by Eden Butler
“Yeah,” I finally told Curtis, stepping farther into the breakroom and away from the door where he’d stopped me. “I’m still not a hundred percent… Can you put that order in for me? I’ll let Mrs. C. know I need to get home.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” Curtis squeezed my shoulder and moved back toward the main dining hall, stepping toward the bank of computers near the front desk to input the orders.
The main dining room was emptying out and I spotted several locals who waved at me as they left. I peered around the door, my attention shifting from the other patrons to the table where Reynolds had sat down.
He seemed to eat up the attention from his co-workers. He paused in the right places when he told a joke, waiting for the perfect moment for full effect to get as many laughs as he could muster, then moved one side of his mouth up in some stupid show of a humble grin as they all relished him with praise.
It turned my stomach to see this man holding center court. He’d been lower than Alejandro. He’d wanted something he couldn’t have and was willing to bet that my husband’s addiction would give him everything.
Head back against the door, I stared up at the ceiling. I counted the knots in the woodgrain of the beams overhead, absently thinking what I should do and how I could make Mrs. C. understand why I needed to leave. I couldn’t lie to her; I’d hurt her feelings enough for one week. I also couldn’t tell her what I feared most—that Reynolds was still in contact with Alejandro and he would tell him where I was.
The woman would tell Smoke.
That would be bad. Very bad.
“Maggie?” I heard my name and jerked my head up as I spun, coming face to face with Antonia. The beautiful woman smiled at me, something she always did no matter her mood.
Next to Vi, she was the closest thing I had to a friend in this tiny town, and even though she lived in the city most of the time and we’d only spent a few special occasions together, I grabbed Antonia, pulling her into the breakroom like she was a lifeline and I was drowning.
“I’m in trouble,” I blurted, not caring what she thought of the admission.
“Okay…” Antonia looked around the room, keeping her voice low, guarded. “My mook brother knock you up?”
“I…we aren’t…I mean…” There was really no point in denying anything, but I couldn’t tell Toni everything about me and Smoke. Things were private. No one really knew the truth.
In fact, Vi was the only person who knew where I went after work sometimes. She and I knew each other’s secrets and we kept them ever since we worked together at that dinky little diner in Connecticut for no money and the worst manager on the planet. We were loyal and quiet about what we knew. Of anyone I knew in the world, Smoke Carelli had secrets no one would ever uncover. There was no way he’d spill them, especially not to his little sister.
So how the hell did Toni know about us?
“Listen,” she started, trying and failing to keep from laughing, “I spent half my life perfecting the art of sneaking around to hook up with pretty boys. I was a master at it.” She widened her smile and winked at me. “Still am, but you, my friend, are, at best, a novice.” She sat on one of the tables next to the vending machine, crossing her long, toned legs at the ankle before she continued.
“My brother, he does what he wants, but this is a small town. I know on Wednesdays and Fridays, nights you don’t work the late shift, that my bossy ass brother stays in his office extra late and your car somehow stays in the lot until morning. One and one is two and on Thursdays and Saturdays, my brother is in a good mood and that bastard is never in a good mood.”
I shook my head, forcing an eyeroll, trying to brush off the accusation. “We…Smoke and me…I …” But there was no excuse I could come up with that would make a lot of sense. Antonia was smart. Clearly, smarter than me. I flopped down in a chair opposite her and scrubbed my face.
“Listen, if you are late or something…”
“What are you doing in here?” Paris, the skinny blonde day waitress asked, coming into the breakroom with her arms crossed. The girl was a nuisance, had an obvious obsession with Smoke and always called me Mary instead of Maggie. She ignored Antonia’s glare and focused her attention on me. “Mrs. C. is looking for you.”
I widened my eyes, at a loss for words, worried what she’d heard of our conversation, my head flooding with insults and excuses I could level at her, but the only thing I managed to get out was “Shit’s sake…”
“Well?” Paris asked, moving farther into the room.
“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” Antonia said, stepping between me and Paris.
“Mrs. C….”
“Don’t you worry about my mother or Maggie.” She turned the blonde’s shoulders and pushed her toward the door. “Now get out of here before I tell my mother what a little nosey bitch you are and get your ass fired.”
“You can’t…”
“I can. Have and would again.” Antonia pushed the girl out the door and watched her as she walked down the hall, her head shaking as she turned back toward me. “Now,” Antonia said, grabbing my hand. “As I was saying, if you’re late or something…”
“No,” I said, silently reminding myself why I was hiding in the damn breakroom in the first place. “That’s not…I’ve had one unexpected pregnancy. I know how to prevent them.”
“Are you still sick?” Toni stepped back, covering her mouth. “Do you still have strep? Ma said you were out of it for a couple days. Are you contagious?”
“No. Dios, woman…” I stood, straightening my uniform before I grabbed Antonia’s hand and pulled her toward the door, slipping out of the breakroom and peeking from the hallway into the dining room. She stood next to me, looking over my head as I pointed toward the table of REN Cyper suits. “The tall guy in the blue suit?”
