So instead, I bend down and press my lips against his.
It lasts for just a few seconds before he grabs me and pulls me into his lap so he can kiss me better. God, he kisses so good—I want it to last the rest of our lives. I drop the brown bag of spaghetti and butter on the sidewalk, but I don’t care. I don’t need spaghetti and butter. I need Nick.
Epilogue: One year later
Nick
When I pull into my reserved spot at Cleopatra’s and get out of my car, I see the line in front of the door goes on as far as the eye can see. One good thing that came out of my arrest last year and having my name smeared all over the papers was it ended up being free advertising for my clubs. Everyone wanted to go to the club run by the infamous Nick Moretti. I’m building another two of them now, just to offset the demand.
I wheel myself to the entrance, where a bouncer I don’t recognize is guarding the entrance. A new hire. He’s big and tough-looking, with a gleaming bald skull and biceps like tree trunks that threaten to rip through the fabric of his T-shirt. He frowns at me when I approach him, and I can tell he has no clue who I am. Well, he’s going to know soon enough.
“Good evening.” I look up at him as I straighten my tie. “I don’t think we met before. I’m Nick Moretti.”
He still has a skeptical look on his face, although he shakes my outstretched hand. I don’t know if the name doesn’t ring a bell for him, or if he thinks it can’t be me. He doesn’t believe the guy who owns Cleopatra is some bozo in a wheelchair. I can tell he’s not gonna let me in so fast.
If Tony were here, he’d have gone nuts. He’d have made sure this tough bouncer left in tears. But I don’t do that. And anyway, I’m feeling generous today—it’s been a good day. One of the best days, actually.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the bouncer tells me. “I can’t just—”
Before he can finish, a guy in line shouts out, “Hey, that’s Nick Moretti! He owns the place! You’re not gonna let him in?”
“Mr. Moretti!” screams a girl in the line I’ve never seen before in my life. “If I show you my tits, will you let me in with you?”
I gotta suppress a smile. I’m tempted to do it. Not that I want to see the girl’s tits so bad, but I admire her determination.
“Call Alex,” I tell the flustered bouncer. “He’ll vouch for me.”
A minute later, I can hear Alex yelling at the bouncer through his headset. The bouncer waves me into the club, apologizing profusely. I almost feel bad for the guy—he was just trying to do his job. Then again, you work in a place like Cleopatra’s, you better know who owns the joint.
It doesn’t matter though. As long as I make it in time for Jessie’s performance.
I’ve seen her sing at my clubs hundreds of times now. I haven’t missed even one performance since Seth’s death. I’ll never get sick of watching her sing onstage. Never—not if I live to be a hundred.
I barely have time to order a beer before the music starts up and Jessie takes the stage. She looks as gorgeous as she always does with her long, golden hair loose, those sexy curves, and a green dress with a slit up to the top of her thigh. Tasteful but sexy as hell. I bought that dress for her—it wasn’t cheap but worth every penny.
There’s one thing different about Jessie’s appearance tonight. She’s wearing one item she’s never worn before onstage, and it’s my favorite thing about her:
The gleaming gold wedding band on her left fourth digit.
Jessie and I got married today.
It was a quick engagement. I had some business down at City Hall a few weeks ago, and we met up for lunch. While we were eating, I said to Jessie, “Hey, while we’re here, let’s get a marriage license.”
She raised her light brown eyebrows at me. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“Of course,” I said. “You know I wanted to marry you since we were fourteen.”
“Well, this isn’t a very romantic proposal.”
“If you’re waiting for me to get down on one knee, that’s never gonna happen,” I pointed out. “But I love you more than anything, Jessie. Will you marry me please? Pretty please?”
She grinned at me. “Since you used the magic word…”
After what happened last time, Jessie didn’t want a long engagement, and neither did I. We didn’t want a big wedding either. The last thing I wanted was some gigantic ceremony with half of Sicily flown in to watch me say “I do.” We booked a time at City Hall, bought some wedding bands, and gave our parents a day’s notice to show up. I’d have preferred it was just me and Jessie with maybe Tony as a witness, but my parents never would’ve forgiven me for that one. Ma cried the whole ceremony.
And now this beautiful woman on the stage is my wife. She’s actually my wife.
I can’t believe how goddamn lucky I am.
