by Maris Black
“There’s a caterer here?” I turned wide, horrified eyes toward the door. “I thought we were alone.”
Gio shook his head and smirked. “He got here while you were in the shower. Been out there the whole time setting up. He should be finished by now, but I have to write him a check before he leaves.”
“Was I…” I swallowed hard as heat crept up my throat. “Was I loud?”
Gio laughed. “Like porn with the volume cranked up.”
“Oh, Jesus.” I ran a hand through my disheveled hair and whisper-screamed, “How could you let me do that? Why didn’t you tell me to shut the hell up?”
Gio ran a hand around the back of my neck and attempted to rub out the tension that had crept back into my muscles. Then he leaned in and captured my lips in a gentle kiss. “Don’t worry. We’re fine. I wasn’t exactly using my library voice, either.”
My mouth fell open as I studied Gio’s relaxed expression. “How can you be so calm about everything? I don’t get it. Do you want people to find out about us?”
“No.” He looked perplexed for a split second, as if he, too, was confused by his own conflicting statements. Then his face relaxed again, and he smiled. “Sometimes, maybe. It’s difficult hiding you away and pretending there’s nothing between us. I’m so damn proud of you, Peter. I wish I could show you off.”
I turned away and grabbed the towel I had been wearing. The evidence of my orgasm was splattered across the countertop like a Jackson Pollock painting, and I mopped up the X-rated artwork as I turned Gio’s words over in my mind. His mixed signals had me reeling. “But… we don’t want people to know, right?” I pressed. Because I wanted to show him off, too. I wanted every person in the entire world to know that I was his.
“At this time, I think it’s best if we keep the true nature of our relationship a secret. But we need to make the announcement tonight—subtly, of course—that you are living here now. If they found out on their own, it would seem like we have something to hide. And we don’t. We have nothing to be ashamed of.” He nodded resolutely as if trying to convince himself as well as me.
“Does anyone know about you?” I bit my lip and dropped the soiled towel into the wicker laundry basket before turning to face Gio. “That you like men?”
“No one suspects as far as I know. I—” He took a hesitant step toward me, uncertainty etched on his handsome features. “I used to be married, Peter.” He scrubbed his fingertips through the meticulously-groomed stubble at his jaw, the sound too loud in heavy silence following his confession. He searched my eyes for a reaction. “Does that bother you?”
I shook my head, a jerky movement that was nothing more than a lie—because it did bother me. The thought of Gio with anyone else, man or woman, gnawed at my insides, and the more I thought about it the worse it got. Had he kissed her? Jesus, of course he had. He’d fucked her, too. My belly twisted in on itself and I had to resist the involuntary urge to clutch at it, to ease the incredible pain that had lodged itself there.
How many other people had he been with? How many people had he slid his dick into before me? How many people did I need to despise without even knowing their names?
I felt my eyes water. How pathetic.
I was nothing but a jealous, naive kid, and I’d been living in a fantasy world. The moment Gio had touched me, I’d slipped into sweet oblivion, my heart whispering to my brain that I was the only one. Now reality had come crashing down on me, and I didn’t like it one little bit. I wanted the oblivion back—needed it—and yet I knew it would never again be mine.
Married. Jesus H. Christ.
Gio closed the short distance between us and folded me up in his arms even as I struggled ineffectually against him. I didn’t fight hard, because I needed those arms around me more than anything. Even more than the oblivion. And I needed to hear his voice, soft and soothing as he spoke against my ear. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Dammit, I shouldn’t have said anything. At the very least, I could have chosen a time when you weren’t already anxious.”
I slumped against his chest, dampening the fabric of his shirt with my ridiculous tears. “I’m glad you told me. Knowing doesn’t feel good, but being lied to would be worse.” My heart wasn’t entirely convinced, but I pressed on anyway, trying to be strong. To be mature. “Did you love her?”
“I cared about her,” he admitted. “In the beginning. But over time, things went sour. She knew I didn’t love her the way she needed, and eventually she came to understand—” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly against my hair.
