Page 27 of Till Death Do Us Part

But even knowing that, that same uneasy feeling continues to eat away at me.

“Vodka, neat, please.” The bartender offers me a small smile before rushing off to make good on my order. A gentleman beside me coughs lightly, hiding a small laugh behind the sound. I turn to him, cocking a brow in question.

He stares back at me, a finger pressed to his crooked lips. His dark grey suit is pressed to perfection, but at least one size too big for his slender frame. His hair is dark and peppered with greying streaks that fall just above his eyebrows, and while I’m sure I have never seen this man before, something inside me recognises him instantly.

“Do I know you?” I blurt without thought, not considering social etiquette. He eyes me curiously, his gaze never straying from my face.

“No, I can say you do not.”

“You’re very familiar.”

“Is that so?” He chuckles before offering a hand towards me. “I’m Alek.”

“Pippa,” I tell him, shaking his hand before grabbing my glass from the bartender with a smile of thanks. The clear liquid burns my throat, but I revel in the heat spreading across my chest.

“That’s an awfully odd drink for a girl of your age,” he comments before lifting his drink to his mouth.

“Should I be drinking fruity cocktails and wine?”

He laughs openly, his head falling back as his eyes wrinkle with his smile. “Oh, I like you. Are you happy?”

My gaze snaps back to Alek, my nose wrinkling under his scrutiny. What an odd question to ask a stranger. The answer is an easy one, but not something I’m particularly willing to get into with a man who looks old enough to be my father. Instead, I just nod and offer him a fake smile. “I am.”

“Then what on earth has you drinking vodka over here alone? A beautiful girl such as yourself, you should be out having fun, no?”

“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

He holds his hands up, palms facing me in a show of innocence. “I mean no harm to you, Pippa. That I can assure you. But I see the ring on your finger and the frown on your face, and I have to wonder why you’re over here alone, instead of out dancing with your husband.”

“My husband hates me,” I blurt, lifting my shoulder in a shrug when he cocks his head. “And I can’t say I have any love for him either. I doubt I should be telling you any of this, or I might just find myself with a bullet in my head, though that might be preferable to the life I’m living.”

My eyes widen when I finish speaking. I hadn’t intended to say any of that to this man. I don’t even know him. He watches me, his smile turning down as he takes in my words. I glare at the vodka in my hand, the glass already mostly finished without me even realising, the sole reason for my loose lips.

“I can’t imagine anyone could hate you,” he murmurs, quirking his lips and focusing on a point over my shoulder. “But if not your husband, then who is the man currently staring over here with eyes like thunder?”

I follow his stare, my shoulders tensing when I spot Leonardo. He leans against the walls, his arms folded over his chest while he watches us. Charlotte stands at his side, her hands moving a mile a minute while she tries to engage him in conversation, but his attention isn’t swayed from me.

Alek is right.

There’s a look in his eyes that sends a shiver tingling down my spine, though, not in fear, as it probably should be. My breath comes out as a shudder, and I quickly avert my eyes, shaking my head to regain composure.

“He’s my stand-in bodyguard at the moment,” I tell Alek after finishing my drink. The bartender replaces it within an instant with a full glass. “I’m a wanted woman, apparently.”

“It seems so.” Alek offers nothing further when it comes to Leonardo. Instead, we spend the next hour talking about everything and nothing. It turns out he’s an easy man to talk to and he doesn’t seem to want anything from me, besides innocent conversation.

He asks me about my life in England and tells me about his in America. He tells me about his wife and his son, how they grew from poverty to riches, and how he wound up in Antonio’s casino for the first time this night. He isn’t a man of the Mafia, but a normal guy who found himself in the midst of them tonight.

He’s nice. Genuine and kind.

Something I’ve missed greatly in my time here.

Whether it’s the need for friendship, or the lack of common sense due to alcohol I’ve consumed, I don’t know. But the smile on my face when Leonardo makes his way over to me and tells me it’s time to go, is real.

“It was nice to meet you, Alek,” I tell him earnestly, patting his bicep before standing on shaky legs. He offers me a crooked smile, his eyes alight with happiness. There’s something more behind them, though, I can’t read his expression well. “Maybe we’ll meet again one day.”

“I am sure we will,” he says, patting me on the shoulder as my father used to back home. “It was really good to meet you, Pippa.”

With his goodbye, Leonardo pulls me away from the casino and into a waiting car. My smile stays the whole way home, and when I finally crawl into bed, I don’t feel quite so shitty.

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