by L. D. Davis
“Ta-da!”
Cora’s and Marco’s voices pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked up as they came out of the kitchen. Marco carried most of the weight of the large serving dish, but it was Cora’s mastermind, so he was careful to make sure it was she who presented the spaghetti and meatballs to the table. Everyone applauded and cheered as the plate was set down.
“That’s not all!” Cora cried and dashed back into the kitchen.
“Chef Cora is not quite finished yet,” Marco said with a chuckle and followed her.
A moment later, they returned with two baskets of bread and a large bowl of salad, and there was more applause and cheers. Just like on the cooking shows, Cora told us what she made as she played with a red curl that strayed from her little chef’s hat.
“Today I made for you meatballs that have grounded beef, grounded pork, and uh…some other stuff in it like oregano and a little, little bit of mint. And I dipped the meatballs in breadcrumbs and I fried them—Marco helped—and so now they have a nice crust. The sauce is made from tomatoes, onions, and garlic, and it’s a little creamy because that’s the way I wanted it. The spaghetti just came out of a box, though, because I don’t know how to do that yet, but I used the grater thing to cut up the cheese by myself. And the bread came from the store, but I put it in the oven with some garlic and butter and you have salad with lettuce, spinach—and yes, Gavi, you have to eat the spinach! And tomatoes and onions, and I made salad dressing with oil and uh…vinegar and some orange juice and sugar and stuff and that’s all.”
“Wow, great job, Cores,” I said as we all clapped again. “It all looks delicious.”
I held out my arms for her, and she came to me and allowed me to hug her for a moment before she found her seat down the table between Paris and my mom. Marco came to sit close to me, with Mandy between us.
“It really is delicious,” he confessed as he poured wine in his glass and topped mine off. “And all of it was her idea.”
Even though I didn’t think anyone could mess up spaghetti and meatballs, I was still shocked by how good it was, and I couldn’t believe that someone so little had done it. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, too—Cora most of all, her little face covered in sauce.
There were pockets of companionable conversation all around the table as we enjoyed the meal, leaving Marco and I with a semblance of semi-privacy when he directed his attention solely on me.
“Remember when you promised to go away with me for a weekend?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“How would you feel about coming to stay with me in New York in a couple weeks?”
We had first discussed it a few weeks ago. I had promised him, but I’d done so right after one or two…or three passionate hours between the sheets. I would have agreed to anything during those blissful and euphoric minutes of afterglow. It hadn’t come up again since then, and I’d hoped he’d forgotten. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go away with him, but I had never been more than an hour away from my kids since their father died, and he wanted me to travel over five-hundred miles away from them.
He sensed the reason for my hesitation.
“If you like, and if Maureen is available that weekend, we all can travel to the cabin. Maureen and your mom can stay there while I sweep you away to Manhattan. Then you won’t be too far away from your family. We will be close enough to get there quickly if there is an emergency.”
I was still hesitant. “That sounds expensive just for a weekend.”
Marco seemed slightly exasperated, as he usually did whenever I mentioned the cost of things. “Tesoro, don’t concern yourself about the money. I have the money. I have a lot of money, and since I pay my taxes and stay out of trouble, I am not at risk of losing much of it. I can afford the expense. Trust me.”
I glanced around the table to make sure no one overheard us. Mandy was the only one who seemed to be paying attention, and she really didn’t understand what we were talking about. It didn’t stop her from trying to participate in the conversation, asking questions and squishing her face up in laughter at whatever she found so funny.
“So, what do you think?” Marco questioned after my youngest spawn became absorbed in something else.
I bit my bottom lip, and after another moment of consideration, I finally nodded. I had no good reason to say no. “Okay. What will we be doing in New York? Will we actually leave your apartment, or is this all a ploy to keep me in bed for two whole days?”
“As much as I would love to do that, I do have an ulterior motive for your visit.”
