Page 19 of Because I Need You
“Hm.” I took a sip of my rum. When I was a kid, no one tried to shelter me, and even if they had it would have been an impossible task, being the first-born son of Joseph Masseria, and all. And once I found out who the real Evelyn Alvarez was, well, let’s just say I always figured I’d end up in jail eventually. Thankfully, I’d been very careful and able to dodge it, had never even gotten arrested. I got one speeding ticket once and my father laid into me so badly that from then out I went one mile an hour below the speeding limit at all times. “What does her boyfriend say about this place?”
“Fuck if I know.” Mike laughed. “Who do you think I am? Russo?”
At the sound of Dean’s name, I grit my teeth. He still hadn’t gotten back to me with the information on Isabel. I’d told him I’d pay him double, and he was treating it like he had all the time in the world to get it to me. I exhaled.
“I can’t imagine he’d be okay with it, as pretentious as he is,” I said about William Hamilton.
“You still mad about the permits?”
“Of course, I’m mad about the fucking permits.” I looked at Mike again. “I wanted that theater ready by October. It’s the middle of June and that asshole is still holding up construction.”
“Because his father wants it.”
“His father doesn’t want it. Silvio and his little team of investors want it. They’re just using Judge Hamilton as a front and promising him big bucks. Silvio wants to build a fucking skyscraper.”
“I would think you of all people would appreciate a luxury building.”
“The theater is historic.”
Mike shot me a dubious look. I knew what he was thinking. When did I start caring about historic buildings? The answer was, I didn’t. I cared about this one. I wanted to rebuild this one. And I would. If that meant I had to burn Judge Hamilton to the ground, so be it, but it was happening. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t exactly burn Silvio Costello to the ground. I couldn’t sit in meetings talking about change and do the very thing we were trying to steer away from. I wanted to, though. God, I wanted to.
“Does he come around here?”
“Hamilton?” Mike asked, frowning. “I haven’t seen him, but it’s not like I hang out here every time they’re open.”
“How the fuck did they even end up together?”
“They went to school together,” Mike said. “High school.”
“They’ve been together since?” My eyes widened.
“No, I guess they re-connected recently.” He shrugged.
“Hm.” I looked at Isabel again.
She was typing away on her phone. Texting him? Maybe. She was smiling. The moment her eyes met mine, she scowled and turned around. I felt myself smile. At the very least, I knew she was attracted to me, and I knew she wasn’t acting this way to play hard to get. I’d met enough women who played that card thinking I liked the chase. I didn’t. Isabel wasn’t one of those women. She definitely found me attractive, but when I caught her checking me out, I also caught the way she quickly shut down the idea, as if she’d been reminded that I was bad news. I hated that split-second reminder, the moment her light brown eyes told me that she’d told herself absolutely not. I didn’t know what it was about her that drew me in. I truly didn’t, but I knew that for her, I’d chase. In another life, that was.
I was too busy for the remainder of this lifetime to chase someone like her, especially since I knew she wasn’t the kind of woman you could just fuck and leave. She was the type who stuck around. The relationship type, and as everyone around me liked to remind me, I was far from the relationship type. She swiped all of her hair to one side of her shoulder, leaving the other bare, her back bare, in that spaghetti strap dress she wore. I swallowed. Took another sip of my drink.
“G, you know I don’t meddle in your business,” Mike started.
“You always meddle in my business.”
“Fair, but not about women. I know you have this thing where you need to fuck every woman you find attractive, but she’s not the one. You need to leave this one alone.”
“I was just thinking the same thing, actually.” I kept looking at her, though, my gaze trailing down the curve of her neck. As if she felt me doing it, she looked over her shoulder, meeting my eyes again. Fuck. I knew that look. It was the look you gave someone right before you dragged them to the back room and fucked them. Again, she shuttered it instantly, turning back to her friends, but I saw it. It was still burning into my chest. I looked down at the half-drunk rum in my cup. I shouldn’t. I couldn’t.
