Trying to avoid her had been harder than I originally thought it would be. I was running late as a result and literally had to run to catch up with my cab. The poor sod had been waiting nearly twenty minutes. I was surprised, and thankful, that he was still there at all.
While finally in the cab en route to the fancy Italian restaurant, I wondered if tonight would be the night that Marco presented me with the engagement ring Rachel had been gushing about. She’d been hinting at it for the last hour, apparently, tonight was a ‘special night’.
If he did propose, I hoped he had the sense to keep the receipt. Hopefully, I’d have the restraint not to throw it at him and run in the opposite direction.
The cab pulled up to Carluccio’s, a high-end Italian restaurant that Marco had made reservations at. It looked nice - fancy. It wasn’t exactly a place that I would’ve picked. But I got it, Marco was a flashy guy, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Before getting out, I scanned the faces through the huge crystal clear windows.
With no sign of Marco’s blond hair anywhere, I wondered if there was a bar he could be seated at.
I paid the cabbie and stepped out of the car, adjusting my dress as I did so. Apparently, it had been a mistake to let Rachel have my measurements. I woke up yesterday morning to a wardrobe full of exquisite dresses, tailored button-ups and dress pants. The only time I’d ever worn dress pants was to work at the coffee shop.
Sifting through all the dresses I chose a plain navy skater dress. Amongst a sea of sequins and ruffles - some of the most beautiful pieces I’d ever seen - it was probably the most casual thing I could find. The dress actually reminded me of something I’d bought on my shopping trip with Nikolai. For a second, I had a sad moment. That day out with him by my side seemed so long ago now. But I would have more days like that, I was sure of it, and they would not be with Marco Bellucci.
As I stepped towards the sleek glass door of the restaurant, it opened, seemingly of its own volition. A smiling young woman appeared a second later, with an iPad in one hand, and gestured for me to come in.
“Welcome to Carluccio’s. Do you have a reservation this evening?” she asked, her voice was musical and had a slightly lilting accent to it.
“Um, yes. It should be under Bellucci, Marco.”
She scanned the iPad screen for a moment. “Ah, yes, it’s right here. The rest of your party hasn’t arrived yet, would you prefer to wait at your table or at the bar?”
I looked over as she gestured to the bar. I could’ve definitely used a drink but as my eyes scanned the area, I changed my mind. There were a few open stools but the place was heavily crowded with men. And with drunk men came lame attempts at flirting.
Hmm, I think not.
“I’ll wait at the table.” Gladly.
The young woman smiled again and gestured to another young woman, a dark-skinned girl with neat box braids tied in a knot. “Right this way, ma’am. I’m Marci, and I’ll be your waitress this evening.”
As I looked around, I noticed a theme. I didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but all the staff were beautiful. The hostess and Marci included.
Well damn, no wonder the bar was packed with men.
After leading me to the table, the waitress produced a wine list and a menu that I hadn’t seen her pick up. “Would you like something to drink while you wait?” Marci asked.
“Yes please. I’ll have…” I glanced at my watch and longingly at the wine menu in her hand. I assumed that the polite thing to do would be to wait for Marco to order. “Just some sparkling water for the minute, please.”
“Of course,” she said with a nod, placing the menus on the table and gliding away.
As soon as she left, I scanned the wine list and regretted not ordering a drink. I was gonna need it, sooner rather than later. Realistically, I should have just picked the most expensive bottle on the menu and charged it to the bill.
The waitress was back quickly. This time, she held a large silver tray in one hand. With the other hand, she laid a number of things on the table: A large bottle of sparkling water, two highball glasses containing ice and lemon, a wicker basket with slices of warm bread and two small bowls of dip. Mmm, olive oil and dark balsamic vinegar, I was reminded why I loved Italian restaurants.
“Would you like something else to drink while you wait?” Marci opened the water and filled the glass in front of me.