“You mean it isn’t all about me? How dare you not yield to my narcissism. Do tell. What is this ulterior motive you speak of?”
“How do you feel about parties?”
“The last party I went to was in college. You know what I did in college.”
“Yes, yes. You smoked weed and kissed a lot of stupid boys. It’s not that kind of party.”
I snapped my fingers. “Damn. You mean I can’t relive my glory days? What kind of party is it then?”
“It’s just a dinner party at a friend’s house.”
It sounded innocuous enough, although the idea of meeting new people, especially the kind of people who ran in the same kind of circles Marco and Kyle did, gave me a twinge of unease.
“Do I have to dress up for this shindig?”
He hesitated, which didn’t bode well. “Yes. Have you ever worn a ballgown?”
I snorted. “Nobody was going anyplace that required a ballgown where I grew up.”
“It’s not New York, but I am sure we can find a dress here in Columbus. Of course, I will pay for it and whatever else you need.”
“You’re serious.” I was shocked that he was serious. I mean, really…seriously? Dinner was one thing, but dinners with ballgowns sounded way out of my league.
Marco sounded resigned. “Yes, I am serious.”
“But…I mean…don’t you have a date, or something?”
Amusement mingled with a little bit of irritation as he stared at me. “Yes. You. My girlfriend.”
I threw a hand up and searched for words. “But…me. In a ballgown.”
“Yes, you in a ballgown. Me in a tux. We will make a striking pair.”
What kind of person threw dinner parties that required me to dress up like Cinderella on her way to the ball after her fairy godmother got ahold of her? The rich kind, I was willing to bet.
“Marco, do you remember my sister’s intro into the upper echelon?”
He snickered. “Yeah, I do.”
Lily had attended a fancy dinner party in the art museum earlier in the year. She’d described many of the guests as snooty and vapid, but some of those same vapid people had invited her to more parties. She’d apparently made an impression, even though she hadn’t fit in. She’d had some practice, though, living with Kyle Sterling, and unlike me, my sister was highly adaptable and had always been able to slide her way into any social situation.
“I won’t be like her. I’m…I’m not like her. I’m…I…can’t pull that off. I don’t have her…” I waved a hand around. “Her…stuff. I don’t have that. Like, at all. I’m still trying to figure out what a forty-year-old wealthy man with the body of a Roman god could possibly want from a poor, trashy girl like me. Now you’re asking me to walk into a room full of people like you.”
He spoke softly, trying to calm me. “Stop trying to figure it out. I want you for exactly who you are, and you are not trashy. You are not less than anyone who will be there. You are just as good as, if not better than, any one of us. Please, beautiful. I want you by my side.”
“But…” I wanted to say no. I just knew it wasn’t a good idea, but I felt like I owed it to him. “Okay,” I finally said with a heavy sigh. “Okay.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I woke up Saturday morning when I felt large hands carefully part my thighs. I blinked sleepily at the clock on the bedside table. It was only six thirty in the morning. With the kid
s gone for the weekend, I had no reason to get up before seven, seven thirty if I were being lazy, but the man who just ran a finger down my spine and made me shiver had different plans.
The nudge to my hip was demanding. “Roll over, Tesoro. I want to see your face.”
“You weren’t so worried about seeing my face last night,” I commented but did as he asked.
He sat on his haunches between my legs as he rolled on a hot pink condom. “I fucked you last night. I don’t need to see your face to fuck you. I need to see your face when I make love to you.”
Marco didn’t curse much, at least not in English. The F word on his lips always turned me on, literally made my toes curl.
“I believe I fucked you at some point last night, Mangini. Don’t forget about that.”
He lay over me, ducked his head to kiss one breast, then my collar bone, my neck, and finally my lips. “I will never forget that,” he whispered and then glided inside me.
