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“But you know what? Since you’re in the business of telling people what to do, apparently, let me tell you something.” He pushes his stool in and gently hits his book against the countertop a couple times. “If you think your husband is so wonderful, if you’re just living the perfect life and have nothing to be afraid of, you should come to The Vault tonight at nine o’clock.”
I roll my eyes at his insinuation.
Going to a strip club on Amato territory? I’d rather not.
“Wouldn’t be caught dead,” I whisper to him, adding my own wink, and then I plaster a smile on my face as I walk out from behind the counter and say goodbye to the kids.
5
EVELINA
Every inch of my body burns with rage and lust and something I can’t even recognize…a visceral need I refuse to put a name to. I shake my head as I toss my keys onto the kitchen island.
“I swear I’m just one step closer to needing to commit myself,” I mutter under my breath as I walk through the empty house.
A house that used to feel like home.
One I decorated with a beaming smile and a heart full of love and hope and fucking faith. Faith in my husband. In Enzo Greco. The man I chose to spend my forever with. The man who pulled me in and sucked me under and made me believe that things could finally be better for me.
I pour a glass of water from the fridge and take a deep, much-needed breath. There is no reason to be this annoyed with Niccolò. He is clearly just another one of those men. The ones I’m all too familiar with, who will say anything and everything to get underneath a woman’s skin. I don’t know why I was so enticed with him in the first place.
Aside from the fact that he’s hot as fucking sin.
Why do the hot ones have to be such assholes?
The main problem was…he wasn’t too far off base with his accusation of Enzo not being trustworthy. And I think the most frustrating part of it all is the fact that my urge to both strangle him for being such an arrogant, smug idiot and my equally strong urge to have him understand that I’m not the woman he thinks I am are at war with one another.
And I’m pissed off that I even give a flying fuck, too.
The knot that formed in the base of my stomach while Niccolò looked at me with that penetrating stare, as if he could see right through me, pulsates. I try to tamp down my growing need, but it’s nearly impossible. How fucked up am I? That Niccolò Amato ignited something inside of me that I’m not quite sure I’ve ever felt—or at least not in a long time. Not since creeping doubts settled in.
I push it all away. Block it out and head toward my home office as Niccolò’s words about Enzo replay in my mind, and I try to extinguish the desire he stoked to life inside of me.
I never took Enzo for a cheater. Sure, he stays out late most nights, but I know how busy the DeSantis men are on any given day. I’ve felt a lot of ways about my husband: ignored, a burden, gaslit, stepped on, and walked all over…
But I never thought he’d be a cheater. And I know that’s what Niccolò was implying. Everyone knows, even those not in the mafia, that The Vault is a shady nightclub with a lot of backroom action from the dancers.
My mind immediately wanders to my husband getting a blowjob from one of them in a private room. I can’t say I’m as hurt as I imagined I’d be. I’ve thought about it before. What woman doesn’t have doubts about their spouse at times? I think, had our relationship been anything like it was that first year, I’d be shattered. But now?
Now I’m almost grateful. I hope the sick sonofabitch is cheating on me—it’ll be one more thing I can add to the list I’m slowly compiling to bring to Romeo DeSantis to get the hell out of this marriage and far away from this life.
I close my office door, lock it, and breathe in the lavender I have scattered around my space. My footsteps echo on the hardwood as I make my way to the L-shaped desk.
I power up the computer and try to calm my racing heart. Try to put an end to what Niccolò Amato does to me. The way he was making me feel in my own damn store earlier.
The terrible push and pull of how he both pissed me off and made me want to climb him like a tree. I don’t think I’ve ever had quite as strong of a reaction to someone before. Especially not one I’ve only just met.
Because I’m still a halfway decent person, I think my feelings toward our rival mafioso would make me feel shitty. I’m a married woman, after all.
I think I’d feel awful. I really do.
But I don’t.
Maybe if I didn’t have to track my husband’s movements.
Maybe if I didn’t have to put a fucking audio recording device in his suits.
Maybe then I’d feel like a shit wife.