“A bottle of sauvignon blanc, please.” I pointed at the wine I wanted on the list, and Marci copied it onto a small notepad.
“Help yourself to bread. It’s rosemary and kosher salt topped today, and it’s fresh out of the oven. I’ll be back in two shakes with your wine.”
My stomach growled loudly as Marci told me about the bread. I blushed but to her credit, Marci didn’t flinch. I don’t know if she didn’t hear or she just ignored it. Looking at my watch again as Marci shuttled off, Marco was late. Only fifteen minutes but still… it’s not exactly the best way to start a date, not to mention a first date with the person you’re betrothed to.
I mean, I couldn’t have cared less. It wasn’t like I was actually going to go through with the marriage but a little common courtesy would’ve been nice.
I sipped my water and nibbled on a slice of bread dipped in olive oil and vinegar. Marci was right to enthuse about the bread; it really was delicious. She was heading towards me with the wine the same time I spotted Marco’s blond head bobbing through the crowd, led over by a short-haired waiter.
“Can I get you something to drink, sir?” Marci asked as he placed his suit jacket over the back of the chair and sat down across from me. She poured out my wine and set the bottle on the table next to my glass.
“Bud Light,” Marco said, with a condescending smile that he soon turned on me. “Sorry I’m late, babe, getting out here from uptown was hell. Today’s been jam-packed with meeting after meeting.”
He looked at me with an expression I was sure was supposed to garner sympathy in me but actually just pissed me off.
Babe? Who the hell did he think he was talking to? Nonetheless, I gave him a tight smile in lieu of a real greeting.
“It’s fine,” I looked down at the menu. I wanted to mutter a snide comment about being glad he could fit me into his schedule but I bit my cheek instead. Everything about him makes me want to scream, and not in a good way.
“Have you been here long?” he asked, not really sounding interested, more like he was asking because he felt he should.
“Oh, you know, just twenty minutes or so…” I give him a look over the menu that I hope makes him feel uncomfortable.
He gave me a small incline of his head and looked to his own menu. I hoped he was blushing furiously but because of the menu, I couldn’t tell. We sat in silence until Marci came back to take our orders. As she turned away from Marco and his leering eyes, she gave me a smile I could only describe as sympathetic.
“So, how are you, Anastasia?” Marco asked eventually, as he dragged his eyes away from Marci’s retreating form. “I haven’t heard from you since the party, I’d expected to hear from you sooner.”
“Oh, well, you know how it is. I’ve been busy with,” I paused almost imperceptibly. “Family things…” The words felt weird in my mouth. But it had to be a believable excuse at least. He had to be fooled, just like everyone else.
“Right, of course. My parents were the same with me…” And that was all it took to start off a long rambling speech about his family, complaining about how hard it was for him growing up with the weight of his parents’ expectations weighing on his shoulders. I was able to resist an eye roll - that would’ve been too obvious - but I couldn’t stop my teeth from grinding together. That had been becoming a bad habit of mine as of late.
I longed to goad him, my inner sarcastic bitch was being held back by only a thread. Who the hell did he think he was? The king of England? I thought not.
Maybe it was just me being an actual bitch. But really, he should’ve thought mor
e about his audience for this performance.
And yet, I managed to keep my trap shut the entire time.
After he mentioned the few years difference in our age and a long stop off at his privileged upbringing, he even had the audacity to tell me how he mourned me. Apparently, despite never having actually met me before, he’d felt my loss deeply. And… then proceeded to tell me about how I’d impacted all of his past relationships. Including his three year off and on relationship with his university's Cheer Captain, Gina.
Well, she sounded just darling… but that wasn’t a relationship, they had clearly been fuck buddies.
I was about ready to tear out my eyes from boredom when our food finally arrived because he still hadn’t come up for air. A beautiful juicy steak was placed in front of me and across from me, a ravioli dish that Marco had ordered.
