Page 121 of Forced Vows

Still Monday

Not wanting to take my bad mood out on my family, I turn down Kara's offer to go for an after dinner coffee and Fiona's offer to watch All About Eve with me for the dozenth time.

When mamo asks me to read to her while she does her cross stitch, I tell her I have a headache and need to get some fresh air.

My grandmother loves her audiobooks and she lets me read to her, using different character voices to practice getting into different characters quickly. But I'm sure it's a lot more fun for me than it is for her.

My extemporaneous reading, with my stops and starts and stumbles isn't the same as listening to a smoothly polished audiobook.

They're all being wonderful, but they don't deserve for the gray cloud hanging over my head to start raining on them.

I'm not just sad. I'm angry. At that stupid jerk, Boaz for blabbing my business to the whole class. At the dean for telling me to stay home for a few days while the board gets together to discuss the problem I present. At my professor for going to him in the first place.

And at Miceli damn De Luca, underboss from hell, who put the whole thing in motion with his extra vigilant bodyguards.

Out here, I can cry where no one can see. Tears are a weakness we're not supposed to give into. But I can't always control mine. Even Fiona is better at keeping the waterworks from starting.

She'll huddle in a ball of shivering anxiety and not shed a single tear.

It's not right, but even mamo ascribes to the axiom, mob princesses don't cry.

"What are you doing walking out here alone? I'm going to fucking kill Allessio." Miceli's voice interrupts my solitude.

Swiping roughly at my cheeks, I croak out, "Allessio and Zoey are off the clock. I don't need a security detail in my own backyard."

And what the heck is Miceli doing here?

"How often do you come out here alone like this? Do Kara and Fiona do it too? Does Kara let Fitz play out here without security?"

I spin around and glare at the source of one of the worst days of my life. "What's it to you? Contrary to what you think, Miceli, you are not king of the world. You're not even his little brother."

The underboss's brows draw together as he studies me. "What's wrong with you?"

"Something has to be wrong with me to ignore your texts for a day? Come on, how controlling are you?"

"You were crying. God-fucking-damn-it! I told that insensitive son-of-a-bitch to let me break the news to you."

"You knew I was going to get kicked out of school? How? The dean wouldn't call you." So far as anyone knows, I'm still just the girlfriend and that's hardly common knowledge among normal people.

And as far as I know, even Uncle Brogan doesn't know about my temporary suspension.

"You got kicked out of school? What the hell happened today?"

"What I told you would happen!" My fingers curl so tightly, my nails dig into the palms of my hands. "I told you," I say again, this time my voice filled with defeat.

He reaches for me and I rear back, unable to bear his touch right now.

Dropping his arm, his hand fists at his side. "Tell me what happened."

So, I tell him, ending with, "I'm on unofficial suspension until they decide what to do about me."

"I will speak to your dean," Miceli says grimly.

"What? No." I shake my head in vehement denial. "That's all I need, for them to find out I'm not only the niece of a known mobster, but the fiancée of one as well."

"We keep a lower profile than the Irish. As far as your dean is concerned, I'm part of a powerful and generous multibillion-dollar family empire."

"You are not bribing the university with a donation to let me continue taking classes." Enough people are using me for gain, I'm not letting the dean be added to that list. "I've done nothing wrong. They have no right to do this."

---