My body arched in reaction to his girth and length, and his kiss swallowed my soft cry. He moved achingly slow, taking his time, going easy on my slightly sore body. My fingers trailed over his skin, his thick biceps, the taut muscles in his back, through the silkiness of his dark hair. Marco lightly caressed my hip, skimmed my thigh, trailed up my side, and traced a circle around my nipple without touching it. He touched my face as we kissed, dragged a finger along my jawline, stroked my hair.
When we were together like this, everything else went away. My worries, my pain—physical and emotional. It felt like we were frozen in a moment of time, like the earth stopped, and the second, minute, or hour that we were in stretched on and on. There was only the present—no past, no future. That one long heartbeat, that one long breath. I was shocked every time when I realized time had indeed gone by while we were locked together.
He murmured words against my lips now, words in his language that I didn’t know, but somehow understood.
“Sono troppo innamorato di te. Ti terrò per sempre.”
I didn’t know the translation, but I felt it. Felt those wild flutters in my stomach, the swelling of my heart, and the need to keep my eyes closed so that I wouldn’t wake up from this dream, because it couldn’t be real. He couldn’t really feel that way about me. He couldn’t really mean those words of love.
Oh, hell. He was so deep. So hard and so deep. Every thrust sent me spiraling into space, and as his speed increased, my orgasm was that much closer.
“Are you going to come on my cock?” Marco growled. “Are you going to come on my cock?”
I held on to him tightly, wrapped my arms around him to hold him close. “Yes. Oh, my…oh yes, Marco.”
“Do it,” he demanded as he wrapped his arms around me. Our bodies slid and slapped together. “Do it, baby. Come on. Do it.”
Faster. Harder. Deeper. I was losing my fucking mind.
Suddenly, my whole body stiffened. My fingers dug into his back as he covered my mouth with his and muffled my cries of release. My whole body trembled, my thighs tried to close around him, and for a few seconds, I literally saw a kaleidoscope of colors behind my sealed eyes.
I knew he was close. I could tell by his slipping control.
“Pull out before you finish,” I managed to gasp out.
He didn’t stop moving but started to object.
“Just do it,” I demanded before I pulled his head back down for another deep kiss.
I was building toward another orgasm within seconds. Suddenly, without taking his mouth from mine, Marco pulled out of me. I reached between us and awkwardly, but quickly, rolled the condom off and wrapped my hand around his dick. He shuddered violently and moaned so deeply it vibrated through me. Then it happened. The explosion of warm liquid on my belly and hand. The noises that came from him would be burned into my brain forever. It was as if I had reached inside him and ripped away part of his soul. His body shook, his hips jerked, making his cock slide through my hand as he continued to come.
When at last he had nothing more to give, I stopped jerking him, and just gently stroked. Marco held himself up on one arm and gazed down between us, his chest still heaving. When he looked back up at me, there was amusement dancing in his blue eyes.
“I think you better let go or I may overload and short circuit.”
Reluctantly, I released him. His sigh was equal parts relief and regret.
We only stayed in bed for a few minutes more before he dragged me across the hall for a shower. We didn’t have to worry about putting any clothes on since my mom had spent the night at Wes’s house. She’d been spending a lot of time there, though she only spent the night when his kids were with their mother.
“I got in touch with a friend last night,” Marco said as he scrubbed my hair. “She was able to get us an appointment with a boutique this morning.”
I raised a brow, though he couldn’t see it since he was standing behind me. “We need an appointment to look at clothes?”
“Sometimes, yes. We will get a quick breakfast first, but no pancakes and French toast. I don’t want you lazy and sleepy and cranky.”
“You mean you don’t want me fat, lazy, sleepy, and cranky.”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind you being fat at all. In fact, I plan to fatten you up this winter, but at least for today, we can do without the lazy, sleepy, and cranky.”
I didn’t know how I felt about what he’d just said. Not the cranky thing, because I’d be a boldface liar if I said I wasn’t cranky when I was sleepy, but the fattening me up part. He had told me before he wanted me just the way I was, yet he wanted me to put on weight. I knew I was thin, thinner than I should be, but maybe I was just too skinny for him. In comparison to my sister, who had always been a full-figured beauty, I was downright sickly in appearance. Maybe it meant nothing, though. Maybe I was overanalyzing and just needed to enjoy the pampering I was getting.
