Page 14 of Dagger in the Sea

My first summer working for Mauro, Stella and I would meet secretly in cars, in hotels, in clubs, to consummate and be consumed by our roaring lust. She certainly had an appetite for me which, along the way, I’d stupidly mistaken for real feeling. All my little heated declarations to her were always met with an equally heated series of“yes, yes, yes!”

When I told her I was falling in love with her, her response had been,“What are you talking about? We’re just having fun. Geez, that’s all this is, I thought you understood that?”An amused look was on her face like she was genuinely stunned and rather mortified. She never again answered my calls.

Shock seized me at my failure of judgement. Anger at my pathetic desperation to believe what wasn’t actually there. At being stomped on and ridiculed. Again.

Never again.

Stella had been Val’s girlfriend, but I hadn’t known that. I’d only been her play toy that summer while Val was on a post college graduation trip through Europe with his buddies, probably fucking his way from Amsterdam to Paris to Rome. The night he’d returned home, she was on his arm, eyes sparkling. He eventually put a ring on her finger and they’d gotten married five years ago.

“Only family knows she’s pregnant,” said Francesca bringing me back to the here and now. “But soon my mother will be having a party to celebrate. She loves to throw a party.”

“Yes, yes, she does.”

“I hope you’ll be there,” said Francesca, inching closer to me, her shoulder leaning against the wall, her throat at an angle.

I moved back from her. “If I’m invited, I’ll be there.”

“Of course you’ll be invited.”

She inched closer toward me again. I could smell her light perfume, flowers, honey. Oh, she was honey all right. “Don’t you dare bring a plus one, though,” she whispered.

“Francesca…”

“I like your tie.” She pressed her fingers down my navy Armani tie. All the way down my chest, my abs. “You’re always dressed so nicely.” Her hand slid down over my belt buckle, and I cuffed her wrist, stopping it from going any farther south. She smiled up at me, a lazy smile, a smile sodden with lustful promise and capitulation.

Jesus.

“Francesca?” Val’s voice sliced between me and his sister.

Francesca’s body stiffened, and she immediately stood at attention, tugging at her cover-up. “Turo and I were just talking.”

Val glared at me then his sister, at me again. “I thought you’d left, DeMarco.”

“Francesca and I were…catching up.” I wiped a thumb down the corner of my mouth. Sometimes you had to make your point viciously clear, damn the cost.

Mauro came up behind his son, his dark eyes glimmering at all three of us. His children. He said nothing but the roar screaming in his mind was obvious.

“Get lost, Fran,” Val said to his sister.

She rolled her eyes, planting a hand at her waist and remained put. She was a sweet kid, but not a kid anymore, that was for sure. Francesca was twenty now. A woman.

I shot her a final grin. ”Enjoy your swim.”

She grinned back, her face rosy. “See you.” She bit her lip and turned down the hallway, opening the French doors to the backyard and sashaying outside on her wedge heeled sandals, the robe flaring around her bare legs. An exit worthy of a music video diva.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Val bit out.

I let him think the worst. That was how these things worked. By indirection. Underhanded, slithering indirection. Letting his imagination do all my work for me.

“Saying hello,” I replied.

“You leave my sister alone, motherfucker!” Val seethed. “I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

“Get out of my way. I’m leaving.”

“Leave and don’t come back, you prick.”

We’re all bastards of some kind, me more than others. Val was certainly in a class all by himself though.

---