Page 42 of When She Loves
I blink. “What?”
Somehow, he’s now got the waitress on his lap while she’s scrubbing the wine off his tie. She doesn’t seem to mind. Annoyance simmers beneath my flesh. He can get just about any woman to eat out of the palm of his hand, the charming bastard.
“I said, if outbursts like this become common, this isn’t going to work,” he repeats, wrapping his hands around the waitress’s waist to keep her steady.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I say, suddenly eager to finish our meal so that we can get back to work. The sooner we’re done, the sooner I can go back home to my wife.
Nero senses my annoyance. He whispers something in the waitress’s ear that makes her smile and get off him. Before she leaves, he takes her phone and puts his number in it.
“Send me a text when you get off work,” he says, giving her ass a light smack.
The waitress blushes and disappears into the back. Fuck. I wish my life were that easy. But I don’t want an eager waitress. I want my fucking wife.
And I’m going to have her, so help me God.
CHAPTER15
CLEO
Rafaele is gonewhen I wake up around ten a.m. I crawl into the empty bed and nearly weep at how comfortable it is compared to the ottoman.
The sheets smell like his bodywash. I recognize the scent from last night when he walked out of the shower in just his underwear. Fuck, he looked so good. I had no idea he was that ripped.
Okay, this is a dangerous line of thought.
I give myself another minute to enjoy the cozy bed before I haul my ass into a cold shower and rinse the traces of him off my skin.
Hot or not, Rafaele is keeping me caged, and I’m not about to go all Stockholm syndrome on him. All of those rules that are supposedly for my protection? The only reason I need that protection is because he’s a murderer who’s got other murderers after him.
Ah, the life of a mob wife.
My only chance at not going stir-crazy is to get him to send me away from here. I know he’s got a massive mansion in the Hamptons—Mamma used to talk about it all the time. I could live there.
And then what?
Okay, there’snot that much to do there, but at least I wouldn’t have to seehimevery day. That would already be an improvement.
I dry myself off, pull on some clothes, and sit down at the small desk in the corner of the room. Time to write down my ideas.
Cleo’s plan for ruining Rafaele’s life:
Bankrupt him
Redecorate his house
Get a dog—a big and scary one who’ll keep him away from me
Identify all of his hopes and dreams
Ruin them
Never, ever, under no circumstances, even if there’s a gun to my head, sleep with him
The plan is as chaotic as my personality, but I feel good about this. Really good.
The things on it definitely play to my strengths. Rafaele is an uptight control freak, so I’m going to do everything I can to make him realize he brought a loose cannon into his life. The only thing he really seems to want from me is my body, so if I never give it to him, he’ll eventually realize keeping me around isn’t worth the hassle.
Since I need to get more clothes anyway, I decide to hit the first bullet point. Time to put that black credit card to use.
