“I have a small dining table in my suite,” she says. “Occasionally I’ll eat with the staff. But meals should be private time for the family.” She notices how I’m looking at her with confusion and adds, “It’s my choice.”
This seems to close off the issue to more questions and anyway there’s no time. We’ve arrived at the dining room.
“Look at our beautiful girl,” Mel announces and sweeps her free arm in avoilagesture that ushers me into the room.
Three out of the four Tempesta brothers are already seated at the long table. All of them wear freshly ironed shirts and there’s not a cowboy hat in sight. They immediately rise to their feet upon my entrance and I wrestle with the urge to escape their scrutiny.
A sharp wolf whistle comes from Tye. “Stepping it up a notch, huh?”
Fort gives me a teasing wink. “Not that we’re complaining.”
Julian pulls my chair out and holds my gaze. “You look beautiful, Cecilia.” The heated current in his voice is drenched in sexual tension.
I’m mildly dizzy as I take my seat and allow Julian to push it closer to the table. I can’t explain why. I should be used to being near him by now.
What is it about this man that constantly turns me into an infatuated puddle?
Physical attraction is potent. Of course I’ve felt it before. But never as strongly as I feel it for him. My thoughts melt into hazy clouds when I should be keeping Alice’s good advice in mind.
“Make him jump through a few hoops.”
But how can I do that? I should have asked. My flirtation skills have always been deficient.
Julian declares that since their father isn’t around we don’t need to wait for Getty to show up. I can feel the three of them watching me as I cut up my chicken. And I wish I hadn’t rolled the sleeves of my dress down. Fixing them right now is too conspicuous. I’ll just have to cope.
Between cutting up my food, fretting about my cleavage, and being hyper aware of the fact that Julian is sitting so close that I can feel his body heat, I don’t even notice when Getty walks into the room. The next time I look up, there he is, sitting across the table as if he’s been there all along.
“What was that?” Fort asks his brother.
Getty pours the pitcher of ice water into his glass. “What was what?”
Fort scowls. “Whatever you stuck under your chair, asshole.”
Getty takes a drink of water and sets the glass down again before responding. “Keep your eyes on your own plate, kid brother. Or you might lose them.”
Fort either decides the argument isn’t worth the trouble or he’s lost interest. He shakes his head and helps himself to a second serving of food.
Meanwhile, Tye has been trying to educate me on the subject of hockey. I’ve yet to see more than thirty seconds of a game so I don’t have much to add but I’m curious about the injury that ended his career.
“You lost some of the vision in your right eye, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Some of it?” he replies, quite cheerfully. “Damn near all of it. Third period of an away game in New York. My first game back after getting sidelined for two weeks thanks to a concussion and I take a fucking stick to the eye.”
Some of Tye’s good humor fades and the shadow of anger that crosses his face is a glimpse into how swiftly his moods can change.
“The shot was a cheap one,” he says in a more solemn voice layered with fury. “At least I made him pay by cracking his head on the ice. Now neither of us plays the game anymore but he’s got a fentanyl habit and occasionally works at his father’s Long Island car wash. For now I think his daily life is punishment enough. I might change my mind.”
A glass dessert bowl containing two scoops of purple gelato garnished with fresh blackberries lands in front of me. A man’s beefy hand withdraws and I look up into the lantern-jawed face of one of the members of what Julian calls ‘the security team’. He’s probably in his thirties with an ugly scar running the length of his right cheek. As something of an expert in scars, I’d say his scar isn’t more than a year or two old.
Mostly I’ve seen Enzo’s kitchen assistant, Jory, and Mel serving the meals. But sometimes one of these grim-looking Mafia footmen gets pressed into service.
“Thank you,” I say to the ‘waiter’.
He nods and wastes no time passing out the bowls. Then he nervously glances over his shoulder before fleeing the room.
“How many employees do you have here?” I ask. “I can’t keep track.”
“Neither can I.” Tye takes a heaping spoonful of gelato and deposits it in his mouth. “You should take that question, Jul.”
