Page 14 of The Don's Prisoner

Me: Sometimes.

That wasn’t a total lie. I maybe hit the gym in my building once a month. Maybe. I think. Most of the time I was busy designing or traveling to the different stores across the country or sewing prototypes in my studio. Who had time to set aside for the gym?

Gio: You’ll have to make it a more regular thing.

Me: I am fine the way I am. Why do I have to go to the gym?

Gio: To make sure you have enough stamina to handle me, of course.

For fuck’s sake.

I put the phone down on the coffee table and didn’t pick it up again until I was ready for bed.

I brought it upstairs with me as I turned out all the lights and climbed under the comforter. I sat up in bed going over emails and responding to people I had been ignoring all day. Then finally, I checked the messages from him.

Gio: You think I’m joking, but I’m not.

Gio: I’m just looking out for your well-being.

Gio: So, I’ve pissed you off then?

Gio: I’ll take your silence as a yes.

Gio: I will see you tomorrow then.

Gio: At noon.

Then, just a few minutes after I viewed those messages, he sent one more.

Gio: Goodnight, my future wife.

I shut off my phone and went to sleep.

Chapter six

Giovanni

“I’m sorry, I must have had a stroke. You said you’re going on a what?” Felix asked, leaning on the counter and looking at me like I had five heads.

“I am going on a date. With my fiancée,” I repeated, and he shook his head.

“Now I’ve seen everything. Shit, I should go buy a lottery ticket because the stars have aligned and the world is going to freeze over. Well, first of all, the fact that you got Vito’s sister to agree to marry you is nothing short of a miracle. Is she ugly? A real dog? Poor? Fat? Dumb? Come on, man, what’s wrong with her?” he begged, becoming so animated that he nearly knocked over the bourbon bottle he was showing me. I moved it away from him just in time to save the three-hundred-dollar bottle from shattering on the floor.

“No, she’s perfect,” I told him, and he shook his head. “She’s tall, blonde, and a businesswoman. The only thing wrong with her is that she’s still fighting me, even though she agreed to it. I’m trying to be nice, but she is testing my patience. She wouldn’t even agree to go to lunch with me today. She just said ‘no’ and that she was working.”

“So, how are you going to go on a date today with a woman who didn’t even agree to go?” Felix asked, his eyebrows narrowed. I shrugged and took a sip of the sample he had given me. The crystal glass fit my hand to perfection, and I made a mental note to get some for home.

“I’m going to show up at her work and make her come with me, of course.”

“You know, man, I don’t think that’s the right way to go about it,” Felix scratched his head and looked down at the table. “Yeah… I can see that going very badly.”

“It doesn’t matter. She has to learn who’s boss,” I told him and he winced.

“Clearly, you’ve never been in a relationship, have you?”

I blinked at him.

“Not since…” I gave it some serious thought for a moment. “Laura Pecking. We went to the movies once. Held hands. Made out in the back of the theater, and she spilled the popcorn all over the row in front of us trying to climb into my lap.”

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