Lady and the Champ (26 page)

God, what’s wrong with me? I shake my head at myself.

“How soon?” Sarah asks, and it takes me a second to remember what we were talking about.

“You mean for the settling down and kid-having?” I ask.

“Yeah. That.”

“I don’t know. In a year or two, maybe?”

“So you’ve got the lady all picked out? You’re engaged, maybe?”

I shake my head. “No. Nobody picked out.”

She’s still looking right into my eyes. It looks for all the world like she might be warming up to me a little. “That’s an awfully tight time frame, then. You sure you can pull it off?”

I lean close to her, whispering again into her ear. “I can pull anything off, baby. That’s what I do. So what do you think?”

She stiffens suddenly in my half embrace, and for a second I’m sure I’ve offended her. She’s going to push me away and head off the dance floor, and take along with her any chance I have of cutting Sal off at the knees. But that’s not what’s going on.

Her body jerks away from mine, and not of her own volition. I look away from Sarah’s face to see Sal looming over us, his mouth twisted into an ugly snarl.

“The fuck you think you’re doing with this guy, Sarah?” he asks her, half spitting it. “I told you to wait at the bar.”

“We were just dancing,” Sarah says.

“Yeah, well, you dance with me, not with this piece of shit.” He yanks at her arm. “C’mon.”

“Sal, lay off,” I tell him, my voice almost a snarl. It’s not my business what he does with his woman, I know, but the way he’s jerking her around is pissing me off. There’s something about her…something more than just beauty and soft skin and that body, which I’d like to get hot and naked right up next to me in bed. I don’t know what it is. Not sure I want to know. But I do know I don’t like seeing Sal treat her like that.

Sal gets up in my face now. “Don’t you tell me what to do with my woman, Angelino,” he snarls. Then he looks back at Sarah, shaking her arm. “You been cozying up to this asshole, you stupid little slut?”

“Sal…” she starts, but I’ve had enough. I crowd Sal toward the edge of the dance floor, looking down my nose at him.

“You want me to give you a lesson in manners, you motherfucking little—”

“Nicholas.” The voice breaks me off immediately, mostly because I recognize it, and partly because I’ve been trained the last few years to respond to it automatically. I turn, backing down from my confrontation with Sal.

“Mr. Spada.”

Phil Spada is standing right behind me, a bland smile on his bland face. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” he tells me, and sets a hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you come on over to the bar? Let me get you a drink. We can catch up.”

I give Sal one last glare, but I can’t exactly put my fist in his face with Spada standing right here. “Sure, Mr. Spada.”

I go with him. There’s a stab of damn near physical pain in the middle of my chest at leaving Sarah alone with that asshole, but I go with him.

She’s used to him. She knows how to deal with him. She’ll be all right.
The words repeat in my head, and I know they’re probably true, but I can’t convince myself to believe them.

Spada drops an arm over my shoulders, steering me toward the bar. “Enjoying the party, Nick? You win anything? Blackjack? Slots?”

“No, sir. Nothing. Yet.”

“Ah, that’s too bad. I told them to ease up on us tonight, let some of my boys take a few bills home.”

I shrug. “I’m just not lucky tonight, I guess.”

He scoots up to the bar and takes a stool. I sit next to him. “Happens to the best of us,” he offers as condolence, and waves down the bartender. A few seconds later I’ve got a tumbler with a finger of fifty-year-old Glenfiddich single malt in my hand. Spada swirls his in his glass, takes a careful sniff, then a sip. Then he lifts his glass, inviting a toast.

I answer, tapping my glass against his. “To your dad,” Spada says, catching me off guard. I mumble a response and take a drink of the whisky. It’s so smooth that I can barely tell when I swallow it.

“I was truly sorry to hear about your father,” Spada goes on. I nod, trying to seem gracious even though this is the last thing I want to talk about right now.

“Thanks. It’s been a rough time for the family.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to attend the funeral. I had a previous engagement last weekend.”

I nod, not sure what to say. As many condolences as I’ve accepted over the last two weeks, I’m still not sure how to respond to them. “Thanks.”

“Cancer, was it?”

