity,” she chirps.
With my back still to my mother, I glare at Angelo and flip him off. “I’ll get you back,” I mutter quietly before turning to face my mother. “I’d love to have it, Ma, but I hate glass. Can you at least make the top metal or wood?”
Part of me is hoping I’ll kill her vision and she’ll decide to keep the table for herself, but I should’ve known that wasn’t my mother’s way.
“Sure, honey. Anything you want.” She’s so happy I almost feel guilty that I want a solid top to hide the fact that there will be a piece of junk holding the entire thing up.
“I’m going to go out back and start working on it.
” She grabs the bike frame, and before either of us can say another word, she scurries toward the hallway to her “art studio” in an abandoned garage behind the bar.
“That’s going to look amazing in your place, Daph.” Angelo laughs.
“You’re an asshole!” I yell as he walks toward the other end of the bar, avoiding the dagger I’m pretending to throw his way.