“Understand what?”
“I wanted children. A son to carry on my name. It’s kind of strange to think about now, but I was raised to believe I was supposed to have that—the wife, the children, and the heir. But as time went by and Victoria failed to get pregnant… Well, there was no real interest there on my part beyond making babies, and she figured it out. How could she not? It was painfully obvious. After four years, the lack of chemistry between us and our inability to get pregnant weighed heavily on her. She started drinking, we started fighting, and then she cheated on me and fell in love with someone else. End of story.”
“Did it hurt you that she cheated?” I kept asking questions I didn’t want the answers to.
“In a way,” he said. “But I had no right to be angry. I should have been relieved, but pride is a funny thing. I guess there’s a certain power in being the one to say goodbye. We were both unhappy, and we both had lovers, but in the end she was the one who had the guts to end it.”
Now my jealousy shifted from the wife to the lovers, and my entire body tensed. “Were your lovers men or women?”
Gio felt my reaction and chuckled softly. His lips touched my temple, and I could feel the smile on them. “Men.”
“And did you love any of them?”
He hesitated. Shifted against me. “Only one.”
Those two little words reverberated through me, forcing out a sound that was almost a sob.
He had loved before.
“I’m sorry, sweet pea. If I could change the past for you, I would. I’d make it so that you were the only person I had ever looked at.”
“Really?” I burrowed into his chest, nudging for affection like a needy kitten.
“In a heartbeat.” He kissed my hair. “Now get dressed before people start arriving. It wouldn’t do for you to come strolling out of my bedroom in front of everyone.”
Gio left the room, and I set about getting ready, moving through quicksand. The news I had learned in the past few minutes had wrecked me, watering down the memory of Gio’s hot tongue against my ass until it seemed like something that happened a long time ago. Or not at all.
Married. Lovers. I wished I could erase his past like chalk on a board.
I pulled on the Polo and jeans Gio had chosen for me to wear. Our outfits nearly matched, but my shirt was hunter green instead of black, and my Calvin Klein jeans were tighter than his. When I’d modeled them for him at the mall, he’d glanced around to make sure there was no one around and then shoved me into the changing room, groping me relentlessly until the saleswoman returned. At her confused inquiry—Are you in there, sir?—Gio had slipped out of the dressing room and calmly explained that the jeans were so tight I was ashamed to step out.
“Oh, I can get you a larger pair,” the woman had said.
“That won’t be necessary,” Gio told her. “He’ll get used to it.”
I had emerged from the dressing room red-faced and was unable to make eye contact with the woman the whole time she was ringing up our purchases. Now my face got hot again thinking about strutting around the great room in front of all of those men in such tight jeans. I was used to wearing loose skate shorts in my downtime and suits while I was working.
The doorbell rang as I was contemplating putting on a pair of comfortable shorts, and I rushed out of the room and flung myself onto one of the beanbag chairs I’d talked Gio into getting for the party
. Then I realized I couldn’t have looked any more like a kid if I’d had a juice box in my hand, and I switched to the sofa. Gio stood patiently by the door until I got into place, then he opened the apartment to the first of the guests.
CHAPTER 15
PETER
Z was the first one in, striding confidently into the room in a bold red Hawaiian shirt and jeans. The black spikes in his hair were cemented into place, and a gold earring caught the light where it dangled from his left ear. He was striking in a disturbing way, with his pale skin, blue eyes, and sharp features that had undoubtedly been very handsome before partying had ravaged his body. Now he was painfully thin, as if he’d been living on a steady diet of hardcore drugs and not much else.
“Gio,” he said in his laid-back drawl. “How’s it hangin?”
I cringed. Gio wasn’t the kind of man you talked to like that. He deserved reverence. Z’s blatant show of disrespect made me want to punch him in the face. Why did Gio let him talk to him like that?
Z’s eyes sparkled mischievously when he caught sight of me, and he winked. I thought of the day we met, when I was taking notes for Gio in the one business meeting I’d attended, and Z had asked to see my notebook. He had looked at my childish doodles and the lack of actual notes, but he hadn’t given me away.