We were out the door less than an hour later. Breakfast was at a café I’d never been to, because it had always seemed too expensive, and it was. My mouth had dropped a little when I saw the cost of some fruit, a couple bagels, and two coffees, but my boyfriend didn’t bat an eye, so I said nothing.
The boutique, Veladona, was in the Short North Arts District of the city. It was an area I had strolled through with my friends and sometimes my sister as a teenager. It had changed some over the years, had become trendier. I hadn’t been through there in a few years. My shopping trips were limited to Walmart, Target, and grocery stores.
We had to ring a bell and speak to someone through a box before we were granted entry into the boutique. I thought that only happened at super fancy places in L.A. and Manhattan, not in Columbus, Ohio. A woman met us as we entered. She had honey-blond hair, big dark-blue eyes, and wore a pair of tight black pants, a loose-fitting black blouse that fell off one shoulder, and very tall heels. Even back when I could wear shoes like that, they were never that tall. She was pretty, only a few years older than me.
“Welcome, Mr. Mangini.” She shook Marco’s hand with both of hers before meeting him halfway with those fake cheek kisses. “I am Veladona.”
Oh, so she was the Veladona. What kind of name was Veladona anyway?
“Thank you so much for taking us last minute.” Marco’s charm was turned all the way up as he grinned at the woman.
She waved a hand dismissively, gold and jewels sparking. “No need to thank me. I am always glad to help a friend of a friend in need.” Her eyes swung to me and widened. “This must be your friend who needs the dress.”
Her handshake was firmer than I’d expected as I introduced myself. “Lydia, Mr. Mangini’s girlfriend.” I really felt the need to throw that out there, which made me want to slap myself.
“Nice to meet you, darling. Okay, let’s see.” She took a few steps back and openly assessed me. Her gaze started with my twenty-dollar ankle boots, moved up my ten-dollar black leggings, over the gray sweater I’d had since college, and even over my face and hair.
“
Just a gown, Mr. Mangini?” she questioned without taking her eyes off me. “Or a full wardrobe as well?”
My face reddened. I wanted to tell her to take her eighty-dollar nail job and two-hundred-dollar dye job and go fuck herself, but I was shocked into silence when Marco answered without even a beat of hesitation.
“Full wardrobe.”
I practically saw the dollar signs spinning in Veladona’s bright eyes. “We can certainly offer several options today, but in a few weeks we will unveil the new trends for the upcoming season. As one of our valued, exclusive customers, you can preview today and preorder the whole lineup.”
Marco nodded approvingly. “That is acceptable.”
It wasn’t acceptable to me. I felt inadequate.
Veladona tried to sweep me away, but I resisted. “Marco, we didn’t agree on a whole wardrobe.”
Confusion made his eyebrows pull together, but then his face smoothed out and he gave me a conciliatory smile. “You are correct. We did not discuss it. We can talk about it later, but I think it will be wise to get a few things for the trip. Just a few things, Tesoro.”
After a moment, I nodded my agreement, but I felt like nothing had actually been settled.
Within minutes, Veladona and two of her cronies had stripped me down to my bra and panties, assaulted me with measuring tape, and made comments amongst themselves as if I couldn’t hear them.
“Very thin. Only a B-cup—a small B. Yes, I agree. Something to either hide or show off the scarring on her leg—wait, is one leg smaller than the other? Definitely need to elongate her neck. It’s rather short. No, not much in the back end, either. Too pale. Have to do something to hide that limp.”
Under normal circumstances, my claws, as Marco liked to say, would have come out, but I had suddenly reverted to the person I’d been throughout most of my marriage. Quietly accepted the injustices done to me, with rage and self-condemnation warring each other inside.
