Page 12 of Bite Marks

“Oh, come on, Vanessa. Please don’t treat me like this. I made an honest mistake. I was handling business while you were busy. I didn’t think you’d care.”

She frowned, glaring at him with hard eyes. “You thought wrong.”

He jumped in front of her apartment’s entrance before she could go inside. “Then give me a chance here.” He glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear. “You’re not cuttin’ our deal, are you?”

Her jaw tightened as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot. It took her nearly a full minute, every second becoming more unbearable than the last, to respond in Italian. “No more going out for drinks socially. This is pure business from now on. If it’s not meant to be seen by some member of the family, we’re not doing it. And absolutely no fucking deals are to be done while I’m around. Got it?”

The thought of not getting to have funoffstageanymore struck at his ego and maybe even a little at his heart. Maybe because if it had been a real relationship, it would have ended then and there. He would have lost out on such a high-class lady. Maybe it hurt even more so since it didn’t end. Whatever there was between them that felt so real, so magnetic, he’d just fucked up getting a chance to explore that. At least she was willing to keep up the act.Silver linings, ya mook. Silver linings.

He nodded and put on a hopeful smile. “Can you give me a kiss? Just in case anyone’s watching. Make it look like we made up.”

The cold of her eyes lessened but only by a couple degrees. She stretched up and pushed his face to the side to kiss his cheek. “If anyone asks what happened, you can tell them the truth. That will be the most believable story. Everyone knows I don’t want anywhere near the life, and making deals, taking money, or any of the other shit you get up to has to be done far away from me. They’ll believe that, and it will make sure they know not to do it near me either.”

Nunzio’s hands pulled on her hips. A resistance met him that hadn’t been there before. “I hear you. And I promise I’m going to make sure you never have to deal with this again. I’m not perfect, but I don’t make the same mistakes twice.”

She backed up and punched her code into the door lock. “Yeah, well, we’ll see.” The door opened, and she stepped inside. The warm blast of air from the building reminded him of how cold it was outside, having to look in at Vanessa walking to the elevator without him next to her.

SEVEN

VANESSA

Jogging through Millennium Park was a good way to start Vanessa’s mornings, but Maria had heard about the whole XO catastrophe since it was one of her bucket list challenges to get into the club … through the front door or an air duct, it didn’t matter.

“I heard he fought them all off even though they had guns.” Running in her workout leggings, Maria’s ass bounced like two basketballs.

Vanessa’s backside wasn’t as large, but she hoped that it looked as nice in her own high-waisted leggings. “There weren’t any guns.”God, at least I hope there weren’t. I was so mad that I might have missed it.She thought for a moment but couldn’t remember much more of the fight beside the intensity in Nunzio’s eyes. At least there weren’t any shots fired.

“So… Besides a little throwdown, was the rest of the date good?”

Nunzio had asked that everyone be left in the dark about their deal. When Vanessa had come back from the café that day, she told Maria that Nunzio wanted to have his painting shown in her gallery so that she could explain why the whole Monet crisis was averted, but she didn’t tell her that they’d started a fake relationship. Instead, she told her that he’d been so charming they’d started a real one. Lying to Maria wasn’t as bad as lying to a best friend. They weren’t that close, but since Vanessa’s social life nosedived after she left the family, Maria was kind of her de facto best friend.

“Well, it … um …” She wasn’t sure what parts to tell her. She wanted to stay as honest as she could be, but where was that line?Maybe I should just pretend I’m telling her about a TV show. I know a show is fake, but we still talk like it’s real.

“That bad, huh?” Maria grimaced as they rounded a corner.

“No! It … It just ended poorly. Seeing the family again was nice, but, you know, I don’t want to get dragged back into that.”All that is true, at least.

“Yeah, that does seem pretty dangerous. Like playing with fire. Or fireworkseven.”

Shit. How do I explain that away?She’d never dated a mob guy before, so why Nunzio?“It is. I know that. I just can’t resist Nunzio’s smile.”Is that a lie? Just part of the show, or is that still part of the truth?

“I can only imagine.” Maria swooned. “He’s so tall and dreamy. A man with gray eyes and shoulders for days. He’s such a catch.”

“Yeah, well, I’m supposed to feel like the catch. He’s supposed to make me feel like I’m special, but he went and did …” She glanced around as if a squad of FBI agents was following them in the bushes.Dad always said, ‘It only takes one fuck up for them to latch on to ya.’“something that he shouldn’t have and made me feel like I was just playing second fiddle to his work. When I realized what he’d done, I just felt so unimportant. Like I wasn’t the priority.”

“Well, you haven’t mentioned how good he is in bed. I’m guessing you haven’t let him in yet.” She ended with the tilt of a question and a hint of a grimace.

Vanessa gawked. “Let him in? I haven’t even let him in my apartment. It’s been like a week, Maria.”

The shorter woman shrugged with a frown. “I know, but we’re talking about a guy like Nunzio. He gets laid. If you want to keep a man like that focused on you, you’re going to have to give him some of that leg, girl.”

They both laughed as they came to a halt, completing their lap.

Maria checked her smartwatch for her pulse before glancing up at Vanessa and taking a drink of water. “I know I’m going to sound like a bitch, or a slut, or something, but I need to say it. Nunzio gets laid.”

“You already said that.”

Maria’s cheeks puffed out as she stomped her foot. “Let me finish. He’s not going to think you’re a good girlfriend if you don’t put out. Seriously. Like, move up the timeline a little. I have standards too, but let’s be honest here, we make rules for normal guys to follow, and guys like Nunzio aren’t normal. A man like him is not beholden to the same rules as other men. If you want to hold onto him, you need to at least give him some road head or something so he doesn’t find someone who will.”

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