by Jaci J
Miss Surprises
London
Collecting the mail requires me stepping outside of my front door, but collecting packages requires much more work. Schlepping my ass out the door, down the hall, to the elevator, and across the lobby, I make the trek downstairs.
“Package for me?” I demand sweetly. Leaning against the counter, I wiggle my fingers impatiently. I’ve got a re-run on pause upstairs. Riffling around under the counter, he plunks a clipboard in front of me and says, “Signature please.”
The front desk attendant leaves me to it while disappearing into a back room to find my junk mail. Signing the paper, I push it away and wander over to the front doors, waiting for him.
It’s raining today, a cool spring afternoon. People duck and dodge raindrops and some fight with umbrellas. Leaning against the glass doors, something catches my eye. A sleek black car idles at the curb. Squinting my eyes, I see the shiny Aston Martin symbol on the grill. Taken aback, I stare with my face pressed to the glass at the familiar vehicle, each beat of my heart notching up with the possibility.
A man wearing a dark blue suit steps up to the car, his back to me. Opening the door, he lingers for a moment, as if he can feel my eyes on him. I can’t see his face, but there is something so deeply familiar about the man it has me scrambling for the door handle to get out there and to him.
Dark hair, tall, wide build, expensive suit and I’m frantic to get to him. Falling through the doors, the man looks over his shoulder at me; it’s Dante, so serious and so handsome. Every feature belongs to Dante. Paralyzed by his eyes, I stare helplessly at him until he turns and disappears into the car.
My heart bursts with dashed hopes. I see him everywhere and for a moment in time, he’s alive and he’s coming for me, then just as quickly as hope builds, it’s dashed when he fades away. I suck in a breath and hold my shit together, but not before tears fall from my eyes and down my face.
I watch the tale lights grow faint, the car becoming smaller the further it gets away from me, and my hope becoming smaller as well. My heart begins to slow and my chest expands.
This shit has to stop. I hear Dante in my head constantly and now I’m seeing him. It’s been months. Seven fucking months and I sill can’t shake him. I don’t want to forget him, but I don’t want to constantly relive everything over and over again. Jesus.
“Miss? Miss?” The front desk guy touches my shoulder, damn near scaring the hell out of me. “Are you okay?” No. I’ve finally lost my mind. It’s official, I need meds.
“Sure,” I tell him. What the hell else am I going to say? No, I’m seeing my dead love all over the city. “I’m good,” I assure him.
Grabbing my package, I hustle myself back upstairs while the contents jiggle around inside. I’m too lost in thought to care. I’ve got to stop seeing him everywhere. Putting Dante out of my head, I make my way back inside my apartment.
Tossing the package on the entry table with the rest of the junk we receive daily from the United States Postal Service, I all but run and leap onto the couch. Remote in hand and ready to hit play, Matt comes walking in.
“What was it?” He asks.
“What was what?” Rolling his eyes, he mutters, “Moron,” under his breath.
“The fucking package, you tard.” He clarifies. Who knows and who cares. Shrugging, I scoop up my bowl of ice cream, “Dunno.”
“You’re not curious?”
“Nope.” Apparently not. This re-run of Gilmore Girls though, that’s where it’s at. I’ll do anything to get my mind off Dante and what I thought I just saw.
A few minutes later, Matt yells at me from down the hall, “It’s a set of keys and an assload of paperwork.”
“What?” Pausing my show, again, I walk into the living room where Matt’s holding up a set of keys while thumbing through a stack of paperwork. Nosey bitch.
“In your package, you got keys and papers.” I did?
“What?” I don’t know what to say.
Following him to the kitchen table, he tosses the keys down and sits his ass in a chair, nodding for me to do the same. Flipping through some pages, his eyes widen, so I sit.
“They’re from Dante.” He says slowly, as if not to scare me to death. You’ve got to be shitting me.
“What?”
“Did you suddenly acquire a hearing problem,” Matt smarts, sliding the keys in my direction. They’re not familiar. Turning them over in my hand, I shrug, “I don’t know what these are for.”
