The Girl I Didn't Kill For (Jessie & Nick Book 2)

by Annabelle Costa

  I used to get nervous. A few times in the beginning, I actually went to the bathroom and threw up prior to my performance. I didn’t tell anyone about it though, because, I mean, how embarrassing is that? Here I am, about to go onstage in a nightclub in a sexy dress and strut my stuff, and I’m dry heaving in the ladies’ room.

  But now? I’m totally cool. My palms aren’t even sweaty.

  Alice is doing her makeup next to me. Because the name of the club is Cleopatra’s, she’s recently decided to give her eyes a bit of an Egyptian look. She doesn’t need the gimmick because she’s absolutely beautiful even with no makeup, but you can’t tell that to Alice. Her cosmetics are an extension of herself. I’ve become friendly with Alice in the last nine months and she’s started doing my makeup too—she’s a genius with an eyelash curler.

  “Is Seth here tonight?” Alice asks me.

  I shake my head no. “I think he’s sick of me performing the same songs over and over.”

  For a while, Seth was coming to my performances frequently, but I can’t blame him for not wanting to watch me rotate through the same twenty or so numbers again and again. The only thing I really need him to show up for is the wedding ceremony booked for three months from now, in a small church in front of our close friends and family. That’s all that matters.

  “Funny how Nick never seems to get sick of it,” Alice muses.

  I give her a sharp look, although she’s right. Nick Moretti has been present for every single one of my performances without exception. And if Seth isn’t here, I usually join him for a drink afterwards and then he drives me home. If I try to protest I can make it home myself, he says, “It’s not safe for a lady to be wandering around your shitty neighborhood at night. I’m driving you.” It reminds me of when we were kids and he used to walk me home every day.

  “Nick likes my singing,” I say simply.

  Alice gives me a sly smile. “That’s not all he likes.”

  Alice has confided in me that between Tony and Nick Moretti, the two brothers have hooked up with every single girl who works at Cleopatra’s, with a small degree of overlap. I’ve noticed Tony sniffing around Alice all the time, and I asked her about it once.

  “I’m always up to have some fun with Tony,” she told me. “But to be honest, if I had my choice, I’d pick Nick. He’s crazy sexy, even if he can’t walk. Plus Nina who works on Fridays told me he gave her the best orgasm she’d ever had in her whole life.”

  I had to bite my tongue from telling Alice that Nick gave me the first orgasm I’d ever had in my whole life. And yes, to this day, I still count it as the best. But considering he did it while I was lying on a desk and he was standing up, nearly climbing on top of me, I’d imagine he’d have to do things differently now. Either way, it’s clear he still has skills.

  Skills I will never experience again.

  “Alice,” I say patiently, “I’m engaged.”

  She shrugs. “So? Nick doesn’t mind.”

  I just shake my head. Alice always seems to be dating four or five men at once—she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of fidelity. I don’t know how she even manages to keep all their names straight.

  “I just find it interesting,” she says, “that Nick broke up with his girlfriend right around when you started here and he hasn’t been dating anyone else regularly since then.”

  She’s right. And it’s a fact that hasn’t escaped me.

  I push thoughts of Nick Moretti out of my head as I navigate to the stage in my too-high heels. I wouldn’t say that I’m the star headliner at Cleopatra’s, but there are plenty of customers who love me. I don’t even get self-conscious anymore about the fact that I’m multiple dress sizes larger than Alice. (To be fair, she’s a zero.) There are men out there who like that I’ve got curves and natural tits. And I’ve gotten good at giving my usually clear singing voice a sexy edge.

  The new song I’ve added to my repertoire for tonight is Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” I sang it for Nick last week and he really liked it. It’s a sweet song that can be sexed up a little.

  The tempo of my version is slower than the original. I get close to the microphone, but not so close that it smears my dark red lipstick that Alice carefully applied. I know everyone in the room has their eyes on me, which used to scare the hell out of me, but now I love it. This gig is the best thing in my life right now—I love getting up here and singing twice a week. I didn’t know how much I missed singing until this opportunity came along.