Jessie spots me in the audience and she winks at me. I love it when she does that. I know she’s singing to the whole club, but a lot of times, I feel like she’s just singing to me. I wonder if she ever feels that way.
Tomorrow we’re flying out for our honeymoon. I decided to take her to Italy after all. She’s dying to see it, and she’s been practicing Italian phrases for the last few days. She demonstrated a few of them for me last night, but it was so sexy that she didn’t get very far before I started spreading her legs.
I’m glad I spent all those years practicing how to pleasure women, because it all paid off with Jessie. I make her scream on a daily basis. Over the last year, I made it my job to learn every single one of her buttons, and nothing gives me more pleasure than sending her over the edge.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There are definitely things Jessie does that give me an enormous amount of pleasure. I might know all her buttons, but she’s also made it her business to know mine. There were other women I dated who were good at pleasing me, but nobody like she does. I swear, sometimes I think she’s gonna make me pass out.
Jessie finishes up her first number to thunderous applause. They’re gonna miss her at Cleopatra’s while we’re in Italy. I’m also anxious about how things will manage on the business end while I’m gone, even though Tony has assured me repeatedly he’s got everything under control.
If only Chrissy were still around…
But she’s not. Chrissy turned state’s evidence against John Lombardi, who is now being prosecuted on charges of racketeering, illegal gambling, loan sharking, sex trafficking, and murder. She’s under police protection right now, because her testimony will be vital in bringing Lombardi down. That means I have no idea where she is, and I’ll probably never see her again.
I don’t hate Chrissy, even though she tried to frame me for murder. She got stuck in a bad situation, and she might’ve ended up saving my life, since what Lombardi really wanted was to have me dead. She was the one who convinced him Tony would never do business with him if he killed me.
And it was Chrissy who brought me and Jessie back together after all those years. I’ll never forget that.
I hope she’s okay.
“Turn around… every now and then I get a little bit lonely…”
I’ve barely finished my beer by the time Jessie gets to her last number. It’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” It’s always “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Sometimes she says she wants to change it up, but I tell her the audience would be furious if she didn’t end with that song.
But that’s a lie. I’m the one who wants to hear it.
Jessie’s lips are nearly touching the microphone: “And I need you now tonight. And I need you more than ever…”
There’s a lot in my life that hasn’t gone exactly as I planned. I lost the ability to walk when I was eighteen, and it was fucking hard on me. It was something I almost wasn’t able to come back from. But I did, and now I’m running Pop’s business and married to the girl of my dreams. Not so bad. Not bad at all.
“I really need you tonight. Forever’s gonna start tonight…”
Now I’m going on
a honeymoon with my new wife. I’m making it my mission to make her scream in every major city in Italy. I reserved all the best hotels in the country, because I’m not sure we’re gonna ever leave them. I can’t wait.
Forever’s gonna start tonight.
Dear readers,
I hope you enjoyed Nick and Jessie’s happily ever after! And now that I’m done writing this story, I can finally get “Total Eclipse of the Heart” out of my head. What a relief!
In the meantime, please drop me a line to tell me if you loved or hated the story! My email address is [email protected]. I always love to hear from readers! If you did enjoy this book and can take the time to leave a brief review on Amazon, I’d be forever grateful.
Check out my website http://annabellecosta.blogspot.com/ for updates on my releases and to subscribe to my mailing list. Also, please follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/annabellecosta5) and/or like me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Annabelle-Costa-894496980704700/).
XXO,
Annabelle
P.S. Keep reading for an excerpt of my book, Crazy in Love….
Acknowledgements
I am so grateful to J. Saman and Molly Mirren, who have been helping me with this book and this series since its inception, and patiently helping me fix all that is wrong with it. And I’m also intensely grateful to all the ladies at PD, who encouraged me and loved this story before it was even ready for publication.
Crazy in Love
“Anna, this is completely unacceptable!”
My boss, Peter Glassman, is yelling at me. This is status quo. I’ve worked at my current job for six years, and it’s hard to recall a day when Peter hasn’t yelled at me for something. I’m used to the sight of him with his brown eyes wide, his face slightly pink, and all the veins standing out in his neck. One day, Peter will be yelling at me and drop dead of a heart attack. He will be screaming the word “unacceptable,” and somewhere between the “un” and the “able,” he will clutch his chest, his beady eyes will roll up in his head, and that will be it. He will be dead.
