Chapter 9 – POSY #6
Hands dig into pockets and purses. Fingers fly. My stomach lurches. That video was on literally everyone’s phone.
Renelli wheezes a strained laugh. “It was a bad joke.” Renelli stares down the table at Dario, daring him to disagree. “A stupid prank. Maybe now my nephew sees it’s unwise to joke with a man who has no sense of humor.”
Dario waits for a long moment before he drops the slightest nod. “I joke, too.”
It’s an obvious lie. No one laughs.
Dario flips his phone and taps it a few times. An oblivious waiter rolls in the cart with dessert. A minute later, dings fill the room again. Hushed voices raise, marveling. Laughter booms.
Tony Graziano claps Dario’s back. “You crazy motherfucker. Ten million. Holy shit. Champagne! We need champagne!”
There’s an explosion of conversation. Dario finally takes his hand off my leg to select a cannoli. He slides it in front of me. Chocolate-dipped. My favorite.
I sneak a peek at his face. It’s impassive. Almost bored.
“What did you do?”
“Sold all our shares in Micron Tech at a loss.”
The five million. He lost five million dollars while I was in the bathroom. On purpose.
“And then?”
“I sold their competitor short.”
The ten million. He made ten million in seconds.
“Isn’t that illegal?”
His lip quirks up in the barest hint of a smile. “We’re criminals, Posy.”
“Why did you send me to the bathroom?”
“You were upset. It distracted me. I needed to focus.” He nudges my plate. “Eat. You haven’t had anything.”
I do, although I can’t taste a bite. The pieces are all jumbled in my head again. It doesn’t make sense.
What Dario did? In essence, he stole from the organization. Right in front of them. Renelli doesn’t tolerate thieves or rats. I know that better than most.
But the rules are different for Dario, the man who can make ten million with the snap of his fingers.
If it were any other man, I’d say he did it out of damaged pride. When he kicked me out, I figured that was why. His male ego couldn’t handle another man touching his property and everyone else knowing. It wasn’t because he loved me. I know now that he’s not capable of love.
But I distract him.
It shouldn’t mean anything. And I’m sure it’s because of my daddy issues or whatever, but I like that more than I should. I like it a lot.
I always thought falling for the wrong man would be my downfall—like it was for my mom.
Maybe it’s worse if the wrong man falls for you.
* * *
The rest of the dinner is uneventful. The champagne flows. I have two glasses, and since my stomach is mostly empty, it goes straight to my head. I lean on Dario when it’s time to go.
I expect him to go back to usual, obsessed with his phone, but he keeps it tucked away. Instead, during the ride home, he alternates between staring out the window and staring at me. It makes me squirm. My panties are still damp with his cum.
He’s going to want sex when we get home. His cock is already tenting his slacks.
I don’t know what to do. Or how to feel.
I shouldn’t want it. He’s hurt me. A lot.
And there’s no pretending this is normal.
Or okay. It’s more fucked up than my relationship with Frankie.
After Frankie popped me one, he bought me flowers and said he was sorry.
Dario shoved me in a trunk, and I’m fairly sure he still sees nothing wrong with that.
I should want better for myself. I should want what I thought I had with Dario, a healthy relationship where I’m treated like a princess and my man works in an office all day while I shop and garden and cook him dinner.
I do want that. But I also want this.
No one has ever wanted me before. My dad was disappointed I wasn’t a boy. I was useless to him.
Every boyfriend I ever had has gone on about how pretty I am, but that didn’t stop them from fucking other women or treating me like shit.
And I took it. Because at least I was wanted for something.
Because I knew what it was like to lose all your friends and get pushed to the outside, and if I was with a man, I was in.
Home free. At least for however long it lasted.
It’s a sad fucking history.
But with Dario—now—it’s different.
He wants more than my body. I don’t know why. Boredom. A quirk of his genius. I bet even he couldn’t say. But I have what he wants.
That’s power. And maybe it makes me a bad person, but it’s heady, heady stuff.
His eyes are on me now. It’s dark in the car. His face is cast in shadows, but there’s a glint. Sal’s still vigilant, but Ray’s dragging. He yawns like a walrus as he fiddles with the radio, probably searching for the baseball game.
I lean over and whisper in Dario’s ear. “You want to fuck me, don’t you?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t hesitate.
The excitement from earlier springs back to life inside me as if it’s on tap. No foreplay needed. This is so different.
I rest my head on Dario’s shoulder. “I don’t know if I should let you,” I murmur.
