Page 7 of Claimed By the Possessive Mafia Prince
“Sure. Is everything okay?”
“It will be better if you come here.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
I hang up the phone and walk down the beach, scanning the snorkelers, the volleyball players, and the beachgoers. I take a moment to realize what I’m doing: searching for Dario. Annoyed, I quit it.
When I knock on Veronica’s door, she snaps, “Yes, come in.”
I push the door open to her lavish suite; a section of the floor is glass and shows the ocean below. She lies in the bed on the other side of the open-plan room, swaddled in blankets despite the heat, her hair stuck to her head.
Veronica is normally a classy older lady, with her dark red hair always styled, her makeup immaculate. She looks completely different right now.
“Is something wrong?” I say.
She blows loudly into a hankie. “What does it look like?”
My hands curl into fists. She’s not normally this rude either. “Are you sick?”
“Yes, God knows what it is. Some blasted plague, that’s what it feels like. But I didn’t call you here to complain. Take a seat, Siena.”
I grab a chair from the dining area and carry it to her bed.
“Not so close,” she chides. “We can’t afford for you to be struck down too.”
She says this in typical Veronica melodramatic fashion.
I sit, waiting for her to go on.
“This is going to be a lot to take in,” she says. “But you’re going to have to lead the charge for Evermore Events on this one.”
The news slams into me like a Mac truck. “You mean handle everything myself.”
“Precisely.”
“But I’ve never been the lead on an event.” In the two years I’ve worked with Veronica, I’ve gone from an assistant to her right-hand woman, but I’ve never been the playmaker. “This is an enormous job. I don’t think it’s a good idea for something this big to be my first.”
“Look at me. We don’t have a choice,” she says, exasperated.
“The Bianchis expect the best.”
“I’m aware of that,” she snaps.
“Old money, you said, their wealth going back generations, the sort of people who own horses, play polo, and readThe GreatGatsbylike it’s a biography of their ancestors’ lives. I’m not from their world.”
“Your defeatist attitude isn’t helping matters.”
I almost snap at her, but I bite down to stop myself. Her attitude has changed so much since arriving here. Perhaps it’s because she’s ill, but that doesn’t make it okay.
My heart is pounding at the prospect of doing this alone.
“Will there be a pay rise?”
Veronica frowns. “I’m a little insulted that this is your first concern.”
“What’s insulting about that? I have always been open about wanting fair compensation for my work. In my interview, you said my straightforwardness was the reason you hired me. If I’m going to do this–and take on all the extra stress it entails–I think I deserve to be paid accordingly.”
“There will be a bonus upon successful completion of the event, yes.”
