I bet she feels like silk, though I wouldn’t dare put a finger on her.
I haven’t even touched her arm or her hand since that night.
I don’t trust myself.
She crosses one leg over the other, and my mouth goes dry.
“Excuse me, Zeke?
Would it be too much trouble to turn on the radio?
I think the ride would be much more enjoyable with a little music.”
Her sickeningly sweet voice carries a bitter edge that’s almost enough to make me laugh.
She’s got an attitude on her, but then so do I.
“I think I can arrange that.”
I touch a button on the wheel, and the radio flips on.
“See?
You treat somebody with respect, and you get respect.”
“Who are you?
Mr.
Rogers?”
She gives me an epic eye roll before returning her attention to her phone, scrolling mindlessly through whatever social media platform she’s on at the moment.
I only chuckle, focusing back on the road.
I’ve seen pictures of the condo we’re moving into, and I can’t pretend it’s not impressive.
An entire family could live there comfortably-the bedrooms are enormous.
I would have killed to have a room that big when I was a little kid, crammed into what was little bigger than a closet with three cousins my grandparents were caring for along with me.
Two sets of bunk beds were almost too much for the room to hold.
I used to have to turn sideways to get between them.
On the surface, I’ve come a long way.
And my job, while infuriating and harder than just about anything I’ve ever had to do, is a hell of a lot easier than digging ditches and walking for miles in both directions to get to a factory, both of which my grandfather did when he was my age.
It’s something my dad always liked to remind me of whenever I would complain the way kids sometimes do.
But that was before he started working for the boss-before our lives changed.
Before I got pulled out of my grandparents’ house and into the Morelli family, too.
I don’t dig ditches, but I’ve dug more than a few holes, which I later filled with what was left of the people I was assigned to eliminate.
I can’t help but wonder what my granddad would think of that.
“Can you change the station?
Something a little less boring?”
I look at her in the mirror.
“This is classic shit.”
“Classic?”
Her nose wrinkles in disgust.
“That’s just another word for ancient.
Music from, like, the eighties.”
I know she’s doing this to fuck with me.
I know she listens to stuff from so-called ancient times, too.
She wants to start a fight, is all.
“This is the stuff I was brought up on.
It’s good if you give it a chance.”
“I don’t feel like giving it a chance today.
Just change the damn station.”
I should know better than to try to talk any kind of sense to her.
We could be in a burning building, and she would bitch me out if I so much as offered to help get her to safety.
All because it was coming from me.
It’s safer this way.
I have to remember that.
It’s better if she hates me because then she won’t throw herself at me like she did that night.
How many times have I jerked off to the memory of her perfect body so close to mine?
Right there for the taking.
All I had to do was reach out and grab her, and that would’ve been the end of it.
There would have been no way for me to stop myself once I got a hold of her.
Once I knew what she felt like under my hands.
Instead, I’ve spent my nights obsessing over her.
Fantasizing about what might have happened if I wasn’t so strong.
“Do you have all your classes scheduled?”
She glances up from the phone.
“Why do you care?”
Is this what I have to look forward to for the next few months?
“I care because it affects me.
If you don’t have your shit together, your father will find a way to make that my fault.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with me the day you decided to get a septum piercing, either.”
Needless to say, she took the nose ring out and never put it back in.
She flinches at the memory, and I can only imagine she remembers the way her father screamed the walls down.
We both heard it from him that day.
“I made sure he knew that was my fault.
Don’t blame me for that.”
“I still had to hear about it.
I don’t think I unclenched my ass for a week after that.”
I can tell she doesn’t want to giggle, but she does anyway.
“Everything is scheduled.
Not like I had anything to do with it.”
I shouldn’t keep talking about this, but I can’t help it.
Not when I hear a disappointed note in her voice.
“You really didn’t know he was arranging for you to go to Blackthorn, huh?”
She keeps her eyes on the phone.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“So you really don’t care that you didn’t get any say in where you go to school?”
Her head snaps up in time for me to catch sight of it in the mirror before focusing my attention back on the road.
“What are you trying to do?”
“Huh?”
“You heard me.
Are you trying to make me miserable?
Save your breath, okay?
I know how lucky I am.
You don’t need to remind me.”
“That’s not what I was trying to do.”
“Right.
Because you’ve never rubbed it in, how lucky I am.
How I don’t have any room to complain about anything in my life.”
She’s got a good memory.
I’ll give her that much.
I have given her a lot of shit in the past when she’s being a brat and acting like it’s so painful and inconvenient having somebody devoted completely to making sure she’s safe.
“I wasn’t trying to rub it in, either.
And it does affect me since I’ll be following you around all over the place.
Sue me for wanting to know if I was going to get to hear anything interesting.”
Her lips twitch a little like she’s trying not to smile.
“It’s all pretty basic stuff, intro to this and that.”
“So long as you don’t expect me to do classwork for you.”
She finally sets down her phone.
“Are you seriously going to come to my classes with me?
Like, isn’t it enough to sit outside the room?”
“I don’t make the rules.
I only follow them.”
“But that’s embarrassing.
Isn’t it embarrassing to you?”
I don’t know if she’s deliberately trying to get under my skin or if she’s sincerely asking because she wants to know.
“Why would I be embarrassed?”
I finally grunt, wishing traffic would clear up so I can get moving faster again.
At least then, I might have a reason to ignore her.
“I mean, having to sit through classes with me?
All because somebody told you to?”
“It’s my job.
Would you ask a professor if they were embarrassed because they had to stand in front of the room and teach you things?
It’s what they get paid to do.
Same thing for me.”
I glance her way in the mirror.
“Besides, there are lots of rich kids who go to this school.
I’m sure you won’t be the only one-and even if you are, they’ll be used to seeing bodyguards around.
It only seems weird to you because you’re not used to it yet.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“Why are you so hell-bent on taking everything I say as an insult?
No, I said it because it’s the truth.
You didn’t grow up the way these kids did, so it only seems strange to you.
What’s so wrong about that?”
She folds her arms, staring out the window.
“You made it sound like an insult.
Like you looked down on me.”
“Trust me.
If I look down on you, it doesn’t have anything to do with the way you grew up.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.