It’s a silly thing to say. He can obviously take what he wants. It’s not a matter of me letting him do anything.
“What do you need?” he asks. I glance up. He’s serious.
“A ring,” I joke. “And a house with a white picket fence. And a dog. And lots and lots of therapy. For you.” I think a second. “And me, too.”
“I bought you a ring.”
I sit back up. I didn’t expect him to admit it. “You did?”
“I was going to propose.”
“You wanted to get married?” Obviously, but it’s just so hard to believe.
Before, I was happy to delude myself that we were in love.
Marriage was the next chapter in my own personal fairy tale.
I know better now. This isn’t Cinderella.
It’s Little Red Riding Hood, the messed-up version where she gets eaten.
“I didn’t return it. I’ll give it to you when we get home.”
“Like a proposal?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t marry you.”
“There’s nothing stopping you.” He slides me a glance. His muscles have tensed.
“Only common sense and self-preservation.”
“You would have said yes before. Nothing’s changed.”
“ Everything has changed.”
“I’m the same man. You just know me better now. The facts are the same. I have money. We’re compatible.”
“What does money have to do with it?”
“It’s why you’re with me, isn’t it?” His voice is matter-of-fact. Completely unoffended.
I’d slap him if I weren’t so gob smacked by the turn of the entire conversation. “No. I wasn’t with you for your money. I told you when I moved in that I wanted to keep my job.”
“Maybe money was the wrong word. I should say influence. Security. You like not being the reject. You like the respect you get from being with me. Having a place you belong. Being taken care of.”
Chills shoot down my spine. How can someone incapable of human feeling see other people so clearly?
“You think you know me so well.”
“I know you perfectly well.”
“You don’t seem to like me very much.” I don’t like the hurt audible in my voice.
“What do you mean?”
“According to you, I’m needy. I’m a clinger,” I snipe. It might be true enough, but he’s an asshole for saying it, and in the grand scheme of things, my shortcomings are nothing to his unrepentant psychopathy.
“I like that you need me. It drove me crazy when you didn’t anymore.”
My breath catches. How can he be so honest? As if it doesn’t cost him anything?
“How could you think I cheated on you if you knew I needed you so much?” The question kind of slips out. In the dark, whispering, slightly buzzed, I can be honest, too.
“I should have known it was bullshit right away. The doctoring was piss poor. It took Miles a split second to see the timestamp was photoshopped.”
Dario sounds like he’s still baffled by the fact that he could be duped at all. That must have been a blow to that rock solid ego.
“Maybe you wanted to believe it,” I say without thinking. “It gave you an excuse to bail.”
“I didn’t want to bail.”
I shrug. Men get bored, and they ditch you, cheat, or push you away. That’s how it goes. If you’re lucky, you see it coming, and you go first. If you’re not, a guy dumps you and your suitcase on a sidewalk downtown.
“I chased you down,” he points out.
“Hurt pride,” I suggest.
He laughs softly. “Do you really think anyone can hurt my pride, Posy?”
I picture him at the table, calmly chewing his steak as people laugh at him for being with the accidental porn star. No, I guess not.
“What would you have done if Renelli got pissed at that stunt?”
Dario barks a laugh. “Oh, he’s definitely pissed.”
“You’re not worried?”
“I’m as concerned as I ought to be.”
“What does that mean?”
Ray is pulling up in front of the house, engaging the emergency break with a zip. Sal gets out with alacrity, scanning the yard, hand resting on his piece.
Dario reaches over, takes my chin gently, and then lightly strokes his fingers down my jawline.
“Renelli has already threatened what matters most to me. It’s just a matter of time now.”
“Until what?” I ask, breathless, belly clenching from the completely novel tenderness.
“Until it’s him or me.”
“What is he threatening?” Renelli would be a fool to take him from his work. Tonight proved that if he didn’t already know.
“You.” His lips curve and his brow creases in a mystified smile. Then he shrugs and disembarks from the car, pulling me behind him as Sal falls in at our backs. A frisson of fear shoots down my spine as Dario draws me inside.
* * *
We play speed chess for an hour or so, and then a gratuitously complicated game about public utilities with so many little wooden pieces that I spend the second half of the game building small towers and knocking them over.
I still win. Dario was experimenting with strategy, having a grand old time, and I just wanted to be done.
We don’t talk much. He’s in his element, and my brain’s replaying the conversation from the car. If I’m still in Renelli’s crosshairs, getting gone has developed a new urgency. I had been thinking I wasn’t a loose thread anymore now that I’m back, but that’s not what it sounds like.