It confused me and made me wonder what his angle was, because Z didn’t seem like the type not to have one.
Gio grasped him around the shoulders. “Good to see you, Z.”
As if they didn’t see each other all the time.
Frank, the big Italian, waddled in after Z and grasped Gio’s hand with his sausage fingers. His chubby cheeks were flushed, his breathing labored as if he’d hustled up the stairs instead of taking the air-conditioned elevator. “Gonna be a good one tonight,” he said.
Teddy, who was Frank’s opposite in almost every way, waited politely until Frank was finished pawing Gio’s hand. He wore what I assumed to be his usual attire—a faded button-up shirt and slacks. His thinning hair was slicked back with pomade in much the same way my father wore his, which gave it an unwashed rather than neat appearance. Somehow, though Frank’s hair was slicked similarly, it looked shiny and clean in contrast. Like freshly Armor-Alled black vinyl.
“Hello, Gio,” Teddy said with a habitual sniff, swiping at his thin nose with nervous fingers before reaching out to shake Gio’s hand.
Gio clasped his hands behind his back in a blatant refusal to shake, and I remembered he had also refused to shake my father’s hand. I couldn’t blame him on either count. Teddy’s hands had been all around his nose, and my father’s fingernails were always filthy.
Gnawed and filthy and full of anger. Thank god those hands couldn’t touch me in anger anymore.
At least not for now.
A bolt of panic coursed through me, because in my cloud of love and oblivion there was something else that hadn’t occurred to me. What if Gio got tired of me? Would I have to go back to my father? I figured I probably had enough money saved up for about six months of living expenses, but then what? Would I still be able to work as Gio’s assistant, or would he cut me loose? It was unlikely I’d be able to find another job that paid so well, even if I worked my ass off.
I glanced at Gio’s face and found him staring back with a concerned expression, as if he had smelled my fear from all the way across the room. His supernatural ability to read my thoughts was both unsettling and comforting.
Z plopped down on the sofa, startling me out of my eye-lock with Gio. “I see you rated an invitation this time. How does it feel to be rubbing shoulders with the big dogs?” He bumped his bony shoulder against mine to illustrate the point, and I instinctively flinched away.
“Ummm… Good, I guess.” It was a lame as hell answer, but I couldn’t say what I really wanted to. That I’d rubbed more than shoulders with the alpha of this dog pack. And that less than an hour before, I’d been on my hands and knees with said alpha licking my ass until I came.
“Good, I guess.” Z mimicked me in a childlike voice and burst into laughter that bordered on maniacal. He fidgeted, then looked around at the others in the room and lowered the volume of his voice as if he was sharing a juicy secret. “You’re cute, you know that? Drawing pictures and shit while you’re on the clock.”
“I was just—” I froze, trying to come up with a plausible excuse. If I’d known he wasn’t going to let the matter drop, I would have worked something up before I faced him again. But I’d underestimated his interest in the subject.
He clearly thought he had some dirt on me, and possibly on Gio, too. I couldn’t be sure what he was insinuating with his comment, because he was so damn cryptic in everything he said. As if he thought he was the wiliest person in the room and couldn’t deign to speak directly about anything. It was exhausting trying to decipher his riddles, and I wondered if it was even worth the bother.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, kid.” He ruffled my hair, laughing when I scowled and reached up to check the state of it. “Oh, I didn’t mess anything up. You look fine.” His eagle-eye gaze dropped down and back up as he scrutinized my outfit. “You and Gio are like the fucking Bobbsey Twins. He’s been paying you good, huh?”
I nodded, caught in his baby blue high-beams. He was fishing for information. Dropping random comments and questions like bombs on Space Invaders until my head was spinning with the effort to dodge them. I slowed my breathing, calmed my heartbeat, and tried to focus on not giving anything away.
“I was lucky to get this job. I could have ended up flipping burgers for minimum wage. Instead, I’m working for a great boss who isn’t afraid to pay me what I’m worth.”
