Dad sighs, and I manage to look at him. He’s frowning and looking at the floor. He raises his eyes to meet mine. “I need you to sweep and mop before you leave this afternoon. These floors are disgusting.”
I let out a breath, and my body deflates with it. He doesn’t know.
I nod. “Sure.”
He gives me a small smile and steps up to me to plant a kiss on my forehead. “You’re a good girl, Alexa. I’m proud of you, you know that right?”
I look into his eyes and see sincerity, along with sadness. I should be glad he’s sad andhopehe feels an immense amount of guilt for what he’s doing to me, but I can’t. He’s been firm in his decisions for me, but he’s just as much of a puppet as I am. It was Nikita and Leo Romano who chose this. Not my father, not Paolo, and certainly not me.
“I know,” I say with a forced smile.
He squeezes my shoulder and retreats into his office.
I spend the next two hours in an unreasonably good mood. I even manage to be chipper for the Karen who was apparently displeased with her fatty pork chops the last time she was in. I get the floor swept and mopped before I leave my father to deal with the shop for the rest of the day, and when I get into my car, my chest tightens. My sketchbook is flipped open on my passenger seat to a page I spent a large part of yesterday and this morning working on. It’s a rough sketch of Settimo’s portrait. I managed to capture his smirk perfectly, but I struggled with the shine in his eyes. I’d tossed the sketchbook haphazardly when I got into my car to go to work and was in too big a hurry to remember to bring it in with me.
Settimo asked if the yellow Bug was mine.
Oh Jesus, he saw this, didn’t he?
My face gets hot, and I start the car. I pull out of the lot, my clammy palms gripping the wheel. I’m flooded with embarrassment, but when I glance at the portrait again, a small smile plays on my lips, and a tiny part of me is glad he saw it.
I turn my eyes to the road and try to decide on what I’ll wear tonight.
13
SETTIMO
The Art Institute is less than five miles from my home, but with the traffic tonight, it’s taken me nearly half an hour to get here. Alex’s car is, as promised, in a parking garage across the street, and I pull in next to it. I’m ten minutes late, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I don’t see her fuming by her car with her hands on her hips. She must not be out of class yet.
I lean my head back and listen to the podcast blaring from my speakers. I’ve never taken much of an interest in music, but I don’t like to drive in silence either. So instead, I listen to true crime and judge all the evidence idiots leave behind, or I tune it out altogether and let it be background noise.
Now, I listen in an attempt to distract myself from the thoughts that have been plaguing me since this afternoon. It doesn’t work. I’m swimming in memories, drowning in them really, of the last woman I chose to take on a date. Twenty years ago.
Twenty fucking years. It didn’t hit me until I spoke to Alex this afternoon, but it’s really been that long since I actively tried to charm a woman. I’ve had dates to dinners and banquets, but only when it was customary. I barely spoke to them. I can’t even remember their names. The most interaction I have with a woman I’m “courting” is the five-minute flirtation I give before getting to the point. Then another five minutes of obligatory kissing before I stick my cock in them, and then they’re no more than a vessel for me.
But a date? Anactualdate? It’s hard to imagine grown men doing such a thing. It’s harder to imaginemyselfdoing such a thing, yet here I am, dressed in a black tailored suit with a bouquet of red roses beside me. I wonder if the roses are a bit much. It probably doesn’t matter either way, the girl is so embarrassingly under my thumb.
There’s a tap on my window, and I blink before turning that way. Alex is there with a bag slung over her shoulder and her phone in her hand. Streaks of paint line her T-shirt and jeans, and there’s even a small smudge on her face. I’m definitely going to have to cancel our reservation to the upscale restaurant I hoped to impress her with. Looks like she’s more of a supermarket buffet kind of girl.
I school my expression, giving her a smile before rolling down my window. “Hey beautiful.”
“Hi,” she says, not quite enthusiastically. If I couldn’t see the excitement written so clearly on her face, I would buy that she wasn’t thrilled to be going out with me.
She nods to her car. “I just need to change real quick and then we can go.”
I let out a sigh of relief when she turns and scrambles into her Bug. It really is cute and fitting. I didn’t lie to her about that. Technically, I haven’t lied to her about anything.Technically.
She’s going to hate me. If not after tonight, then eventually. I’m the same man I was twenty years ago. Selfish, cruel, and manipulative. I’m beginning to think that’s all I’m capable of when it comes to women.
Memories flood my mind again, and I take a deep breath.
Maybe Alex doesn’t have to know my motive for this date. Maybe she’ll think it’s real, and later when I don’t call, things just didn’t work out. She’ll never know I didn’t come to the butcher shop to flirt with her, that I was there to threaten her. If I hadn’t seen the drawing of me in her car, I might’ve gone through with it. The photo of her family is still in my wallet, waiting to be used to state the obvious if things don’t play out the way I want them to.I know them, everything about them. Someone is watching them as we speak. Do what I say and they won’t be harmed.
I hope it doesn’t come to that.
I turn down the podcast and casually watch as Alex fumbles with clothing in the back seat of her car. I catch a glimpse of her breasts spilling from a lacy bra, and my cock hardens. She wore that for me.
Lust pools in my chest and sinks to my balls, and it’s the one thing that takes my mind off this whole thing. Whatever reservations I’ve felt about tonight vanish, and it takes my guilt with it.