Page 80 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
“I’ll do no such thing!” he says, indignant. “We don’t collaborate with anyone!”
“Interesting that’s your takeaway on the situation.”
He huffs and slumps down into his chair. “Eh, my takeaway. My takeaway is that you’ve lost your mind. I should look for a new job now, before word gets out that I work in a den of thieves and I’m unemployable.” He tsks, muttering to himself. “To think of all the years of dedicated service I’ve given you. My loyalty repaid like this.” He makes a resigned sweeping gesture with his arms, as if the polizia are closing i
n, guns drawn. “I’ll die in disgrace. Ah!”
He throws an arm over his eyes and whimpers.
I think he gets his sense of melodrama from his mother, too.
I pull up a chair across from his desk, sink into it, and drag my hands through my hair. “You asked what was wrong with me. I told you.”
“So accusing! You’d think I was the thief here!” he cries from behind his arm.
“I never said I stole the designs, you carping old woman. We traded.”
He peeks out from beneath his arm and eyes me suspiciously. “Traded?”
“For a plane ticket.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Casting off his air of doom, he straightens and breaks into a grin. “A trade! This is business! This is good!”
He’s forgotten I told him I didn’t get permission, so I have to clarify. “But I promised her I wouldn’t use her designs in the show.”
His expression goes from glee to horror. “This is bad. This is very bad.”
“What if I said she’s my stepsister?”
He doesn’t react for a moment. Then I see him recall the state I was in when I returned to our table at the bar after I spoke to her, how the front of my trousers were tented, and he blanches. He makes the sign of the cross over his chest.
“Sorry—ex-stepsister.”
“But . . . you’re attracted to her.”
“Of course I’m attracted to her. A man would have to be blind not to be attracted to her.” And that sweet red strawberry mouth. Fuck.
I can tell Antonio is thinking hard because he always looks as if he’s about to have a stroke when he’s mulling over a problem.
Then he pronounces, “It still seems like a sin.”
“It’s not a sin,” I say angrily. “Why does everything have to be a sin?”
He looks at me as if I’m an idiot. “I don’t make the rules. Talk to the pope.”
Exasperated, I jump to my feet and start another round of pacing. “I don’t need to talk to the pope. It’s not a sin. It’s not illegal. It’s not anything.”
“If it’s not anything, why are you so worked up?”
Good question. My tie feels like a noose. I yank at it angrily, manage to loosen it enough to breathe, and keep pacing. “She’s ignoring me.”
After a moment, Antonio says, “Oh.”
I slide him a sideways look. There was more to that “oh” than simply “oh.”
“What?”
“Ha!” He cackles, slapping the arm of his chair. “Ha ha! I never thought I’d see the day!”