“The one with the fake Rolex?”
“It’s fake?”
“The gold is faded on the sides. Only gold-plated or fourteen carats does that, and Rolex doesn’t make either. Stainless steel, eighteen carat or platinum.”
“You can see that?”
“Honey, please. I’m a Carelli and I live in New York. I can spot a knockoff from fifty feet away. This asshole is either an idiot and got swindled or he’s broke and wants everyone to think he’s not.”
“He probably snorted or smoked all his money.”
Reynolds turned when Curtis approached, refilling everyone’s mugs and his attention moved behind the waiter and toward us.
I couldn’t tell if he saw me, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Antonia and I both jerked out of the hallway and back into the breakroom.
She shut the door, leaning against it, folding her arms across her chest. “So, Mr. Wannabe?”
“Worked with my ex…Mateo’s father.”
Antonia dropped her arms and stepped away from the door to stand in front of me. “You’ve never mentioned him before. We all thought he…well, we have theories.”
“I bet you do.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know, but that guy out there worked with him. He knew that Alejandro, my ex-husband, was an addict. I’m…just worried if he sees me here…”
“You think he’ll tell your ex?”
I don’t know what happened to me or why I let myself get so worked up right then. Maybe it was the fear of someone from my past slipping into the present that broke apart something inside me. Maybe it was the worry that I was getting too comfortable here. I knew all this comfort me and my son lived in was temporary and seeing that asshole just reminded me of that fact.
For whatever reason, I stood in front of Antonia scared and shaking, unable to keep the tears from welling up behind my lashes. They brimmed over and spilled down my cheeks before I realized what was happening.
Antonia pulled me close, curling her arms around my shoulders. “It’s okay,” she said, shushing me when one of my cries got too loud. “It’s going to be okay. I promise you.”
“I can and you wanna know why?”
I shook my head, irritated that I was crying like a kid and grateful to my friend.
She grabbed a paper towel from the rack and patted my face dry. “Because, we have you. Not just my stupid big brother who’s a bully and an asshole but mainly really does care. But all of us. This family. This whole town. You and that little man of yours, you’re ours now and we take care of ours.”
I wanted to cry even harder.
Making people feel safe was a Carelli trait I discovered was written into their DNA.
I loved and feared that most about all of them.
“Listen, you take off.”
I opened my mouth, ready to argue, but the woman waved her hand, ignoring any excuse I had before I could make them.
“Don’t worry about anything…my ma or that bitchy little server… or anything. I’ll handle everything and I’ll distract the wannabe. You dip out to the back alley and head to see my brother.”
“I…can’t tell him about this. He’ll be over here threatening that asshole inside of two seconds.”
“Then distract him or do…” she waved her hand again, flaring her nostrils like whatever scenario she thought of involving me and her brother was the most disgusting visual she could ever imagine, “whatever it is you somehow think is in anyway pleasing with him…and by the time you’re finished, the wannabe will be gone and you can go home.”
She used the driest side of the paper towel to clean up my face, smoothing it under my eyes and over my mouth before she nodded.
I held her hand, stopping her before she could walk away. “Thank you. Really.”
“Don’t mention it,” she said, squeezing my fingers. “Just remember that we only want to help you.”
“Thanks again,” I told her, moving to the back entrance of the room and down toward the loading dock as Antonia left from the front.
The alleyway along the back of the building was dim and narrow but clear. I hurried around the dumpsters and several boxes and crates, not looking back as I headed forward toward the largest building on the block. Antonia would offer the distraction I needed to keep Reynolds and my past behind me, long enough for me to make it to Smoke.
There, I’d find the distraction I’d need for one more night, and this time, I wouldn’t pretend his bed was the last place I should be.
7
Smoke
“That’s not what I want to hear.”
Dario’s voice was strained. That much I could make out from the low moaning grunt I caught on the other end of the phone. “What do you want me to do? I looked. The woman’s a ghost.”
“No one’s a ghost. Not unless they’re in the ground and Benny told you last week the redhead was spotted in L.A.” When my kid brother didn’t respond, when I got nothing more from him but grunts and sighs, I leaned back in my chair, grip tight on the phone, silently reminding myself that I couldn’t scream at him. Screaming wouldn’t do shit to get what I needed from him.
But man was it tempting.
“You wanna yell.”
At least he hadn’t lost his instinct.
“I’m not gonna yell.” Stretching my neck, I held the phone away from my ear, dipping my head down before I spoke into the cell again. “Not yet anyway.”
“Dimitri, I’m trying.”
“Little brother, you’re here. In our hometown. You haven’t left New York. You aren’t trying hard enough.”
“I know you don’t want to hear it.”
“Probably not,” I told him, waiting for the excuse I knew would be heading my way.
“But you gotta give me some time to adjust…”
“Fuck, Dario…you wanted more responsibility. You begged me. Besides, shit…” I stood, pushing back the chair. “It’s been six months.”
