Page 53 of Mafia King: Matteo
Vito drives me to work and is steady as people walk between cars sitting in traffic. I don’t know how he can be so calm. I sink into the plush seat and watch the city come alive. Rush hour is always a bitch.
Vito parks the car in the hotel garage, and I wait for my door to open. I’m afraid it would offend him if I were to get out on my own.
He steps aside to let me walk by the door. He informs me to wait inside the door for him. I oblige. I don’t want to be labeled as difficult, so I do as I’m told.
Vito joins me after he parks the limo and escorts me to the elevator. My entire morning has been filled with reminders of Matteo’s presence. It’s as if he’s here even when he’s not.
In the elevator, I run a finger over the gorgeous diamond. I forgot to take off my engagement ring before I left my condo. I carefully slip the ring off and place it into my zippered wallet. No one knows of its existence, and I’m not ready to be fawned over and asked a million questions that I don’t have answers to. This way, I’ll avoid the awkward situation altogether.
My guard walks me to the door and opens it.
“I’ll never be far away,” he says. He pushes a fob into my hand. “Press this if you ever need me.”
“Is this necessary?”
“I don’t take chances. If something happens to you, worse things will happen to me.”
I meet his eyes. He means business. I take the fob. “Okay.”
When I walk into the office, I am filled with a mix of emotions. Thankfully, I have this job to keep my mind occupied for the next eight hours. I search the office for Penny and find her in the break room with a cup of tea.
“Good morning,” she says with her chipper British accent. I’m decidedly a fan of accents. I’ll have to learn some Italian words as Matteo whispers Italian words in my ear during sex, and I have no idea what he was saying, but I’d love to find out.
“Hi,” I reply. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
“We have a meeting with the vendor for the floating sinks in an hour. You should check your emails and get estimates on the pillows.”
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
“I remember we looked at thirty of them.”
She walks toward me to leave the room, “That sounds about right. You’re the newly hired. It’s where we all started. This is your first job, and I’m sure you’ll do well, but it takes time to become established.”
“Right.”
I walk behind her and veer off to a workstation where I log into my work email. I have to look at my phone for my password. I find it’s always a pain in the ass. Whatever happened to having a desk of my own?
I read through my emails, and one is from the president welcoming me to the team.
Matteo. If I see or hear from him before dinner, I’m going to scream. I ignore the automatic greeting, respond to team members, and print out the list of pillows and sizes. They are from different vendors. It will take hours to work down the list.
The day went by, and as I’m still the newbie at work and haven’t had any tasks to fuck up, and everyone is friendly. I feel like a glorified secretary, but I’m determined to stick it out and make a place for myself. I have an eye for color and texture. I want to demonstrate that I can be a valuable team player.
I eat from the vending machine for lunch and pretend I’m busy on my phone for thirty minutes.
“How is work?” Matteo texts.
Fine.
I hope you can have more than one-word answers; otherwise, this will be a boring marriage.
I doubt that very much.
I don’t see you as one to settle for boring.
He may not have spent much time with me, but he’s right. Unfortunately, he’s the one who added adventure to my routine life. If it weren’t for him, I’d be home alone for the foreseeable future.