The picture made me want to giggle. I remembered Nikolai’s skill in the kitchen, and the time he made Italian for us on my first day with him. Back before I trusted him. Before I loved him. I wondered if the pasta was as good as Nikolai’s.
I clenched my teeth to keep from snapping at Marco. As boring and self-assured as he was, he probably didn’t deserve the full brunt of my wrath.
“And honestly, I don’t think a woman’s place is at the head of the family, I think women should support their husbands. But then again, that’s why this is such a perfect match. Don’t you agree?” The words jarred me out of my memories like a bucket of ice water over my head.
“What?” I snapped, maybe a touch more harshly than I had intended. But if he had honestly just insinuated a woman’s place was basically the kitchen, I… Oh, I had a thing or two to say about that.
And then about a million more things to say about his assumption that he would be merging our family empires just so that he could sit on an even bigger throne.
Ugh. My mind growled at his insensitiveness towards this subject, and at his overall pigheadedness.
“I just meant, if we’re to be married, I hope that you would support me in all aspects of our life,” he said, watching me closely. I waited a moment, collating both of his statements, thinking of my answer and painfully aware that a wrong answer could indeed mean compromising my mission, and maybe even my life.
“Of course, Marco, I’d help you make decisions,” I said with forced enthusiasm, a fake as shit smile across my lips. “We would do everything together, I’m sure.”
For a moment, he opened and closed his mouth like a fish. “That’s not quite—”
I barreled on though, not letting him correct me.
“Oh no, don’t worry. The Varelas, my parents, are teaching me so much. I’m sure I would never let them or you down. After all, we would be one big family by then, wouldn’t we?” I gave him a poisonous smile, knowing that there was no way he could refute what I was saying. Not without tipping his hand one way or the other.
“I’m sure, yes, we would be one big happy family. Yes…I’m sure,” he said and stuffed a forkful of food into his mouth simultaneously.
The date dragged on, and once again, I was struck by how much this man just wanted to talk about himself, his achievements, his hobbies, and aspirations. Another thing I was struck by was how painfully dull it all was. The highlight of the date really was the food.
By the time Marci came back to offer us dessert, I was craving the ride home. I was just about to decline and suggest that it was getting late when Marco looked up at me with a hopeful expression. We ordered dessert to share. I was sure that was another presumptuous dig at me to not spoil my figure, but I decided to ignore my own insecurities.
I was glad we’d decided to share. The sight of the monstrous sized chocolate fudge cake was enough to have me shaking in my boots. We took turns forking off bites of cake, silence finally started to seep in. Dessert dragged to an end, and we sipped coffee from bright white coffee cups, Marco cracked me a slimy-looking half-smile.
“So. Do you wanna come back to my place, or should we go somewhere for drinks first?”
Wait, what?
I resisted laughing in his face. Wow, I had been so off the mark. Did he not know that this date was going so badly? Like so extremely bad that it may have just been admitted to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Neither, bucko…
As if he thought he was going to get anywhere with me.
“I’m sorry, but I’m actually not feeling too well. I think I’m just gonna take off.” I gave him my best apologetic smile-wince and put a hand over my stomach, trying but probably failing to look at least half-way convincing.
Inside I was still laughing my ass off, almost as if he’d told a joke. That was it though, he must have been joking. Otherwise, he was even more of a fucking idiot than he first let on.
“Oh.” I could tell immediately that I’d surprised him. He hadn’t expected that, which confused me. Had he really thought that the date was going well? Maybe I should have talked more — that might have put him off…
“I’m gonna go outside for some fresh air, and call a cab,” I said, standing from the table with no small amount of relief. “It was, well, thanks, Marco. Goodnight.”
Marci smiled at me as I walked through the dining room to go and stand in the foyer, leaving Marco to sort out the bill on his own.
Afraid of waiting on the sidewalk outside the restaurant in case Marco passed me by, I began walking down the street. It wasn’t too late and there were still plenty of people out and about. I rationalized that it was safe enough for me to wander for a bit.
