Page 26 of Stalking Ginevra

“Let’s talk about it over coffee.”

Skin prickling, I glance at my feet. “The company card was canceled, and something went wrong with last month’s payroll.”

“Same here,” she says.

My head snaps up, and I look her full in the face. “What?”

She nods. “Nobody got paid since the court froze the firm’s bank accounts after your dad died. Nick is working hard trying to sort out the mess.”

My throat tightens. It’s no wonder the entire firm welcomed him without question. Nothing sways decades of loyalty like an empty bank account, or the bitter discovery that their dead boss’s greed might threaten their livelihoods.

We walk in silence to the staff restaurant, which is crammed. I suspect no one wants to waste money outside when they can have a free lunch on the 30th floor. It’s more of a cafeteria with a large serving hatch that offers a few limited gourmet dishes.

I navigate through the throng of employees, ignoring a few filthy glares. The sight of food makes my stomach churn, so I select a lemon tea with a small snack, while Martina grabs a plate of eggs Benedict.

A pair of paralegals rise from their seats, leaving trays half-filled with barely-touched meals. Sighing, I clear the clutter before returning to our table.

“Are you going to tell me why you were hiding in the ladies’ bathroom?” Martina asks through a mouthful of eggs.

Where do I begin? Certainly not with Mom’s plot to murder Bossanova to avenge my birth mother and use the insurance money to clear ten million dollars in debt.

I love my best friend, but she’s impulsive. In our first year of college, she called the police on a thirteen-year-old girl who pushed her abusive teacher to his death off a roof garden. He was a predator who groomed the child, got her pregnant, then brought her home for the weekend where he tricked her into taking an abortion pill.

The little girl had confided in Martina’s younger sister who reached out to Martina for advice, swearing her to secrecy. One 911 phone call later, an innocent child ended up facing charges for first-degree murder.

Two days later, Mr. and Mrs. Mancini woke up in the middle of the night with a gang of armed thugs in their bedroom, threatening to throw them in a cremator if they didn’t fix her daughter’s mess. They shot her dad in the foot to show they weren’t joking, and even set their kitchen on fire.

Martina’s knee-jerk reaction could have gotten her parents killed and sent a victim of abuse to prison. In the end, Mr. andMrs. Mancini worked with a psychiatrist to prove the girl was insane, which still ended up ruining her life.

She’s dead now, murdered because she fell in love with a serial killer. I still wonder how her life would have changed if Martina had kept her mouth shut.

So, no. I won’t tell her anything about Bossanova and Mom.

“Ginny?” She waves a hand over my face. “Are you still with me?”

I shake off my thoughts. She wanted to know why I was crying. “It’s my stalker.”

She smirks. “Are you still pining for his big dick?”

“He was in my bedroom last night.”

Her jaw drops. “No.”

“Yes.” I bring the tea up to my lips, the warmth doing nothing to soothe my stomach’s cold knot of fear.

“What did he…” She glances from side to side, checking for eavesdroppers before leaning in, her eyes narrowing. “Did you have sex?”

I shift on my seat. “Not really.”

“What does that mean?”

Leaning forward, I tell her everything about last night. Martina breathes hard, her cheeks turning pink. The way she reacts, you’d think I was narrating the spicy scene of a dark romance novel. She interrupts, demanding to know if he pressed the knife to my skin or just pointed it at my throat. When she asks if his cock was leaking precum, I scowl.

“Are you even listening?” I ask.

Her features morph from excited to shocked. “Can’t you see I’m on the edge of my seat?”

“He’s dangerous,” I snap. “What if he becomes murderous?”

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