“Well, it’s all here in this giant ass pack of papers,” he points to the stack.
“Shit.”
~~~~~
The stack of paper and ring of keys have led me to the law offices of Steve Jones, Lawyer. Sitting at a large conference table, I watch a stern looking man shuffle papers and stack documents. His office is unnaturally warm. The air is stale and the whirl of a fan is making me dizzy.
Clearing his throat, Steve Jones nods once, ready for business. “You’re here today per the instructions left by Mr. Marcello in the event of his death. I was instructed to contact you to discuss his will and assets.”
“His will? We weren’t married or anything.” Steve Jones looks at me like I’m utterly stupid. Shrinking back in my seat, I uncross and cross my legs uncomfortably.
“Anyone can be listed as a benefactor in a will.” Oh. Well, isn’t he just Mr. Ivy League education. “In any case, you were listed as soul inheritor.” Oh my God. Dante, what the fuck did you do? His homes, cars, and finances were all left to me. Everything. The keys to Dante’s entire world now belong to me.
I stare speechless at the lawyer. I’m almost certain my mouth is hanging open, but I’m too numb to tell. I think I’ve gone into shock. “You are to keep his Aston Martin and home in New York. You’re instructed to keep them. The others you may do with what you wish.” Leave it to Dante to be a bossy fuck in death.
“Okay.” I nod lamely. What the hell am I going to do with all of Dante’s stuff?
“Now, let’s move on to the business side of things.”
Twenty Two
Miss Home
London
Sitting at the kitchen table, I wait for Matt to come home. Staring at the wall, I do nothing but think. I sent Matt a nine-one-one text as soon as my fingers were able to function properly.
Dante left me everything. I get why, but I also don’t. He’s such a confusing man and he’s only getting more baffling, and he’s not even here anymore.
“London!” Matt bursts through the door, huffing and puffing. “What the hell is wrong?”
“Dante gave me my business back,” I mutter tonelessly, still unsure what to think, “and everything else he owned.”
“What?” He sputters stupidly, dropping his shopping bags on the floor by his feet.
“He sold half the business, brought on new contracts, downsized, re-fucking-arranged, and left it all to me.”
Everything is legitimate. I’m now the proud owner of everything I ever wanted. Every contract and contact is authentic. It’s all real. No ties to organized crime or my father, and it all has my name on it. Dante erased the bad from my life and replaced it with what I always wanted. The only thing that is missing though, is him.
“Wow,” Matt breathes, sitting down next to me. “What were the keys for?”
“His homes and cars.”
“Why would he do this?” Because he’s Dante, and he’s fucking crazy.
“Because he loved me.”
~~~~~
I hadn’t planned to come back here. In fact, I was going to avoid this street at all costs. I definitely wasn’t going to visit his building, let alone go inside, but I can’t help myself. I’m feeling vulnerable. I want to be near Dante, and his condo is the closest I’m going to get. A bland substitute, but I need it right now. I need to feel him if only for a moment.
Matt told me to sell, get rid of everything Dante. He called it healing. I call it impossible. There is no erasing Dante. He’s not a man someone would
forget. Once he’s been in your life, he’ll haunt you until your final days. There is no just getting rid of Dante.
Standing in the elevator, I reminisce about nights spent with him in his bed, loving him. Hours in his bath, nights on his couch watching movies, sex in his kitchen. All the fighting, arguing, loving and hating, was all spent here in this place. It all seems so long ago and I wish desperately that I could go back and live that time in my life over again. I’d do anything for it.
Shoving the key into the lock, I pop the door open and step inside. Swallowing down my emotions, I walk into the foyer. Everything looks exactly the same. I guess I had expected it to be different, less like Dante, but it’s still all him.
Breathing in deeply, I marvel in the fact that it still smells faintly like Dante in here. It’s calming and it’s comforting.
Walking in, I run my hand over the entry table. I touch the curtains covering the windows. I fluff the pillows on the couch. Touching the kitchen counter, I stare at the fridge. I just spend time in his space. It feels good to be here.
