Page 97 of 7+Us Makes Nine

However, I couldn’t help noticing that her posture had relaxed considerably. She smiled at me and extended her hand. “Hi. I’m Arianna.”

I took her hand in mine. “Giovanni, or just Gio for short.”

“Nice to meet you, Gio. You can call me Ari. And thanks again. I guess that’s what I get for deciding to come out on my own tonight though. I was supposed to be meeting with friends, but I had decided to go out at the very last minute, and none of them had been able to clear their schedules.”

“Well, that sucks,” I said. “But on the plus side, I’m here solo too. So, if you’re looking for a friend for the night, I’ll gladly play the role.”

Ari laughed again.

“Can I get you a drink?” I asked.

She hesitated for a second and then nodded. “Yeah. Sure, friend.”

I smirked and waved over the bartender. I then turned back to face Ari, pulling out a chair for her. “So, what made you decide to come out at the last minute? Celebrating anything special tonight?”

Ari smiled, although it didn’t fully reach her eyes this time. “I guess you can say that. I’m recently…employed.”

With the way she averted her gaze, I knew she was lying. You didn’t work for the mafia without being able to have a sixth sense about when people were lying to you. Employment was not the reason she was out tonight, but clearly, she didn’t want to talk about whatever her real reason was. I decided to let it slide though. After all, I didn’t know this woman, so whatever she was hiding wasn’t any of my business in the first place.

“Congratulations,” I said, pretending to believe her.

“Thank you.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a second-grade teacher.”

“You must like kids.”

“I adore them.”

“Have any of your own?”

“Not yet.”

The bartender arrived with our drinks. She also didn’t smile at me as much this time now that I was seated with a beautiful woman. I discreetly slid her another one-hundred-dollar bill nonetheless, which she accepted, as I knew she would.

“What about you? Are you celebrating anything in particular?”

I handed her drink over and tried to think fast. “No…I was just bored. Wanted to have a few drinks, listen to some music…Meet interesting people…Looks like mission accomplished.”

Ari blushed and took a sip of her drink, staring back at me with eyes that suddenly made me think that perhaps she wasn’t quite as innocent as she seemed.

CHAPTER 5

Giovanni

As my luck would have it, Ari was a breath of fresh air that I hadn’t expected. She alone made me want to reconsider my promise to my father. And she also hadn’t been as innocent as she seemed, the way she so readily and willingly agreed to meet me in a private room of the club that my buddy let me rent out.

But if there was one thing that I knew for certain, it was that promises were not to be broken with the Romano family. Tonight, was my last night of freedom before I had to work on my plan to marry the Marino girl, and nothing or no one was going to change that.

“How did you manage to get a private room?” Ari asked, looking around, amazed.

“I’m friends with the club owner.” I crossed the room and leaned against the pool table in the middle of it. I motioned for her to come over, feeling myself growing overheated watching the way her hips swayed when she walked.

I grabbed a pool stick and handed one to her. “Do you play?”

“Not really,” she said. “But I’ll give it a try.”

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