My god, what a shitty night.
The date had only been to humor my parents. Thank fuck I wasn’t actually going out with that prick. It was a shame really, had he been Nikolai, that might have been a perfect date. With drinks after? Who knows, it might really have been one for the books.
A tight grip latched onto my arm and yanked me away from the streetlight and into a side alley. I opened my mouth and screamed bloody murder. This was it. My life flashed before my eyes as I fought with everything in me to gain distance.
My futile attempts only managed to increase my heartrate, fear chilling the blood that pumped through my veins. By now, I’d known this adrenaline high well. It was my fight or flight response kicking in.
After everything I’d been through, I was not going to go down like this. Those words felt familiar. Maybe it had nothing to do with what I’d been through in the past. Maybe it was just how I was wired, my stubborn side showing as I refused to back down.
A familiar scent invaded my senses as the man's arms wrapped tightly around me, effectively stopping any more physical resistance. The smell. I knew it well, but couldn’t put my finger on it.
We moved further down the alley, my feet barely being able to touch the ground. I was shoved. My back hit the hard brick building; a hand covered my mouth as my eyes finally locked on his. The alley may have been dark but there wasn’t anything to entirely block out the light coming from the street. Where we were, a soft glow touched us, bouncing off Nikolai’s wet dark hair and giving me a glimpse of his eyes.
Furious within an instant of realizing whose arms were wrapped around me, I pushed at his chest. For a second, I wondered if I would have preferred to be dragged off by a stranger, at least that would have meant that Nikolai hadn’t lied to me.
He lied to me. Right to my fucking face.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Nikolai?” I hissed at him after ripping his hand away from my mouth.
“The more pressing question is, what the fuck are you doing wandering the streets?” He hissed right back at me, seeming just as furious. “Alone, and at this time of night. You should know better, Ana.”
“Nikolai!” I snapped.
“We have an agreement. You asked me to trust you. That meant trusting you to keep yourself safe while you were here. You didn’t know that I was still in town, what if something had actually happened to you and I hadn't been here. Did you even think Ana?”
I sucked i
n a deep breath; he was angry because he was worried about me. And he was worried about me because he loved me. I took a second to try and put myself in his shoes, and suddenly I sympathized with him.
I knew it was a hard ask for him to leave me even before I asked it.
“How long have you been following me?”
Please. Please lord, tell me he only just got back to town.
“Since you told me to leave.” He struggled to get the words out through gritted teeth.
I hung my head in defeat. He saw the date. Not to mention everything else - the dress shopping, the flouncing around town with Rachel, probably even the run I did with Kaleb just yesterday.
Fuck.
“You saw…?”
“That’s him?”
“Yeah. His name is Marco Bellucci, son of Rosa and Cassio Bellucci,” I replied with urgency but I highly doubted he knew who they were, and he definitely didn’t know why they were so important to me.
“I didn’t realize that you needed space from me so that you could date someone else.”
“Nikolai. Don’t be ridiculous. You know me well enough to know that I’m not dating anyone else. Tonight was set up by my parents.”
“Looked like you were having a good enough time…”
He was fishing. If he’d been watching me, he knew that the ‘date’ was a complete dud. But, to ease his worried mind, I captured his lips with mine. The kiss was short and sweet, my hands cupping his face and stroking the scruff that had grown since I’d last seen him. “You have nothing to worry about. For me, this is all business. And where Marco is concerned, he’s a conceited prick. The date was a complete dud.”
Nikolai made a humming noise as he rubbed his nose against mine. I relished in the contact and sank deeper into his embrace. It felt like so long since we’d been this close.
He moved to nuzzle my neck, the gentlest of touches setting me alight. His voice whispered against my ear, his warm breath causing a chill to run down my spine. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too…” His lips pressed small wet kisses along the column of my neck. I moaned at the contact. “Nikolai.”
Be My Queen (The Crown Duet Book 2) Page 5