  Of course, there’s no chance of keeping thoughts of Nick Moretti out of my head when the first thing I see when I scan the audience is him sitting at his usual table, his dark eyes watching me intently. He’s always there. Always.

  For I can’t help

  Falling in love with you

  It’s funny how when you’re singing a song over and over, you stop listening to the words—it becomes rote. But now that I’m performing it onstage and trying to dredge up emotion behind the words, I realize how ironic it is I’m singing this to Nick. But then again, I think that about every song I sing.

  I can’t help falling in love with you…

  Nick

  Jessie is about to go onstage in five minutes and my phone is buzzing. It’s Chrissy. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with her—she knows I don’t like to be disturbed when Jessie is singing.

  Which means it’s probably important.

  I pick up the phone and bark into it: “What?”

  “Good evening to you too, boss,” Chrissy says cheerfully. “A pleasure, as always.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down enough that I won’t be yelling at her. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

  She hesitates. Shit. Did Pop have another heart attack? No, she wouldn’t have made her smartass comments if he did.

  “I got a message from John Lombardi,” Chrissy says. “He urgently wants to set up a meeting with you and Tony.”

  Fucking John Lombardi. I let him have that property in Jersey, but he’s made a play for a couple of other places since then. I let him have them, because it wasn’t worth the fight. But now I feel uneasy. Why does this asshole want a meeting?

  “With me and Tony?” I repeat.

  That doesn’t sound right either. People always deal with just me.

  “He was very specific,” Chrissy says.

  My gut is telling me something’s not right here. But at the same time, I’m curious. Maybe this will give me some information about Lombardi’s intentions. And worst comes to worst, Tony will have my back.

  “Set it up,” I tell her. “But I want it on my turf. He comes to me. Got it?”

  “Okay, boss,” she agrees. “Consider it done.”

  I put down the phone but still feel unsettled. In the last nine months, since I lost the Jersey deal, I’ve done a lot of checking up on John Lombardi. He’s like me in a lot of ways—the son of Italian-Americans who took over the family business when his father died ten years earlier. But while we got some ties in the underworld, Lombardi is right in the middle of it. He knows everyone, and everyone owes him. He’s been arrested a bunch of times for drug trafficking, but none of the charges stuck, partly because the witnesses had a way of disappearing.

  My father was right—Lombardi is not a guy to mess around with. No fucking way I’m giving him whatever he wants, but at the same time, I have to be very careful how I handle this meeting. Tony being there is a wild card, because even though he looks like a tough guy, he can be an idiot. The last thing I want is for him to fly off the handle and antagonize Lombardi—that’s a great way to get yourself killed.

  Luckily, when Jessie comes onstage, I forget all about Lombardi.

  I’ve been watching her sing here for the last nine months, and I’ll never get sick of it. Never. She’s always got a new song, but even if she sang the same songs every time, I’d still watch her. I can’t stop staring at her in that clingy blue dress, the lights bouncing off her g
olden hair so that it almost glows. I know it’s dumb, but I always feel like she’s singing to me.

  “I can’t help,” she breathes into the microphone, “falling in love with you…”

  Every song she sings gets me right in the gut.

  Jessie is the one to blame for my love life, or lack thereof. Since Natalie, there’s been no one. Okay, I had a few hookups here and there—all the waitresses at Cleopatra’s and my other club are usually willing, and a guy’s got needs. But I don’t like one-night stands. The girls don’t know what I like or the extent of my disability, and it’s an awkward conversation to explain I can’t always get it up. It keeps me going home alone most nights.

  Jessie always ends each set with “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” It’s a girly song, but she sings it real good. I must have heard it a couple hundred times now, and I never get sick of hearing her belt it out.

  And then comes the best part of the night: when she joins me at my table for a drink.