Nothing has been touched. It’s cold and empty in here without Dante’s overwhelming personality. I can feel the absence of his powerful love and it hurts. He’s the only thing I want to touch, but I can’t.
I make my way down the hall, past his office and spare room. I walk to the very end of the hall and stand in front of his bedroom door, picturing him in my head. Those deep, dark eyes that could see into my soul, smirking lips that could bring me to my knees, and overpowering presence. I miss it all. I miss everything about him.
Breathing in and out, I carefully push the door open and my world stops spinning with what awaits me on the other side. What I find has me swaying on my feet as my stomach bottoms out. Finding the wall for support, I lean against it.
Wearing a white button down and black trousers, there he stands in front of the large picture windows, overlooking the city. Turning to me, he smiles, his hands shoved in his pockets. A painful sob escapes my lips. “Oh my God.”
Tilting his head, he takes me in, staring straight into my soul. This cannot be happening.
“You – you can’t do this to me.” My voice cracks and the tears fall hard and fast, running down my cheeks and landing on my chest. My body is shaking uncontrollably. It’s hard to stay upright and I feel sick. So fucking sick.
“What,” I sob, “How? How is this happening?” I lose control of my legs, my knees buckling under the immense pressure of my heavy heart. Sliding down the wall, I fall to my ass and curl into my legs trying desperately to block out the pain.
“You can’t be here.” I begin to say to myself repeatedly, rocking back and forth.
“Baby.” His voice is life a knife to the heart.
I can’t seem to understand it, even though Dante is standing in front of me. He was here and then he was gone, and now he’s back and I’m so fucking confused. The sight of him is something I can’t digest. All working parts, flesh and blood, he’s standing in front of me.
“You were dead. I watched you die.” Just saying it leaves me winded and sick to my stomach. Images flash in my head; horrible, unstoppable images. “You left me. You fucking left me.” I pound on the wall.
“I told you I’d never really leave you, London,” Dante whispers as his painful black eyes watch me. It’s hurting him to stay away from me and it hurts me to keep him away, but I’m not sure I could handle his touch right now.
I was starting to get back to me. I was starting to find peace in my life. Days were becoming easier and my nights were becoming shorter. I could sleep, I could smile, I could laugh, and now it’s all been smashed to a bunch of tiny uncertain pieces all over again.
“There was no sunshine for a long time. Every day, it was rain and it was gray skies for me. Finally things were getting sunny again.” Why? Why would he do this to me? “And now you’re back.”
Swallowing roughly, he takes a tentative step towards me. When I don’t argue or protest, he takes another. Careful not to scare me, he kneels in front of me. “I had to.”
“You had to pretend to die? You had to ruin me? You had to break my heart again?” My brain just can’t process this. “You had to leave me completely lost and broken?” I don’t understand him at all.
“I was protecting you. I had to save you.”
“Save me?” I scream at him. “From what? Save me from you?” I thought we had moved past that. I thought we were working on us.
“For me, your father, that business. I saw what it was all doing to you. If your father didn’t kill you, then that life would’ve killed you, just like it did my mother, and I wasn’t helping, London. I had to leave you to fix it.”
Grabbing my arm, he tugs me across the floor to him and into his chest. “But I’m back. I’m not going anywhere. Never again.”
“I don’t believe you,” I cry into his chest. Touching his body, I feel like I’m finally home. I can finally breathe.
“I know, but you will.”
~~~~~
I sit for hours in Dante’s arm as he whispers words of comfort into my ear. Dante holds me, rocking me. “I’m sorry … so sorry.” He says over and over, like a prayer. “He would have killed you and I wouldn’t have lived through that.”
“I saw you die.”
“Cam pulled me out the other side.”
“They shot the car,” I cry, my voice hiccupping with pain. It was so bad and I watched it. There is no way.
“They missed.”
“I – I just don’t understand.” I crawl further into his arms, wrapping my legs and arms around him, hanging on for dear life in fear he might just disappear before my eyes.
