Page 7 of Dating the Don

“Is that what you think that I am now?” Cristiano asks.

I can’t read his tone. Is that remorse? Worry? Detachment? His face is more blank than I’ve ever seen it.

“Was he… that man… did he mean my mother… he said… and you killed him… he was…”

“In the Irish Mob. Yes.” Cristiano leans against the doorframe, his hands placed neutrally in his pockets as he waits for my next words.

“Oh. The mob. Of course!” I throw my hands up, flicking water everywhere. “So my mother was involved with the Irish mob? Oh, why didn’t you just say so!” I hurl my sardonic words at him bitterly. If they bother him, he doesn’t show it. I knew that my mom was Irish. Every time that I look in the mirror I’m reminded just how very Irish I am myself. Freckles galore and the carrot red hair. My mother didn’t have a mob-ish bone in her body! Sheneverwould have gotten involved in anything violent!

Just worked for a violent family my whole life…

And an Irish mobster knew her by her name…

“You should sit down. Drink some water.” Cristiano says in a firm voice.

I almost move to obey him for the tone he’s using alone and catch myself at the last minute. “What? No! I’m going to go get some air.” I wobble away from the sink and head for the bedroom door. Cristiano makes no move to stop me, but he does speak.

“I’m afraid I cannot let you do that.”

“You’re really going to try to keep me here as a prisoner?!” I demand.

He doesn’t answer, but the look on his face is clear enough. I’ve seen too much.

“You’re not keeping me here. I’m going to walk out of that door and I’m going straight to the police, you fucking psychopath! Who are you?!” I hurl words at him in anger that will probably have sizzled five minutes from now but I can’t stop. “I’m going to tell them everything! I’m going to… I’m…”

The tears are welling in my eyes again. Traitorous saline bastards.

“They are going to find everything down there! The body! Oh god, what did you do with the body?!” I am yelling and I don’t even mean to be.

Cristiano pushes off of the door and crosses the room to me. I can’t take my eyes off of him. Every movement he makes is predatory. A lion circling a trapped gazelle. The intensity in his gaze is overwhelming.

“Maeve…” He starts as his hand lifts to cup my elbow.

I wrench out of his grip, flinching. “Don’t touch me!”

For a moment I could have sworn that pain flashed across his face. Just the span of a blink and then it is gone. Just like that. I back further into the bathroom snatching my mother’s apron from the sink and sloshing water all over the polished tile floors but even that doesn’t stop him from coming closer with that damned look on his face.

So, I do the only thing that I can think of to make him stop: I slap him with it. The wet, bloodied apron.

CHAPTER FOUR

CRISTIANO

Petty.

I should have expected nothing less from her.

It doesn’t take any sort of real effort on my part to catch the soiled apron before it hits me in the face. Doesn’t stop the water from splashing all over my own dirty clothes. I bite back all of my natural reactions and summon patience. This is a lot for her to handle and even more for her to accept.

Every one of my very worst fears is coming true right in front of my face.

I knew that she could never accept me for what I did for a living, the person that I was forced to become. I know that it’s difficultfor her, and then some. It’s why I’ve never made a move on her in all of the years that I’ve known her.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice.”

Maeve’s eyes widen in shock. Whatever she thought that I was going to say, it clearly wasn’t that. Something that I normally would have laughed about if it weren’t for the serious and delicate nature of our present conversation. I need to get through to her. I want so badly to trust her and for her to trust me. I want her to come around so that we can have a logical, normal conversation but I don’t even know where to start.

It’s not like me to feel so deeply unsettled.

---