Filed to story: Submitting to My Bestie’s Daddy Read Online >>???
He laughed. “Maybe someday, but I do have to get back to work soon enough.”
I pouted dramatically. “I’ll just have Maria make me something.”
We meandered toward the kitchen, his arm still around my waist. Maria was already in there, clearly making some food for Dahlia. The smell of cooking meat reached my nose, and what had been kind of a joke about eating something became a definite reality. Maria was working on her loaded nachos, and I couldn’t turn those down to save my life.
I fumbled through asking for some, and Gio sat down with me at the dining room table.
“Do you really have more work to do?” I asked. I didn’t want to have a big conversation if he was going to be pulled away on mafia business at any moment.
He grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. I wanted to carve out a little time to see you after school, but my schedule doesn’t have a lot of room for carving.”
He seemed busier than usual. “Making progress on the Dmitri front, then?”
A deep and abiding rage crossed his face, which he clearly struggled to hide behind his neutral business expression. “Yes. We’ve gotten some valuable leads.”
I wrinkled my eyebrows. He’d been angry about Dmitri for a while now, but this anger seemed worse.
“Anything I should know?” I asked.
Gio began to say something, but Maria came out with a plate of steaming nachos, and I dug in. She was basically a goddess in the kitchen. When I looked back up, the rage was gone, replaced by amusement.
“I wanted to ask how school was going,” he said.
I swallowed a bite and debated whether to push him for more details. That rage I sensed in him worried me, but I didn’t want to have another fight right before he left to do more work.
I could wait until this evening to tell him what I wanted. That didn’t make me a coward; I was just biding my time, waiting for the right moment.
I smiled brightly. I didn’t want him distracted by worrying about me when he needed to be taking care of himself and his people. “I love my classes. I took Biology as my general science, but I like it so much I might switch majors. The professor is incredible. I’ve got to at least minor in it so I can take more of his stuff.”
A slow, matching smile spread across Gio’s face. “Yes? You wouldn’t miss the art stuff?”
The interaction with Caterina came back to me suddenly. If I transferred majors, I could get away from her. But that was scared mafia-girlfriend Olivia talking, and I wanted to be cool college-in-Italy Olivia right now.
I took a deep breath and shrugged. “I probably would, but I could minor in that, instead, I think.”
He nodded. His eyes always lit up when I was excited about something, and that made me want to say more, just to see him happy for these brief moments.
“I might’ve even made a friend today!” I volunteered before I could stop myself. I immediately looked down at my plate of nachos, nearly half gone. I didn’t want to see my fear play out in his eyes, or worse, not see it.
“That’s wonderful,” he said slowly. “I’m sure everyone loves you there like they do here.”
I nodded, and a tense silence fell over the dining room. Did he think Caterina was a risk, too? Or did he think I was crazy for being so hesitant? I didn’t know which answer I’d like less, so I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
Giovani broke the silence. “I have to get back to work, but you have a break from school next week, yes?”
I nodded. He stood. “Why don’t you and I go on a trip somewhere, just the two of us?”
I looked at him now. Tension chased every line of his body, but he smiled at me like I was the most beautiful thing in the world. “Really?”
He nodded. “Wherever you want—France, for the art, Ireland, for the history. We can fly to the most beautiful beaches on this planet.”
Excitement fizzed in my veins, and I leaped out of my chair to race around the table and throw my arms around him. “Yes, yes, yes!”
He chuckled, low and dangerous, and wound his arms around me as well. “I can’t wait to see what we get up to in a place where no one knows our faces.”
Suddenly, he dropped his hands lower, grabbing my ass, and he yanked me off the ground into a searing kiss. His tongue pressed into my mouth insistently, and I opened for him with a quiet moan as I wrapped my legs around his waist. I nearly lost myself in the moment and forgot we were in the very public dining room of his very crowded complex, until he pulled back.
“I can’t take you on this table, carina, but I am certain I can find somewhere I can,” he whispered in my ear. Shivers raced down my spine as he slowly lowered me to the ground, his hands lingering on my body as long as possible.
“Now, I really must get back to work. You tell me what you want, or I’ll surprise you.” With a wink, Gio turned and strode out of the room.