“London, I wanted you to have the life you wanted you deserved and the only way to do that was to disappear for a while. You would have never left me alone long enough to find your father and kill him. He was watching me, waiting, so I let him think he won. He got careless and I struck. I had to keep you safe.”
“You killed my father?”
“I did, and I won’t apologize for it.”
“What happens now?” I ask him. Laying my ear against this chest, I listen to the strong and steady beat of his heart. I feel his warm skin under my fingertips and I listen to the rumbled words in his chest. Running his hands through my hair, he buries his face in my neck and kisses my skin.
“We live happily ever after, together and forever because I will never leave you again.”
“You have to mean that, Dante. I can’t do this anymore. It’s either together or I go forever. No more lies. You have to promise me this, and you have to truly mean it this time.”
“On my goddamn life, my beautiful little monster.”
Epilogue
London
He’s pacing, twisting his watch, and he’s twitching. Grumbling to himself, Dante marches back and forth in front of the floor to ceiling windows that surround the boardroom. Every now and then, he looks up at me with those impatient black eyes and I swear one twitches when I give him the one more minute signal.
Manically winding that watch around his wrist and marching back and forth, he’s rubbing his skin raw and wearing a hole in the floor. The poor guy is going to give himself a stroke if he doesn’t learn some patience.
Wearing a charcoal gray suit, hair on end, and an impatient scowl, he’s the man I’ve loved since the moment I laid eyes on him three years ago. He’s everything and so much more.
Domineering, impatient, demanding, impossible, and all of those twelve crazy personalities are still just as intense as ever. A ring on my finger and a legal contract binding me to him for life does nothing to help ease his obsessive tendencies. He’s still just as crazy as he always was.
Dante still follows me, still watches me, and still treats me like I’m made of glass, except for when we have sex. I’m surprised that neither one of us have ever come out with broken bones, but bruising is a given. I don’t agree with all of his reckless Dante-ness, but I’ve learned to accept him for w
ho and what he is. He’s crazy, and there is no changing that.
I told him eight times this morning that my meeting might run long, but of course, he insisted he wait here for me anyways and as usual, it’s Dante’s way or no way at all.
I have my business back. I pride myself on the fact that it is mine and it is legitimate. I’ve built it up into a reputable company. I work every day to expand and perfect it. It’s my baby.
Dante still does what Dante does. He lies, he cheats, and he steals, just not from me. I stay out of his business life. He still runs an empire and he’s still the master of his universe, the only difference now is it stays at his office and away from our personal life.
It seems that this past year, he’s dabbled less and less in the underbelly of the business world. Maybe a little bit of me is rubbing off on him.
Reading over a proposal, the door opening catches my attention. Looking up, Dante walks in, clearly fed up with his wait. Here we go.
“I’m tired of waiting on my wife. She told me five. It’s now fuck o’clock and I’m tired of waiting.” Fuck o’clock, huh? He’s so fucking insane is ridiculous.
“Dante, you’re being …” Well, he’s being Dante. Lifting a dark brow, he stares me down, waiting for my challenge.
We got married six months ago. After years of insisting we marry, I gave in. I think it makes him feel better knowing I legally can’t run off. Not that I would. After getting Dante back from the dead, I’m the one with separation issues. I can’t go without him for more than a day or two. He is my drug of choice.
“If you’re not about to say, ‘I’m coming right now,’ then I’m not interested in what you have to say.” He’s still such a liar. He’s interested, he’s just pretending not be because he’s not currently getting his way. I remind myself that I love him, even when he’s being a giant pain in my ass.
“Of course you’re not.”
“You said five, and I think you were lying to me. Were you lying, my little monster?” Lie to him? I would never …
It took me a while to get here. Accepting Dante for who he is took time. For a few months after he came back to me, I would wake up, franticly searching for him. For weeks, I wouldn’t leave his side, constantly worried. It took me a year of his constant reassurances and his overwhelming, suffocating love for me to finally trust he was back for good.