  We have fun together—me and Jessie. We usually stick with one drink because she’s going home to her fiancé and I need to monitor my alcohol intake now that I don’t have that catheter in me anymore, but that doesn’t mean we don’t stick around talking for sometimes an hour or longer. I don’t even know what the hell we talk about sometimes, but whenever I see her, I feel like I got a lot to say. Although I’d be happy to spend an hour staring into her eyes without saying a word.

  One thing we never talk about though is business. She tells me about her job, although it’s obvious she finds it boring as shit, but I never talk about my work. If I do talk about it, I tell her about the mundane details that make me seem as little like a gangster as possible. She’s still freaked out about finding me with that gun, but I think she’s finally realizing the rumors are mostly untrue.

  Mostly.

  She plops down into the seat next to me now, her face flushed and happy. Her hair is loose and glowing in the overhead lights of the club. I know she loves singing up there more than anything. I like that I was able to give that to her.

  “What did you think of the new song?” she asks me.

  I swish the remains of my beer around in the glass. “Not bad. I might have to hire you.”

  “Don’t be a smart ass,” she says. “You know, I could probably parlay this job into a spot anywhere in the city.”

  She probably could. The name Cleopatra’s Lounge goes a long way.

  “You know what you should do?” I say. “You should try out for American Idol. Become a pop star.”

  Jessie smacks me on the arm. “I’m too old for that show, you idiot.”

  “Really?”

  She rolls her eyes. “You’ve got to be under thirty.”

  “You’re over thirty?” I blink at her in surprise, even though she’s obviously the same age I am—thirty-two. There are some days when I look at her and still see the same fourteen-year-old girl that I decided I wanted to marry when we were in ninth grade. She looks different now, but still the same. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it also does.

  “You’re going to be so sorry when I’m singing at Singapore instead of here,” she says.

  I laugh. The Singapore Club is a club downtown that’s gotten almost as popular as Cleopatra’s, but we still got the edge. Anyway, I know Jessie would never defect. She loves it here. And I make sure Alex pays our girls better than the ones at the other clubs.

  I signal at the waitress, who immediately snaps to attention, and I order Jessie her usual. She loves the mojitos here—best in town. And the fact that she’s sitting with me means she’ll get her drink fast, in spite of the crowd tonight.

  “Seriously though,” I say to Jessie. “You were great tonight.”

  Her skin turns pink with the compliment. “Well, you think so.”

  “I happen to have pretty good judgment.”

  She smiles at me. I get so turned on just from that smile. But even though I spend hours with her every week, I’m no closer to winning her back than I was nine months ago. Worse—she’s going to get fucking married in three months. Three goddamn months.

  What the hell am I going to do?

  Chapter 18

  Jessie

  Nick is taking me out to lunch today.

  It’s entirely innocent. Nick hasn’t made any advances since he kissed me nine months ago, and he knows our wedding date is set. At this point, he recognizes the two of us are friends and that’s all that we’ll ever be.

  And sometimes that thought really depresses me.

  Nick picked me up at my building in his BMW at a quarter to noon and now he’s driving me to a restaurant, but he won’t reveal where. Traffic is rough at this hour, but he’s completely unfazed, weaving in and out of the crowded lanes without breaking a sweat. Two minutes ago, a taxi cut us off to run a red light, and Nick didn’t even give the guy the finger (although he did honk aggressively). He’s really good at navigating midtown traffic, especially considering he has to use his hands to both steer and control the gas pedal.

  “Am I dressed okay for wherever we’re going?” I ask him, brushing some lint off my black skirt. The truth is I usually wear slacks to work, but on days when I’m going out to eat with Nick, I wear a skirt. That’s a tidbit I wouldn’t share with my fiancé, even though there’s nothing behind it. Really, it’s just that Nick always dresses so well, I feel obligated to keep up. Right now, he’s wearing a dark gray suit that makes him look so freaking handsome, I actually blushed when I first climbed into the car.

