“By the time the divorce is due to happen, we’re in love and we end up living happily ever after. Just to be clear, that’s not going to happen.”
“I wouldn’t dream of letting it.”
I try to ignore the bubbling up disappointment that rises in my gut when he says that. “I couldn’t bring up a family with a criminal.”
“No one is asking you to. Just marry me for a little while. How does that sound?”
“Cards on the table, Vincenzo. A lot of things about you scare me. Bullet proof glass, more money than Croesus. The way you keep threatening to spank me.”
“So you’re turning me down?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m saying this is a lot to take in.”
He drives in silence while I think. I feel like this is a dream and I’m going to wake up soon. If that’s the case, I might as well say yes. See where this goes. The idea of being married to him wouldn’t be so bad, not if it wasn’t for long. Maybe just long enough to see what it would feel like to be spanked by those big hands of his.
But he’s in the mafia. I felt numb when he first told me but it’s starting to sink in now. In the mafia. A criminal. Not just an average crook either. He’s clearly very successful and very high up in the organization. The FBI were looking into him back at his office.
Could he end up getting arrested any time soon? Would they take me in as an accessory? Could my time with him lead to a spell in prison?
“What does it involve exactly?” I ask as we head onto the freeway. “This offer of yours?”
“You agree to marry me for a period of one month. Shouldn’t take any longer than that for my father to sign everything over to me, let the commission know I’m in charge.”
“What commission?”
“Think of it like a government and law enforcement rolled into one. Just for the mafia. It oversees the families and enforces the rules. Has the power to inflict punishments for those who break them.”
“So if they accept you’re in charge then no one can boot you out?”
“Exactly. I take over and once that’s confirmed, we get a divorce and you take a cash settlement away with you to help you get your book done. Call it an advance until royalties start coming in.”
“An advance?”
“How does a million dollars sound?”
“I don’t know. Rustly when the wind hits it?”
“I’m serious. One million to marry me for one month.”
“You’re not serious. You can’t be.”
“Deadly serious but there are conditions you must adhere to.”
“I knew there’d be a catch. There always is in the books.”
“No one can find out. In public, you must act like a loving wife whether I’m around or not. You allow shows of affection in front of people. You sleep in my house until we break up. You submit to me in all ways.”
“I submit to you? What am I, a slave?”
“No one would believe it was a genuine marriage if you were not subservient to me. It would be apparent at once that this was a fake marriage if you did not submit to me.”
“So I do whatever you tell me for the next month?”
“With exceptions.”
“Like what?”
“You get a safe word. That’s your get out of jail free card. You use it and whatever is happening ends at once.”