I will have killed Peter Glassman.
Right now, Peter is maybe in his late forties. I figure at the rate his waistline is growing, he’s got maybe another five years before I kill him. Ten if he starts taking medications for his blood pressure or cholesterol, both of which are almost certainly high based on the lunches I’ve seen him consuming in the break room.
“It’s unacceptable, and furthermore, it’s unprofessional.”
I know from all the previous times that Peter has yelled at me that I just need to wait it out. At some point, his voice will start getting tired or he’ll grow hungry or he’ll be late for a meeting. Then I’ll be off the hook. Even though I actually haven’t done anything wrong. As usual.
You might be wondering why my boss is screaming at me, and I wouldn’t blame you. The reason this time is because of the can collection that I keep in my cubicle.
I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself: Okay, Anna, I was with you until you said you collected cans. Yes, I know it’s not the usual thing to collect cans. I’m aware of that. But my retort is: Why not? What do normal people collect? Stamps? Matchboxes? Coins? Why are cans worse than any of that?
When I’m at the grocery store shopping, sometimes I see a can and it looks special to me in some way. I can’t say why. But I know it’s something I want to have and keep. So I add that can to my collection.
Right now I’ve got twenty-one cans in my cubicle. It isn’t that many. They’re neatly stacked. Honestly, my cubicle is far more organized and cleaner than the vast majority of my coworkers’ cubicles. But somehow, nobody can wrap their head around my cans.
I had zoned out on the conversation when I recognize Peter has asked me a question and is waiting for a response. I grasp at the recording thread in my brain, trying to rewind the last few seconds and remember what he asked me. I can’t. It’s been deleted, or else, it was never recorded in the first place. But he’s staring at me, so I recognize that I have to say something.
“This wouldn’t be a problem if I had an office,” I finally blurt out.
Peter just gapes at me. His teeth are bad too. I know he drinks lots of soda, which is awful for the teeth. Every time I come into his office, he has a can of Coca Cola open on his desk. Somehow that’s acceptable but my collection of closed, clean cans is not.
“So if you had an office, you’d stop?” Peter has a furrow between his brows. He seems desperate. Maybe he’s caught a glimpse of his impending coronary in my cubicle. “Is that what you’re saying?”
I would love an office. That would solve so many of my problems. But I hope he doesn’t think that would mean giving up my can collection. “No, I’m saying that if I had an office, nobody would see. So it wouldn’t be a problem.”
I hear a loud snort from the cubicle next to mine. That would be Matt. Matt Harper. Matt has occupied the cubicle next to mine for the last three years, four months, five days, six hours, and… well, about seven minutes, give or take a few seconds. It’s hard to be completely precise with these things.
I’m not what you would call a people person. I don’t like most people. In fact, I would say that I actively dislike the majority of people I meet. But I don’t dislike Matt Harper. He’s a difficult person to dislike. He is approximately five feet eleven inches tall, which makes him just above the average height for a man in this country, which is tall enough that he commands respect but not so tall as to be intimidating. He also has brown eyes, which is the most common eye color in this country, and he always looks me straight in my own eyes when he speaks to me. He has brown hair that is trimmed short, in a professional manner. His solid, athletic build indicates that he clearly takes good care of himself, which is verified by his white teeth. There is nothing I respect more than good oral hygiene.
Even more importantly, I believe that Matt Harper is a genuinely nice person. Which is not something I can say about many of my other coworkers.
Matt is friends with most people who work in our office. He and I are not friends—I will not delude myself that he considers me a friend, despite the fact that he invited me to a New Year’s Eve party at his house last year. (I did not attend.) He and I are friendly. He smiles at me when we exchange pleasantries. He doesn’t make fun of me within earshot, which is more than I can say for most people who work here.
“Look, Anna,” Peter says to me, his face close enough to mine that I instinctively take a step back. I can smell his breath. He ate something with pickles for lunch—likely a cheeseburger. “I mean, doesn’t it bother you that everyone is making fun of these cans? You know what people call you, don’t you?”
Yes. I know what they call me.
They call me Crazy Anna.
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The Girl I Didn't Kill For (Jessie & Nick Book 2) Page 23
