Homecoming: A Secret Baby Romance (16 page)

The bottles arrived, and while it wasn't Dom Perignon, it wasn't cheap trash either. I let her pop the first cork and pour us both a glass, trying to grin as she let a little bit 'accidentally' splash on her robe, the thin fabric sticking to her skin. “Oops.”

I waved it off and took a fifty-dollar bill out of my shirt pocket, where I'd transferred my stash for the night. “Here, you might need to have that dry cleaned.”

“Mmm, you’re generous. The girls said you'll ruin me, but as generous as you are, I may just have to risk it. You mind if I dance some for you?”

“Of course not,” I said, gesturing with my glass toward the tiny little dance area in the middle of the room. “But start with the robe on. It looks sexy on you.”

She smiled at my compliment as she walked out, her ass swishing from side to side as she did. She went over to the sound system and punched in a song. The room's soundproofing took care of eliminating the crappy pop and bass-heavy hip-hop the main room had and replaced it with smooth, sexy Spanish-influenced cool jazz. I was surprised. “Not what I expected, but nice.”

“The average jackass out there can't appreciate the finer things like you do,” Carmen said, letting her body sway side to side as the music filled the room. She danced well, letting her clothes come off at a slow enough pace that she wasn't just peeling them off to get down to business.

Still, the whole time she danced, my eyes were glued more to the green of her robe than the ripe swell of her breasts, and to the red of her lipstick. The green was so much like Adriana's eyes, the lipstick so much like her hair. My cock twitched, starting to swell in my pants, but not because of the hot girl in front of me.
Shit
.

I blinked my eyes, throwing back the rest of my glass and grabbing the bottle by the neck, sucking deep from the green glass. Carmen smiled, a naughty angel smile as she saw my reaction, thinking it was because of her dance and her seduction skills. Bringing herself closer, she pulled off her bra, leaving her in a tissue paper-thick G-string and some little rhinestones that she'd attached around her right eye with spirit gum for decoration. “Mmm, I can't resist anymore,” she said, climbing into my lap and grinding on my lap. “Isn’t this where we were last time before we got so sadly interrupted?”

“Someplace like that,” I said, reaching around and grabbing a handful of her ass in a last desperate attempt to put my focus on where it needed it to be, and not on the Italian-Scotch woman who was in the forefront of my mind. “Much better music, though.”

“One thing,” Carmen said, lifting her breast to my mouth. I sucked, letting my tongue flicker over her coffee-colored nipple, which hardened almost immediately in my mouth, and she threw her head back, moaning. “Oh shiiiit . . . but the rules.”

“And the rules are?” I asked, letting go. My cock was hard, but I just wasn't into it, and the break in the flow wasn't helping. I’d hoped to let my instincts take over. After all, pussy is pussy. But her words irritated me.

She noticed and gave me her best attempt at a heart-stopping smile. “Nothing bad, Papi. Just we have to have protection. Do you have your own, or should I get some from my robe?”

“Of course. I have my own,” I said, not minding the
rule
. I may have been with a few women, but I wasn’t stupid. I always used protection. “That's fine. And nothing kinky. Not tonight.”

“Mmm, you’re too good to be true,” Carmen said, rubbing back and forth. She kissed my nose, then around to my neck, licking and sucking while she dry-humped me.

I closed my eyes, trying to lose myself in the feeling of this spicy little sexual nymphet on my lap, but I couldn't get Adriana's face out of my mind. Groaning, I threw my head back, pushing Carmen away. “This just isn’t going to work. Get off.”

“But, why?” she whined, still climbing off. She knelt in front of me, reaching out and cupping my cock through my pants. “Your big friend here says he wants me, and he's bigger than I've ever had. Please, Papi? You've got me so hot. I need it. A real man, for once in my life.”

Carmen lowered her eyes and leaned forward, kissing the crotch of my pants. She was moaning, and I could tell she was serious about it. She would have fucked me even for no money by that point, but I couldn't. For the first time in my life, I had a willing, desperate woman there, ready for me to fuck her, and I couldn't do it. “No, Carmen. Go away.”

“Come on, I need you,” she said, reaching for my belt. Her hand froze and her eyes jerked up when she heard the click of the hammer on my Beretta.

“I said go, Carmen,” I said evenly, with no inflection in my voice. It was my enforcer voice, the one that made men a lot more hardened than Carmen piss their pants in terror. The barrel pointed between her eyes, an inch from her forehead, probably looking like a cannon from her perspective. “Get the fuck out.”

She whined in fear as she scooted back and ran from the room, not screaming but clearly scared out of her mind. I stared at the fucking gun in my hand and shuddered, lowering the hammer carefully before putting it on safe and placing it back in my holster. Had I really just done that? I must’ve been fucking losing it.

I grabbed my coat and put it on, not caring about if my tie was screwed up or not. Walking out, the manager looked at me with fear in his eyes, and I knew Carmen had told him what just happened. “For your troubles,” I said, pulling out the rest of the bills I'd brought and handing them to him. “Tell Carmen . . . tell her I'm sorry.”

His fingers shook as he took the pile from me, and he didn't even count it as he tucked it in his shirt. “Yes, sir,” he stammered. “But sir—”

“You take five hundred for the trouble and half a bottle drunk, and give her the rest. Fair enough?”

He nodded, his eyes still wide in fear, and I left the club, stalking out into the night. I climbed into my BMW and started the engine, leaving twenty feet of black rubber on the pavement as I peeled out of the parking lot.

What the fuck had I been thinking? Pulling my pistol just because a girl wanted to suck my cock? The worst part was, I was ready to pull the trigger. All because it was Carmen who was on her knees and not who I needed. Fuck, it wasn't even that I
wanted
her anymore. I
needed
her. I needed Adriana.

