Page 22 of Married With Malice

“Hey.” All the laughter disappears from his face and he reaches out to touch my arm. “I can go find him. What else do you need?”

I’m very unprepared for the feel of his warm hand on my skin. I flinch away from him. “I don’t need anything. Sabrina will be out of surgery soon and I’m not going anywhere so you ought to find another form of entertainment tonight.”

“Another form of entertainment,” Luca echoes. He looks to his friends. “What should we do, boys? Let’s get creative.”

Both Castelli brothers answer by snorting laughter through their idiot noses.

“Luca, I really don’t care what you do,” I say. “Go to a strip club in the city. Go dangle from the Verrazano Bridge. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Don’t you even want to know how the rest of the reception went? We have a huge stack of presents but I won’t open them without you. And I would have saved you a piece of wedding cake but you’re sweet enough as it is.” He reaches out and tweaks my nose before I can stop him.

The Castelli brothers are cracking up so much that they start bumping into each other.

Enough of this. The three of them should stay in the hallway and keep laughing until they suffocate.

But Luca’s not finished. “Wait, before you run off and sulk, I have something else for you.” He reaches into his back pocket and produces my phone. “I was really hoping you’d have some sexy selfies for me to look at.”

Choking on my own outrage, I grab for the phone. “You actually broke into my phone? And you still think I’m the deranged one?”

“Brokein? Not exactly. What a genius move, using your own birthday as a password. I punched it in on a whim.”

“I don’t have time for this.” I shove the phone in my bag and start walking in the opposite direction. “Thanks for the delivery. You’re free to go.”

“Annalisa.” He’s much faster than I am. I’ve hardly traveled three steps when he cuts me off.

And now he’s so very close, invoking the same startling feeling from earlier today when he briefly pulled me into his arms. I blame temporary insanity for the fact that I liked it.

Luca is too smart. If I take a step back right now, he’ll see through me.

Standing my ground, I lift my chin and stare up at him. “What do you want now?”

Luca runs his eyes over me, lingering on my breasts, before returning to my face. He makes sure I’m watching when he kisses two fingers on his left hand. Slowly, seductively, he presses them to my lips.

I’m hit with an internal jolt of electricity that threatens to buckle my knees.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispers.

Then he winks and takes off with the Castelli brothers, leaving me to grapple with some very confusing and unwelcome sensations.

Shaking off the fleeting madness, I head for the restroom and happily exchange my nightmare dress for a pair of black yoga pants and a grey sweatshirt. It’s also nice to wear shoes again.

Luca lied about the thong. I hate thongs. The only underwear in the bag is a simple pair of black bikini panties. They are, however, carefully folded in a way that I don’t normally fold things. I can picture Luca with his paws all over them, screeching with laughter and probably showing them to his buddies. They get thrown in the trash can.

And now, because there haven’t been enough unpleasant shocks today, I run right into Rocco Vincente when exiting the restroom.

“Your father’s waiting outside,” he says. Decades of smoking, drinking and being a conduit for pure evil have turned his voice into gravelly sludge. A sour odor of whisky mingled with sweat flies right off him. “He wants a word with you. Now.”

The days when my father’s favorite henchman can freely bully me are over. Yet I can’t stop the flutter of fear in my heart whenever he tries.

“Tell my father we’re in the waiting room. Sabrina will be out of surgery soon.”

Rocco seizes my elbow when I try to sidestep him. A lick of cold terror slices through my senses. There’s no twisting away from him.

“He said right now,” There’s pure spite in Rocco’s dark eyes. Men like him, ugly in all ways, don’t change. “Don’t make this harder. Won’t be fun for you.”

All of a sudden, I desperately wish that I hadn’t sent Luca away. While I wouldn’t call Luca an ally, I’m positive he’d never stand by and watch me get kicked around.

“What are you going to do, rip my arm out of the socket?” Even as I say this, my heart beats faster. An old and terrible memory flashes.Yes, he might do just that.

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