I spun in a happy circle once I had the dining room to myself. I might not have stood up for myself and told him what I needed, but I got something I hadn’t even known I wanted. A trip, a whole week of just the two of us, was exactly what the doctor ordered. We could see somewhere beautiful, and talk, and I didn’t doubt Gio would fulfill the promise he’d just made.
I danced all the way up the stairs to the room we shared, bringing the rest of my nachos along with me. Did I want to go to the beach? Life in Florida made the beach almost boring, but I hadn’t been since I moved to Italy, and I missed it. My mouth curved up at the thought of convincing him to take me to one of those topless beaches and watching him grow more and more jealous until we simply had to go home so he could remind me who my breasts really belonged to. Or—I blushed as I opened the door to our room—perhaps not even making it back to wherever we were staying.
But maybe I did want to go somewhere more historical and drag him around to all the sights while he whispered sweet nothings and threats of what he was going to do to me when we got back. Or maybe even somewhere more exotic, like South America, to see what the wet jungle heat did to us.
Regardless, I couldn’t stop imagining what the anonymity of vacation would allow us to get up to.
I flopped onto our bed, careful not to spill my nachos, and noticed someone had brought my backpack up for me already. My Art History notebook peeked out of the top where I’d shoved it messily in to flee Caterina, and I realized another benefit of going where nobody knew our faces—I could spend a week actually relaxing, not just looking over my shoulder for a knife or a gun.
The knowledge washed over me like a cool breeze. I could actually be a fun college girl instead of just pretending to be one. I could enjoy the place we went, instead of searching it for threats.
For the first time since Dahlia got taken, I could really, actually sleep at night.
As I rolled over to begin my homework, I decided I didn’t care where we went. I’d be perfectly happy anywhere safe.
*Olivia*
The only thing standing between me and a week of bliss was the last fifteen minutes of my art lecture. The entire day had been torturously long, but this particular class was the worst of them all simply because I knew how close I was to being finished.
I tried to force myself to take notes, especially since this was normally one of my favorite courses, but I couldn’t stop daydreaming about the trip Gio was taking me on. I only caught every third sentence that my professor was saying, but I didn’t care.
All I cared about was me and Gio getting alone time for an entire week. I had no idea where he might take me, and it was making it even more difficult to focus on anything other than the trip because I kept running all of the possibilities through my head. And there were a ton of possiblities. We were in Italy, after all, so the majority of Europe was just a short plane ride away. Hell, Giovani had connections all over the world. Maybe limiting my ideas to Europe was too small….
Finally, I gave up on trying to pay attention at all and just decided to try to figure out where in the world Giovani was taking me. I was practically giddy as I stopped note taking and started writing out a list of possible trip locations.
As I was writing, I felt the back of my neck prickle as though someone was watching me from behind. My first instinct was to freeze, but I didn’t want to be that person who froze in fear every time a little danger came my way. I glanced around, trying to play it off as a stretch.
‘Oh thank god,’ I thought as my whole body relaxed.
It was Caterina, just the girl who had run into me yesterday, staring at me. When she saw that I was looking back at her, she quickly dropped her eyes to her paper. Her cheeks flushed slightly with the embarrassment of being caught.
I had noticed at the beginning of class that she had been actively avoiding me, going so far as to sit three rows behind her usual seat just to get farther away. Anxiety formed a small knot in my stomach; I hated being on bad terms with anyone, but it was probably for the best that I didn’t form any close friendships with anyone right now. I couldn’t afford to let my guard down until I knew exactly who was posing a threat to me.
Finally, the lecture ended. I quickly gathered my things and nodded at my bodyguard to let him know I was ready to go. I practically ran out to the car waiting to pick Dahlia and me up.
I giggled to myself; I hadn’t been this excited in a very long time. It was nice to feel something other than a creeping sense of dread.
Somehow Dahlia was already in the car by the time I got there. I swore she could teleport the way she zoomed from place to place. She insisted she was just great at finding shortcuts.
“So… where are you and Gio going next week?” she asked as soon as I had shut the door behind me.
“I have no idea, and it’s killing me!” I replied. “It could be anywhere. He didn’t even tell me what to pack or anything, so I have no clues to go off of. He just keeps looking at me with that little secretive smile of his.”
