Page 24 of Caged Bliss

My hand falls to my chest where the bill’s hiding. “What about?”

“No clue. He doesn’t tell me.” Serena tries to smother a smile. “Was that Angelo Bianco?”

“Uh—” I clear my throat and look back to where he was sitting. “Yeah, it was.”

“He likes you.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Trust me. I know men. That man likes you a lot.” Serena sighs wistfully and gives me a beaming smile. “Are you gonna do anything about it, or are you gonna overthink like you always do?”

“I do not overthink.”

“Please, Claudie, whenever a man shows a tiny bit of interest, you immediately have a thousand reasons why it’s not a good idea to get involved. Tell me that’s not true.”

I glare at her, not sure why I’m getting so defensive. This is the most interest she’s shown in me for weeks. “Just because I don’t throw myself at men like you do?—”

And that was the wrong thing to say.

Her face shuts down. She moves away from the cage.

“Wait,” I say, trying to salvage this, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, I know what you mean. We’ve had this fight a million times, right?” She turns away from me. “For the record, Tommy pursued me, and I said no at first. But yeah, I get it, you hate him. It’s not fun being judged all the time.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I say, hating myself for letting my dumb snarky mouth. “I’m just embarrassed, okay? About the Angelo thing.”

Her expression softens slightly. “You don’t have to be. It feels good when someone wants you, right? Anyway, Tommy’s in his office. You should head over.”

I want her to stay. I have so much I want to say to her. This is the most sober she’s been in a while, and it’s so good having my sister back, even for a few seconds.

But she walks away, her flowy dress blowing around her slim body, and she disappears into the crowd.

Chapter 13

Claudia

I’m nervous when I knock at the door and practically shaking when I step inside. The last time I was in here, I took a bunch of files—which I realize haven’t been replaced yet, and what if he knows? What if he realized they’re gone and suspects me? What if there’s a camera in here, or maybe he saw me on the cameras in the hallway, or maybe?—

Breathe, Claudia. Just breathe. I go into his office all the time for perfectly legit reasons. He won’t even bat an eyelash at seeing me on the monitors, if he even noticed, and there’s no way he noticed the missing paperwork. That crap is all filed away and forgotten.

Just breathe.

“You know what I hate?” Tommy scribbles something on a paper, flips it over, scribbles on the next one. “Signing my name. I used to like it, you know? It was kind of fun. But now I fucking hate it. My hand cramps when I fill out all these stupid forms.” He cracks his neck and puts his pen down and his eyes move up to meet mine. He’s smiling and it makes me uncomfortable. “How’s your shift going?”

I lean against the filing cabinet, trying to act normal. Which is weird, trying to act normal. Once I start trying, it’s basically impossible to just do it.

God, Serena’s right. I overthink everything.

“Going fine. My feet hurt from being in the cage too long.”

He presses his lips together and his friendly demeanor fades away. “We need to have a conversation about Angelo Bianco.”

I try not to scream. If he had X-ray vision, he’d be able to see my heart going haywire in my chest. I’m sweating, but fortunately I was already glistening from dancing. “What about him?”

“Rodrigo told me the two of you were alone in a private room.” He holds up a hand, face serious. “Don’t deny it.”

“We were.”

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