And I couldn't tell Don Bertoli. If I went to him and told him that I couldn't continue to protect his niece because I wanted to fuck her more than anything else in the world, I wouldn't even be able to get the sentence all the way out of my mouth before my corpse hit the floor. I couldn't quit.

“You're in deep shit,” I whispered to my reflection in the rearview mirror as I drove. “Deep shit indeed.”

I
was excited
to be waiting in the parking circle of the house Wednesday when the long, black Cadillac pulled into the driveway and Uncle Carlo's driver got out, going around to the back and opening the door for him. Carlo had been out of town for nearly a week, soon after assigning Daniel to be my bodyguard, and I was glad to see him. “Uncle Carlo!”

“Bella!” he replied, letting me give him a big hug. “How is my little one?”

“Class today was a total bitch, but that's all over now,” I said, smiling. He laughed and wiped at my hair with a chuckle.

“I can see that. Are you choosing to color parts of your hair green now, or is that just the result of your hard work?” he asked. He reached into the back of the Caddy and pulled out his personal bag, a habit he'd always had. The driver and staff might be permitted to handle his suitcases, but Carlo always kept certain personal effects in a tan leather bag that he carried with him nearly everywhere outside the house. “By the way, I got you something.”

“Really? Cool!” I replied, immediately transported back to my teenage years. “What?”

“Well, a friend of mine knows of your appreciation for fine art, so he sent this along with me,” he said, taking out a metal tube about two inches wide and just over a foot long. “He said this was the best way to transport them for you.”

I popped the cap on the canister and carefully took out the lithographs, amazed by the photographic images. The first was a black and white photo of a mostly nude woman with her arms around her knees, hiding her body and looking at the camera with such pain in her eyes it was hard not to want to reach out and comfort her. The second was the same woman, this time from the collarbones up, her face turned to the sky and wearing such an expression of joy that you knew she was having the best moment of her life. “This is amazing.”

“If you look on the back, all of them are signed by the artist,” Carlo said. “I thought you'd appreciate that.”

“I do. Thank you, Uncle,” I said, not pausing to look through the rest of the images at the moment. “So you're back in town for a while?”

“I have nothing for at least the rest of the month,” he replied. “But the first thing I want to do before I go into the office tomorrow and find out that the clerks have robbed me blind and left me penniless, is to have dinner with my favorite niece. Tell me you can spare the time tonight.”

“Of course,” I said, laughing. “I was planning on staying the night here in the mansion, actually. The apartment's nice and all, but it doesn't have the aura of family, you know?”

“I do, and like Judy Garland said long before even I was born, there's no place like home. Come, let's have dinner.”

* * *

D
inner was actually light
, some panzanella and salmon with vegetables that had me looking at Uncle Carlo in surprise. “Did you see your doctor recently or something?”

He laughed and cut into his salmon with his knife. “No, Bella. But as I've gotten older, I've learned a few things about my body. After flying, I've come to understand that my stomach takes a while to settle down and can’t handle the oregano, tomatoes and other things I normally enjoy. But I can at least still have my olive oil.”

I laughed and took a bite of my salad, crunching on the crispy pieces of bread that had been sautéed in olive oil. “Food of the gods there—as you've told me my entire life.”

“I spoke with your mother while I was on the plane. She says your readjustment has gone well?”

“It has. Thank you.”

“And your classes? I hope they’re teaching more than how to mix paint and slap it on some canvas.”

“Oh no, they've done a little more than that,” I teased, a glint in my eye. “They've taught us how to use our fingers to smear it on walls and paper, too. You should see your study; I've done some redecorating for you.”

He laughed and took a careful bite of his fish. “Sorry, I went in there earlier before dinner or you might have gotten me. But seriously, Bella, how are your classes?”

“Pretty good. Actually, I'm signed up for a few business courses this semester,” I said. “I put them off for a while, but the university thinks that it is important for us artists to have some business knowledge. So I'm taking a digital marketing course as well as business math this semester.”

“That's good. Too many artists end up starving, not due to lack of talent, but lack of the ability to keep two pennies in their pocket,” Carlo said. “Listen, I wanted to ask . . . have you been contacted again by that freak, Drake?”

It was one of the gray clouds hanging in the sky of my time, and one I wanted to be gone more than anything else. So far, the police hadn't found a single clue as to the whereabouts of Vincent Drake. “Not so far. The police detective in charge of the investigation called me yesterday and said that they are doing their best to find him. They think he might have fled the country, but he wouldn’t say why they think that.”

“There’s a chance of that,” Uncle Carlo said. He sighed and set his silverware down. “I've had some of my people looking into his background. It was surprising, considering your description of him, but he’s a scary man.”

“Besides being a psychopath? He's a fifty-year-old man with a tub gut and bad taste in clothing and music. What else is there to worry about now that you’re on to him?”

Uncle Carlo shook his head, sighing. “Vincent Drake is more than that, sadly enough, and he's fifty-three. I'm not surprised the police didn’t tell you, or perhaps the fucking morons don't know yet, but Vincent Drake is former military. His public service record is fairly tame. He was in the Army for eight years, getting out just after the first Iraq War. According to the public record, he was a Public Relations Specialist, and reached the rank of Staff Sergeant before an honorable discharge.”

“You say that like he’s more than just a former journalist,” I said, my mouth going a bit dry. I took a sip of my water, trying to clear the knot in my throat. “What is it?”

“The posts that he was assigned—they don't have media specialists,” Carlo said simply. “My sources dug some more, and found that Vincent Drake was more than that. He was in the Psychological Warfare division and was involved in the capture and interrogation of Noriega back in the Panama invasion. He was Special Operations, Bella. We don't know exactly what training he went through, or what it did to him, but the man is not some artsy palooka who just went off his rocker.”