Old Flame: Dante’s Story by Sam Mariano

29

Dante

After the burial,everybody heads back to Morelli mansion to eat and commiserate. There are far too many people to fit at the formal dining room table, so Mateo had tables set up in one of the drawing rooms and the maids are bringing out food to serve buffet-style.

“Should I help?” Colette inquires, watching Maria and her daughter Cherie bring out dish after dish for the assembled mourners.

I like the idea of her assuming the wifely role and pitching in to play hostess since no one who lives here is bothering to do the job. Francesca won’t leave Salvatore’s side, like she’s afraid if she does one of us will kick him out. Alec is single so he doesn’t have a girlfriend to play hostess. Mateo doesn’t care about this, so his live-in girlfriend is treating my father’s funeral like a fucking social event instead of a funeral she should be hosting. It’s a load of bullshit. Same way the women take care of dinner on Sunday nights to make family dinner more loving and personal, they should be the ones serving the food and playing hostess at our father’s funeral.

“Yeah,” I tell her, glad that she’s volunteering. “Someone in our family should be doing it. Doesn’t seem like anyone else plans to step up.”

Colette nods, smoothes down the front of her modest black dress, and follows after Maria and Cherie to see what they need help with.

Once she’s gone, I look around for some adequate alcohol to make dealing with my family a little easier. I only have to circulate around the room once to realize that while my brother has a few cater waiters circulating with alcohol, none of them have the good stuff.

I know he has the good stuff in his study, so I slip out to get myself a real drink. There’s a bathroom just outside the drawing room for guests, and just as I’m walking past, as luck would have it, I run into someone I’ve been meaning to talk to anyway.

Mia Mitchell isn’t paying attention as she exits the bathroom. Her head is down as she rummages through her small handbag. Since she’s not looking where she’s going, she’s moving slowly, so there’s no urgency in deciding what I want to do. As I saunter closer, I take a moment to look her over while she digs around in her bag.

She’s all dolled up for my dad’s funeral, her blonde hair curled and falling around her shoulders. Colette has worn a dress in a similar style to the one she’s wearing before, but not to a dignified event like a funeral. It has a skimpy black slip underneath and a sheer overlay so it can pretend to be modest, but the shape of her body makes that impossible. The material clings to every dangerous curve and I can’t help wondering how many times my brother has stolen glances at her already when he was supposed to be mourning the loss of our father. Given the way this dress looks on her, I’m betting a lot.

Vince is fucking stupid. He should take away her make-up and make her wear flannels and sweatpants around Mateo, not let her doll up like this. The fucking kid knows Mateo was already attracted to the girl when she came to the mansion dressed like the help on a day off.

Then again, I bet her ass looks good in sweats, too. That probably wouldn’t work.

Since she hasn’t looked up and noticed me in the hall yet, I go ahead and announce myself, offering a slow, dark smile. “Elle. What a nice surprise.”

Mia’s gaze snaps to mine at the sound of my voice. Her blue eyes widen in alarm and she takes an intuitive step back. “Dante. Hello.”

“I’m glad to see you,” I state.

“You are?” she asks, sounding incredibly confused.

“Mm hmm.” I grab her arm and haul her back toward the bathroom.

Her instincts for self-preservation kick in a few seconds too late and she grabs for the door frame as I haul her ass back into the bathroom. “What are you doing?” she asks, trying—and failing—to hide her panic.

“Cameras,” I state simply, jerking my head toward the hallway. It’s common knowledge within the family that my paranoid brother has every room and every hallway under careful surveillance—everything but the bathrooms. “I want to talk to you alone.”

“I don’t think—” she begins uncertainly.

I cut her off. “We don’t keep you around to think, sweetheart.”

She’s still gaping at me when I haul her back against the wall and lean over to lock the closed door. “You are so rude,” she informs me.

I move in on her and bring the palm of my hand down hard against the wall beside her head. She jumps, fear leaping to her blue eyes as she looks up at me.

“What do you want?” she asks warily, holding my gaze.

I don’t know why it’s so fucking exhilarating to scare the shit out of her. Scaring women for shits and giggles isn’t really my thing, but there’s something so vulnerable about this one. It’s like she has a natural perfume that wordlessly invites the predators closest to her to sink their teeth into her. I can kinda see why my brother enjoyed fucking with her to begin with, he just should’ve stopped before he got addicted.