  “Absolutely,” he says, without even glancing at my clothes. “You look great.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere good.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?”

  He winks at me. “You’ll know soon enough.”

  We pass Fiftieth Street, heading up Madison Avenue. I can’t imagine why he won’t tell me where we’re going. Usually we just eat at one of his restaurants. It’s making me nervous.

  Just as we get into the sixties, a biker glides into the crosswalk against the light. Luckily, Nick never takes his eyes off the road, so he’s able to brake with his right hand in time to avoid a collision. I wince as I hear screeching wheels behind us and the sound of crunching metal in the lane to our left.

  “Idiot bikers,” Nick mutters under his breath. “Asshole runs right into traffic. Wasn’t even wearing a helmet.”

  The light has turned to red now, and Nick rolls his window down, craning his neck to see the damage to the cars behind him. It looks like a black sedan crashed into a blue Honda. The owners of the two cars have gotten out of their vehicles in the middle of the street and are gesturing angrily and yelling curses at each other. Nick is watching them with more interest than I’d expect, his dark brow furrowed.

  “Jessie,” he says.

  “Yes?”

  “Write something down for me, will ya?”

  I take a scrap of a napkin out of my purse and dig out a pen. “Go ahead.”

  Without explanation, he reads off a bunch of numbers to me. I scribble them down as fast as I can. After the fifth number, I realize he’s giving me a license plate number.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him.

  The light changes to green and Nick zips through, focusing his attention back on the task of driving. “Listen,” he says, “can you call Chrissy and ask her to get Ricardo to run that plate number for me?”

  I shove my pen back in my bag. I’ve had enough of Nick and his secrecy for one day. “No, I won’t. Not unless you tell me why.”

  “Fine. Give me the number and I’ll call myself.”

  “Nick!”

  He takes his eyes off the road for a split second to glance at me. “Okay, okay. I just… I think I saw that black sedan behind me when I picked you up at your office. And the driver looked familiar to me somehow. So… you know.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand. “You think he’s following you?”

  Nick shrugs. “Nah.
Probably not. But… well, just making sure.”

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “And why would someone be following a legit businessman such as yourself?”

  He doesn’t answer that one. It’s just as well because I don’t want him to lie to me—I now know for a fact that whatever Nick does is not entirely legal. Maybe the newspapers were unfairly accusing him of crimes he didn’t commit, but I’ve heard enough stories around Cleopatra’s to feel confident that at the very least, he’s got significant mob ties and his business isn’t entirely above board. Hell, just that guy Cardoza being in his office is enough of an indictment, based on the impressive arrest record I found online for the man.

  The funny thing is, I don’t care as much as I used to. Maybe he does some things that aren’t entirely legal, but after all the time I’ve spent with him, I’ve realized he’s still Nick. He’s still the same guy I’ve known and loved since I was fourteen. Well, the same except about ten times as sexy as he used to be—not sure how that happened.

  I call Chrissy to give her the license plate number, and she promises to call back within the hour. Just as I hang up the phone, Nick is pulling into a handicapped parking spot on Sixty-Fourth Street and Madison. I don’t see any promising restaurants nearby. More worrisome, I can see that we’re right in front of a huge Chanel store.

  “You’re taking me shopping!” I say accusingly.

  “Jessie.” His dark eyes meet mine. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want you on my stage anymore wearing cheap shit from Walmart. Cleopatra’s classy and I want you to be dressed nice.”

  “I don’t buy clothes from Walmart!” I cry.

  He grins at me. “So… Target?”

  I glare at him. I don’t want to admit he’s right.

  “Anyway,” I say, “there’s a wardrobe backstage. There are lots of dresses there.”

  “Right.” He nods. “Except Alex arranges the wardrobe and all he gets is size zero.”

  Again, he’s absolutely right. I’d need two of most of the dresses in that closet to cover me completely.