I thought it sounded mature. Savvy. But if the raise of Z’s eyebrow was any indication, he wasn’t buying it.
“And what’s the going rate these days for kids who draw little pictures instead of taking notes like they’re supposed to? Did Gio see that notebook of yours after the meeting? Did you show him all the hard work you were doing?”
I huffed. “For your information, Gio told me I could ease into the notes thing. It was something new he’d added to my job description, and I didn’t have much experience at it. He said it was kind of like a dry run to see what it was like, so I doubt he would be mad.”
There. A fine explanation considering I had come up with it on the spot.
Z grinned, but he didn’t look amused in the least. “I don’t know how I feel about some kid who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing listening to me talk about my business. Like I can’t quite figure out what Gio was thinking bringing you in on us like that. I thought assistants were supposed to keep up with his appointments and pick up the dry cleaning. Keep the house clean and shit.”
“That would be a maid,” I said, meeting his intense gaze with one of my own.
“Excuuse me,” he drawled. “I stand corrected. You’re not a maid. But we both know you’re not a note-taker, either. What exactly is it that you do around here?”
I opened my mouth, prepared to recite the short list of things I had done for Gio at one time but didn’t really do anymore. Why did he make me so nervous? Why was he giving me the third degree?
“Get over here, Z,” Gio called from across the room. “Stop giving Peter a hard time. I don’t want to have to hire a new assistant because you ran this one off.”
Z sucked his teeth and pushed up to standing, rudely using my knee as leverage. “Later, alligator.” He strutted across the room and joined Gio and the others, talking too loudly as if he thought he was the life of the party.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Z yelled in response to something Gio said. “There’s no way this thing is gonna go past round three. Tyson’s gonna knock him out in seconds.”
Gio scoffed. “I still think it’s gonna go past round three.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because I bet that it would, and I rarely lose. I stand to gain a lot of money, not to mention the chance to say I told you so. It�
��s gonna be a sweet payday.”
Z laughed. “Yeah, for you and a lot of people. I just don’t know how you think Bruno has a chance in hell of dodging that fist for three whole rounds. You know if Tyson lands it, it’s lights out.”
“Bye-bye, Bruno,” Frank chimed in gleefully.
“We’ll see,” Gio said. “But I’ve always been unnaturally lucky. Admit it, Z.”
Z smiled. “Yeah. It’s annoying as fuck.”
They went back and forth about it for a while. I, of course, had no opinion on the fight. I knew who Mike Tyson was, because… well, I had a pulse and a TV. But I still had no interest in the fight itself or in hearing other people talk about it.
When the doorbell rang and Gio swung the door open to reveal my best friend standing on the other side, I perked up. Finally, something to do besides listening to boxing talk and getting harassed by Z.
Theo stepped inside at Gio’s urging, and his eyes immediately sought me out, like a geek scanning for his prom date across a crowded dance floor. All that was missing was the corsage.
“So glad you were able to make it,” Gio told him. “Peter is over there on the sofa. Bored to tears by now, I’m sure.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me.” He all but bowed.
Wow. Formal Theo. This was something new.
His entire face lit up when he saw me, and he hustled over to the sofa, grinning like mad. “Dude, this place is ridiculous.” He slid in beside me, eyes bugging. “You’re so fucking lucky, man.”
I smiled, trying not to let his gushing go to my head. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a lot nicer than my dad’s place, that’s for sure.”
“So you were serious about staying here?” he asked. “You’re like a live-in assistant now?”
“Yep. Twenty-four-seven.” My pride conveniently ignored the fact that the live-in assistant thing was nothing but a smokescreen.
“What a hardship.” Theo watched the men, who were standing in a loose circle and talking. His eyes seemed to zero in on Gio, cataloging every detail of the man now that he could observe him from a distance. “What’s he like, your boss? Now that he’s got you on the clock day and night, I’ll bet he runs you ragged with all his rockstar demands. Do you have to pick out all the green M&M’s for him? Does he send you out for cigs at two in the morning? Or pickles and ice cream?”