“I was in for five years!” There was yelling now, but it still wasn’t me doing it and when I cleared my throat and waited for the man to check his temper, my brother blew out a breath, taking a minute to mutter something low, something that sounded a lot like the cursing our old man did when Ma pissed him off and he knew better than to tell her just how mad she’d made him, before he spoke again. “I’m not on my game yet. It’s gonna take me more than a few months to get my head on right. I just can’t tell you—”
Three sharp knocks sounded on my door, the knob turned and whatever my kid brother couldn’t tell me got silenced when Maggie stepped over the threshold. The second I saw her, my mind went stupid.
Lust and need rattled inside my chest as she shut the door then disappeared up when I noticed how her hands trembled. Maggie’s beautiful brown skin had gone pale and her eyes were glinted with worry.
I interrupted my brother mid-excuse. “I gotta go,” I told him and ended the call, throwing the cell on my desk, clearing it in two strides to get to her. “What is it? Mateo? What happened?”
She buried her face against my chest without a single word. She’d only done that when she was sick and half-high on meds. This was not her, and that had me worried. Other than a tutorial on how to handle her own oil change, Maggie had never come to me for anything other than the physical.
But just then, she curled her arms around my waist, her nails making light indentations against the fabric of my shirt. Her entire body shook, and she held onto me like she needed whatever it was she thought she’d find in my arms.
“Bella…” I tried, touching one hand to the back of her head, unsure how to read her. She wasn’t a vulnerable woman.
“Can you just please…hold me? That’s…all I want right now.”
This was…new.
Foreign to me.
Normally, that wasn’t something I did.
Not ever.
I could console.
I’d done that plenty of times with family and friends. With my ma when she lost friends, with the wives and daughters of men I knew.
But never with women I fucked. Never with women who I thought might want more from me. Though, Maggie wasn’t just some woman I fucked. Not anymore and I was starting to realize the truth of that.
“Your son is so beautiful.”
The woman’s voice moved around in my head as Maggie clung to me. Then, I answered the compliment with the same words that came to me anytime I heard someone talk about what a looker the kid was.
He’s got nothing on his mama.
My…
Hell. She wasn’t my anything. He wasn’t either, but having her here, holding her, giving her what she needed, exactly when she needed it, that shit didn’t scare me the same as being the kid’s father didn’t scare me.
What the hell was happening?
Maggie started to lift her head. My hand still hung at my side and I guessed she thought I was giving her a silent no. She started to push away, moving her palm down my back, and her face off my chest, but I wrapped my free hand around her back and threaded my fingers into her hair with my other hand.
“Be still,” I told her, standing there with her, feeling something shifting inside me. Something I didn’t know how to define.
It felt light and heavy.
Sweet and burning and everything I felt settled inside me like it had always been there.
“Did…someone hurt you…or the kid?” I couldn’t help asking. Some primal part of me only knew how to protect. That’s what my fists were for.
“No,” she said, rubbing her face against my chest, turning her head until only her forehead rested against my shirt. I felt her cheek, thinking she might be relapsing, but Maggie pulled on my wrist, grinning up at me. “It’s not that either. I’m not sick anymore. It…it’s just been a very bad day.” She glanced around the office, her gaze on my desk and the papers scattered across it. “Damn, sweetie, did I interrupt…”
My fingers over her mouth silenced her and Maggie brought those black eyes up right to mine, giving me a look that could reawaken even the deadest, c
oldest heart.
Fuck me, she was beautiful. And sweet. And I was in so much trouble.
“You’re never an interruption.”
She nodded, the worry moving from her eyes, shifting into something that seemed more familiar when I took her face in both of my hands.
“You are always welcome wherever I am, with whatever you want from me.”
“Smoke.” She looked away, already starting to argue. “I know how busy you are.”
“I’m never too busy for you, bellissima.”
That unrecognizable weight in my chest got heavier when Maggie reached a hand up to grab my wrist, smoothing her small fingers up over my knuckles. Her touch was like silk, her skin the softest I’d ever felt.
Fuck, I wanted her. More than ever, right then, I wanted her. And not for a quick fuck. I wanted her deep. I wanted her in a way that lasted and settled so that I didn’t know whose pleasure was whose and I didn’t want it to stop.
Shit. Where did that come from? What the hell was this woman doing to me?
I couldn’t help it. Christ, I couldn’t.
I wanted more than to get her off. More than her in my bed for one night. I wanted it to last. I wanted her skin all flushed and pink from how hard I loved her and I wanted her panting and sweaty against me all night and in the morning when I woke up, when I took her again and again.
“Maggie,” I said, the name coming out like a growl, something I didn’t mean but was glad she seemed to like.
“Smoke…” She brushed against me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Kiss me.”
My nose rubbing along hers, I inhaled, squeezing my eyes closed when the sweet scent of her hair hit me. “I thought you only wanted me to hold you.”
“I did, but now, I want you to hold me…everywhere.”
The sound that left my throat was something I hadn’t heard before. A desperate groan so deep, fucking old and ancient and it had an effect on the beautiful woman standing in front of me. So did my mouth dipping over hers and the grip I made against the back of her neck as I pulled her close enough to take her lips.
