Page 20 of Assistant to the Mafia

Romeo turned at the opening to the kitchen dining area and narrowed his eyes at his sibling. “You’re my brother and I will never regret taking that bullet for you, but you’re not using my toothbrush.”

Dante rolled his eyes and shouldered past him to take a seat at the head of the table. “Wasn’t asking. I don’t even want to know where your mouth’s been.”

Romeo bit back a smirk and turned toward his coffee bar. If he didn’t have an easily nauseated pregnant woman to worry about, he was going for the acceptably hard morning drink and making himself a double-shot. He did generally try not to drink on weekdays, or ever before dinner.

“So,” Dante said, a false calm taking over his voice, “should we get it over with now or later?”

Stalling long enough to get the machine going, Romeo said, “Depends. How long do you want to wait for the actual conversation?”

Dante exhaled audibly. “Is she still here?”

Romeo faltered, his hands stilling as the possibility that the answer was ‘no’ actually dawned on him. He’d assumed she would still be asleep, that between her usual exhaustion, the interruption to her sleep schedule, the emotional trauma, and the physical exertion, she might not roll out of bed until closer to noon. What if he’d been wrong? What if she’d woken up and slipped out while he’d been away taking Lucy to school?

Romeo shoved his hand into his pocket and quickly swiped through his phone. He had nothing from her more recent than the call at two-twenty in the morning, discounting the picture he’d texted to himself of one of her assailants. But did that mean anything? He looked at the time at the top of the screen. It was barely half past eight. Surely, she was still sound asleep. He tucked his phone away and reached for his steaming cup. “She’s probably still asleep.”

“In your bed.”

This time he didn’t falter as he turned back toward the table, taking his usual one-removed seat from Dante’s right. “Technically everything on this property is mine, including the beds.” He blew on his espresso and met his brother’s stare. “But yes, if you want to make me spell it out for you, she’s probably sound asleep in the bed I also sleep in.”

Dante’s frown deepened and he drummed his fingers on the tabletop next to his drink. “We’ve talked about this, Romeo.”

Romeo groaned and leaned back in his chair. “You didn’t want her getting dragged in. That’s not my fucking fault. The only thing I did was keep her alive, and if you’re mad about that then you can get the hell out.” He took a too-big sip of his drink and set the cup down in an effort to let it cool. “What we should be talking about is what happened at her building last night, but if we’re starting with whether or not something changed between me and Grace yesterday, then let me ask you this.” He was about to earn himself a concussion, but he was sick of being the only one expected to suck it up. “When Iris called you in need of help, what did you do? When you decided that pretty redhead you didn’t even know was the one you were going to marry, how long did you wait? Because goddammit, Dante, I’ve waited. I’ve played by the fucking rules. It’s starting to sound like you think you own Grace, too, and I don’t think any of the women in your life would be okay with that.”

Dante’s expression didn’t so much as twitch until Romeo’s suicidal tirade was done. Then, slowly, he lifted his coffee and drained it, allowing the recycled cup to fall back to the table with an echoing pop. A smirk tipped the corners of his lips. “Did that feel good?”

Romeo slumped forward. “In the moment, yeah, but the moment’s over.”

“Does Grace know how you feel?”

Romeo looked away. “No. Not yet, anyway.”

“Then you need to figure out a way to rectify that.”

Romeo’s head snapped up. That was about the last thing he’d expected Dante to say.

Dante continued. “If you can’t win her over, and you’ve instead managed to cost DSI the best executive assistant it’s had since before my time, then I will beat the shit out of you. But if your instincts have matured as much as the rest of you has, then you have my blessing.”

seven

The Morning After pt II

Grace jolted awake as the masked man in her dream pulled the trigger. She threw herself upright, gasping, choking on a scream, and seconds passed before she realized she didn’t know where she was. The room was fairly dark, though bright golden light around the edges of the heavy drapery along the far wall suggested that was more because of the curtain than the time of day. She had about half a second to process the meaning of that before she realized how perilously late for work she surely was. It wasn’t until she went to swing her feet to the floor that Grace recognized the room, and the massive king-sized bed engulfing her.

She was in Romeo De Salvo’s bedroom. In his actual bed.

Hands clenching the comforter tight, Grace looked down at herself. She remembered this shirt. She remembered putting it on in the bathroom after a shower, and Romeo ripping it off her not twenty minutes after. The memory of him offering it back to her to sleep in later, when she could barely move, was both warmer and weaker in light of what had happened in between.

Oh. My. God. Grace scooted herself to the edge of the bed, the dragging motion forcing her to acknowledge that the shirt was all she was wearing.

It had really happened.

She’d offered herself to him—practically begged him to have his way with her—and he’d accepted. Her body heated at the remembered visual of him kneeling between her thighs, face buried in her pussy. At the sensory memory of his firm grip on her thighs. He hadn’t just been holding her in place. He’d been making sure she couldn’t break free and retreat.

The entire experience replayed in fast-forward in her mind and Grace shivered. It had been so much more intense than she’d imagined.

She glanced around the room, a flicker of ridiculous disappointment in her chest. It would have been perfect, dangerously too perfect, if he’d been with her when she’d woken up. But if the sun was out, he was probably at work. That meant she had a small window of time to figure herself out, because she was not going to wallow in terror or self-pity.

She didn’t know where she stood with Romeo. She didn’t know if he really wanted anything more than one night or not. What she did know was that she would prefer to be obsessing about that rather than giving even a single thought to the problem—the nightmare—that had landed her in his arms in the first place. That was something she didn’t know how to handle really, but she was going to have to muddle through.

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