“I have a friend who would love you, you know. Well, not love you, but he’d love finding creative ways to extinguish the light dancing in those pretty blue eyes. If I keep finding you in my way, I might introduce you two.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dante. I barely know you; when have I ever been in your way?”

The little pain in the ass doesn’t even know how much she’s in my way. Telling her the extent of her damage would infuriate Mateo, though, so I’ll stick to the things she does know about.

Reaching up with my free hand to wind one of her blonde curls around my finger, I tell her, “Like I said, we need to talk.”

She swallows hard, the fear wafting off her in hot waves. I’ve never felt more like a predator; not in a house full of girls I’m going to sell like cattle, not standing in front a man I’m about to kill—never.

“About what?” she asks warily.

“About rats, and how much I don’t fucking like them.” I give her hair a sharp tug and she gasps, but she doesn’t swat my hand away. Maybe because the way I have her cornered, if she did, she’d have to bring her hands up between our bodies and she doesn’t want to touch me.

“What does that have to do with me?” she asks, looking genuinely confused beneath her fear.

“Think back to last time we saw each other, when you came to my house. Do you remember what I told you not to do?”

“You asked me not to tell Mateo.”

“I told you not to tell Mateo,” I correct her. “Maybe that’s why you got confused, Elle. It was a demand, not a request. When I make a demand, I expect it to be obeyed.”

Narrowing her eyes at me, she says, “Whatever you want to call it, I didn’t say anything, so I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up.”

“Bullshit.”

Her eyes widen in legitimate surprise. “No?”

I scowl at her now. “What the fuck do you mean, no?”

“It’s not bullshit. I never mentioned that day to Mateo—he had enough on his plate already. I didn’t think Vince would much appreciate it, either, and I didn’t want him to find out because he tends to accuse me of things first and ask questions later. I never mentioned it to anyone because I didn’t want to cause trouble between you and any of your relatives. Sure, you were mean to me, but nothing actually happened, so why would I mention it to anyone?”

Denial isn’t all that surprising, but she looks so goddamn earnest. She’s not just denying telling on me, she’s offering plausible reasons she wouldn’t do it in the first place. None of it sounds like a lie, but it can’t be the truth, either.

“Did you tell Meg?” Mateo’s girlfriend has a big fucking mouth, maybe Mia mentioned it to her and that’s how it got back to my brother.

“No. Like I said, I didn’t tell anybody,” she states.

Okay, maybe she didn’t tell him I intimidated her, but she must have at least mentioned stopping by. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Mia. Even if you didn’t tell him I was an asshole, I know you must have mentioned coming over. If you slipped up by accident, just tell me that, don’t lie and try to cover your ass.”

“I didn’t slip up and I’m not lying. Trust me, you’d know if I tried to lie. I’m a terrible liar,” she states.

“You’re a terrible liar and you expect me to believe you lied to Mateo?”

Cocking an eyebrow, she says, “I didn’t have to lie to him, because I never brought it up in the first place.”

“He never brought it up to you?”

Mia shakes her head no.

I narrow my eyes and try to glare her into submission, but either she’s telling the truth and she’s got nothing to tell me, or the girl is a million times more clever than I give her credit for. Time to find out.

“My brother has a thing for you, doesn’t he?”

Her eyes widen in shock, then she breaks eye contact and tries to inch away from me. I drop the lock of her hair and put my arm on the other side of her to stop her from going anywhere.

“Your brother has a girlfriend and I have a boyfriend,” she states, almost tonelessly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the drawing room before that boyfriend notices me missing and comes to investigate. Literally the last thing I need is to get caught locked in a bathroom with you.”

“That would probably expedite your imminent death sentence, wouldn’t it?” I murmur.

Mia rolls her eyes. “Yep, and if I die, who will you harass?”

“I’m sure I could find someone,” I offer back.

She finally brings a hand up and lightly pushes at my chest to get me away from her. “Maybe someone whose name you can remember,” she mutters.

I take a step back. “I remember your name just fine.”

“Then why do you keep calling me Elle?” she inquires, cracking open her purse and drawing out her cell phone. Predictably, it has a sparkly pink case and I almost laugh at how fitting it is.

“Elle Woods.”

Her gaze jumps back to mine like that’s more shocking than anything else I’ve said or done to her. “Elle Woods?”

