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“Hmm. I wonder, what will yourmale someonethink about your . . . attire.”
I grin, intending to give him a witty retort as I usually do in similar situations, but the fierceness of his stare is messing with my concentration, and I end up blurting out the truth instead. “I don’t really give a fuck.”
Something flashes in his eyes, and a corner of his mouth curves upward.
“Interesting.” He lifts his hand and traces my lower lip with the pad of his thumb. “Tell me, what happened with the wolf girl?”
“The wolf girl?” I chuckle. “What are you talking about?”
“The girl who found her man covered in blood. Will she save him?”
My jaw hits the floor. What? How?
The hot guy moves his forefinger under my chin and taps it lightly. I quickly close my mouth, then open it again to ask how the fuck he knows about my story when the song ends. A fast tune starts playing, and I realize we haven’t been dancing at all. We’ve just stood there, unmoving, this whole time.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Sienna DeVille,” he says, and my eyes flare in surprise. “Call your don. Tell him Drago said yes.”
I gape at him, at a loss for words.
Drago’s hand falls from my face, and he turns away, heading across the dance floor and signaling to the man in a gray suit to follow him. They walk toward the back and, a moment later, disappear through a black door.
Thatis my future husband?
Chapter 4
I park my bike a few spots away from the white car I’ve been following for the past hour and watch as the driver opens the back door. Sienna DeVille exits, wearing a wide smile and the most bizarre outfit I’ve ever seen. At first, I wonder if she went out in her pajamas because that’s what this matching set of pants and a blouse looks like. It’s white, with black blotches all over, making it look as if she put on a cow’s hide. Her heels are orange like her coat, and she has a big orange bow on the top of her head, fastened to her high ponytail. She says something to her driver and walks inside a bookstore that faces the street. I wait for a few moments, then take off my helmet and follow.
The bookstore is huge, with several large tables laden with stacked books at the front and wall-wide bookshelves in the back. I don’t have to search for long to find my future wife, because it’s impossible to miss her in that outfit. She’s standing by one of the shelves, holding a thick paperback in her hands. I look at the big sign suspended from the ceiling, expecting it to saybeautyorfashion. It doesn’t. It looks like she’s browsing the business section.
A store attendant approaches her, an older woman with a sour face. Sienna smiles and leans forward to whisper something in her ear. The grim attendant widens her eyes, then bursts out laughing. They spend a few minutes discussing something, and when the saleswoman returns to the counter, she’s wearing a bright smile on her face. My future wife checks out a few more books in the section before strolling around the store. I lurk amid the displays of books on politics and continue watching her.
A teenage girl is crouching by the shelf of romance titles when Sienna walks up to her and bends, saying something. The girl shrugs and shakes her head. Sienna sits down on the floor, cross-legged, and starts taking the books off the shelf one by one and passing them to the teenager. Every time she pulls out a new paperback, she leans toward the girl and comments as she holds out the book. With her hand covering her mouth, the girl snickers.
I slip behind the bookshelf just on the other side of them, and now I have a direct view of Sienna’s face through the void over the shorter books lined up in a row, allowing me to focus on her lips without being seen myself.
“. . . my favorite. He’s a grumpy CEO, and she’s his secretary who’s been in love with him since they were kids.”Sienna grins and takes the next book.“Oh, and this one is so good. She’s a model, and there’s some psycho pestering her. So, her father hires a bodyguard who’s a retired SEAL, but the guy can’t stand her. It’s an age gap, grumpy-sunshine trope. You’re going to love it.”
I spend almost an hour stalking my future wife around the store, watching as she chats with random people as if she’d known them for years. Some don’t seem interested in the beginning but, sooner or later, they all end up pulled into a conversation with her. When they leave, smiles light up their faces. It’s as if she’s bewitched them. And it seems, I’m falling under her spell as well, because I have forgotten about the meeting I have with her brother today.
I turn around and exit the bookstore, leaving my future wife to spread the obviously contagious happiness all around her.
* * *
“There won’t be a wedding reception, Arturo,” I say. “We’ll sign the papers at city hall and that’s it.”
Sienna’s brother stares at me from across my desk, his jaw clenched tight. Arturo and I had a rather nice business relationship before the whole Pisano fuckup.
“Why?” he asks through his teeth.
“The civil marriage ceremony will take place on Saturday. There isn’t enough time to organize anything else.”
“Why so soon?”
“Because I said so.”
He gets in my face. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Someone who agreed to work with you again even though Rocco Pisano killed one of my men.”
