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I hear a voice from Marco’s room. “The hell you are.”
“I’ll call you back,” I say down the line. I pass the phone back to Alessandro, walking into Marco’s room to find him again trying to sit up. “I heard what you said,” he tells me as he winces from the effort. “Call him back and accept.”
“Why? Because you called in a favor?”
“Because you deserve it.”
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my career feeling that I only got somewhere by calling in favors from you. I want to get things based on merit, not on who I know.”
“That’s very noble, but it’s not how the world works. It’s a game, Anna. You’ve got to play it the same as everyone else.”
“You might believe that, but I don’t.”
“And look where that’s got you. Homeless and unemployed.”
“Ouch. Thanks for that.”
He looks contrite. “I’m just saying that this is your chance to get somewhere. Call him back and accept.”
“You don’t get it, do you? I’m not good enough yet. I can’t have my work in a paper with that wide a circulation. The readers will tear me to shreds.”
“Who cares what they think?”
“I do. I want to do this when I’m ready, when an editor thinks I deserve it. Not because you threatened to kneecap him.”
He shifts in place, his face getting pale again. “You’re talented. You’re smart. You should believe in yourself more. Roll the dice. Give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I’m not smart.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I wasn’t smart enough to spot Marie’s bullshit coming. I wasn’t smart enough to see through your lies.”
He looks offended. “When did I lie to you?”
“You told me you had a job waiting for me. What did I find instead? A proposal of marriage and a demand that I get pregnant.”
“So?”
“So, you lied to me.”
“I didn’t give you the details of the job. That’s not the same thing.”
“You certainly weren’t clear. Let’s put it that way.”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t come. That would mean you being taken by your father to marry into the cartel. Your life would be ruined. I won’t allow that to happen.”
“Why? Because you care about me that much?”
“Maybe you need looking after. Maybe a marriage between the two of us could work. You ever got out of your own head long enough to consider that?”
I have to resist laughing. “You haven’t even proposed to me. There’s no mutual consent about this. You don’t know a thing about me.”
“My parents knew nothing about each other when they got married. They managed to make it work.”
“Good for them. Come on, you can’t be serious.”
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll propose to you tonight. At a restaurant. Somewhere nice. You can tell me all about yourself there.”