“From Legally Blonde. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it. Ditzy blonde who likes pink and thinks the world is made of rainbows and sunshine.”

Biting back laughter, she says, “You mean clever, Harvard-educated lawyer who can kick ass in the courtroom and make her way in the world without being an asshole? Yeah, I know who Elle Woods is; I just can’t believe you do.”

“Colette loves that stupid fucking movie,” I explain, though I’m not quite sure why.

“Mm, she has good taste. In movies, at least,” Mia adds with a touch of snark.

“Not in men though, huh?”

“Shit taste in men,” she agrees, but lightly, all things considered.

“You’re one to talk,” I tell her. As I watch her fiddle with her cell phone, I cock my head, a sudden thought occurring to me. “Did my brother buy you that phone?”

Her gaze snaps away from the phone and right back to mine. Guardedly, she answers, “Yes. Why?”

There it is. That actually makes a lot of fucking sense. I couldn’t make sense of why she would tell him she came to my house, but not tell him how I treated her. If he knew where she was but she didn’t tell him, I’d bet my fucking house it’s because she’s unwittingly carrying around a tracking device—the goddamn cell phone he gave her.

If he didn’t trust her I might think he’s just using it to keep an eye on her whereabouts to make sure she’s not making trouble, but I know that’s not the case. Since she passed his test, I know he has all the faith in the world in this girl’s loyalty. He was tempted to believe in her even before she passed the loyalty test until I knocked some fucking sense into him.

That can only mean he’s so fucking besotted, he has to know where she is at all times. Jesus Christ. This is worse than I thought it was. That’s not the mark of a minor infatuation, that’s… he didn’t even track Beth like that.

Maybe this girl isn’t going anywhere.

Shaking my head, I tell her, “No reason.”

“No reason?” she asks, suspiciously.

“I figured if you can’t afford groceries, you probably couldn’t afford the latest model iPhone,” I offer, since I apparently have to give her something.

Her cheeks flush with faint embarrassment. “Oh. We can afford groceries,” she mumbles.

I don’t care. The mystery is solved and I never did get that drink, so I’m done here. Without a word I make for the door, but I stop before opening it. I feel Mia behind me, ready to make a beeline out of here. It should go without saying, but just in case, I glance back and tell her, “Don’t tell anyone about this time, either.”

“Don’t worry.” Then, with a mischievous smile, she adds, “My hair is full of secrets.”

I cock an eyebrow and automatically look at her hair. “Okay?”

Her smile droops. “Mean Girls? You don’t know that one? Now I’m disappointed. I liked the idea that after a long, grueling day of torturing innocents, you go home every night, kick back on your couch, and watch chick-flicks.”

“That definitely does not happen,” I deadpan.

She shrugs. “You could have let me have my fantasy.”

“No.”

“You should watch it. I mean, Colette should watch it,” she says with an exaggerated wink, like she’s in on my dirty secret.

Shaking my head, I open the door and back up against it. “And you should get your little ass back to the drawing room before I text Vince myself and tell him you lured me into a bathroom with you.”

“That’s not funny,” she informs me as she scoots past me.

I shrug my shoulders, watching her. “I don’t know, I think it’d be pretty funny.”

“I’ve never done anything to warrant you wishing for my death,” she informs me.

Now that I have a handle on the crisis she has caused with her well-meaning bullshit, I can agree with that. I know my brother is off-track right now, but I also know I was able to straighten him out and make him see things clearly last time he tried to do something stupid for this girl. Now that I understand what I’m dealing with, I feel a lot better about the whole thing. My brother is a reasonable man; all he needs is a good talking to.

Hell, even if this girl did find out about his involvement in trafficking, I don’t think it would be enough to alienate her. I’ve treated her like garbage on two occasions now, and I still get a friendly vibe off her like she’s willing to sweep it all under the rug and start fresh. And she hasn’t slept with me—surely Mateo has an advantage there.

Maybe I should let her and Colette be friends.

I bring my attention back to Mia at the sound of her voice. She’s flashing me a friendly smile, saying, “Well, I’m gonna head back. I’m sure I’ll see you in there.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Oh, and… I’m sorry for your loss,” she offers.

I nod my head once. “Thanks.”

With another faint smile, she turns and heads back toward the drawing room.

I turn in the opposite direction and head to Mateo’s study to grab a drink.