I nod again. “He was sick for a while.”

Spada shakes his head. “Fucking awful disease. Can’t just take your life—it has to take all your dignity, too.” He takes another drink from the tumbler then lifts it for another, wordless toast. I tap my glass against his, take another sip. It seems like a waste to drink this stuff too fast. “Damn shame,” he finishes, shaking his head.

I can’t tell if he’s serious or just saying what he thinks I want to hear. “Yes,” I say. “He was a good man.”

“That he was.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence; I take another sip of the scotch.

I’m not sure if it’s the movement I see out of the corner of my eye, or if my ears somehow manage to pick up the sound of Sarah’s voice, but I turn quickly, just in time to see Sal backhand her. She flinches, taking a step back. Instantly I start to move toward her. No fucking way I’m letting him get away with that shit. That’s no way to treat a woman—

“Let it go.” Spada’s hand on my arm stops me. I try to jerk away from him, but his fingers tighten, hard enough to leave bruises.

“You’re kidding me,” I grit out.

He gives me a look of quiet tolerance, like I’m a three-year-old throwing a tantrum in the middle of a Walmart. “Nick. Nick, I know you want to jump to her rescue, but it’s not your business. You don’t tell a man how to deal with his woman.”

I look back toward where Sal and Sarah are standing, my teeth clenched so hard it aches into my temples. She has the back of her hand pressed against her mouth, and Sal is still up in her face, his mouth twisted and ugly as he spits words at her. Spada’s hand loosens slightly on mine and then tightens again when I move closer.

“Seriously? You let him act like that here in front of everybody? Wives? Girlfriends? Daughters? You’re gonna stand here and let him do that like it’s okay?”

Spada glances toward the two of them. I can see his eyes tighten just a bit in response, like maybe deep down somewhere, Sal’s actions do have an effect on him. Then I remember seeing Sal’s wife, back in the day, one time when she had on too much makeup and it still didn’t cover the dark blotch under her eye. And in that moment I want to backhand Sal himself, or pull out a gun and pop him one between the eyes.

I don’t have a gun, though, which is probably fortunate for both of us. Spada drags his gaze back to me and says in a low voice, “Sal brings in good money. He’s one of my top earners, and he deals with things.” He turns back toward the bar. “He can do whatever he wants.”

I clench my teeth again. This time I hold back the words that want to come out. They won’t do any of us any good. Instead I just nod and down the rest of the scotch. I don’t dare turn to see what’s up with Sarah; if Sal’s hitting her again I won’t be able to control myself this time, no matter what Spada has to say about it.

There’s a faint sound, and Spada pulls his phone out of his pocket. It’s ringing, a snippet of some old Sinatra song playing on repeat as the ringtone. I shake my head a little. Sinatra. Stereotypical much? But Spada’s never really been known for having an innovative mind.

“Right now?” he says into the phone. Then he grunts. “Fine.” He puts the phone back in his pocket and finishes his tumbler of scotch.

“You have a good evening, Nick,” he tells me. He pats my shoulder and moves away, across the room.

I want more than anything to turn around and see what’s going on with Sarah. But if I do, and Sal’s still hitting her, or even still in her face and screaming at her, I’ll probably do something I’ll regret. Well, not precisely regret, but something Spada won’t approve of. And things Spada doesn’t approve of aren’t going to get me where I want to be in this organization.

What will, though? I don’t see much in the way of viable tactics to get Sal out of his most favored status. Why Spada likes him so much, I have no idea, but I suspect it’s to do with Sal’s ruthlessness. Carmine Romano was the same way. Not a lick of softness in him.

I’m that way, too. Or I was. Lately I’m not sure anymore. Too much has happened, and I’m starting to see my life like I’ve wasted big chunks of it already. What could I do to change that? What could get me on track toward something closer to a normal life?

I shake my head, trying to jostle those thoughts away. The scotch is starting to burn hot in my stomach, and that heat is moving toward my groin. I should just take one of these girls home and fuck the melancholy out of myself.

No, I should take Sarah home. She’s the only one I really want right now. The truth of that hits home hard.

I turn away from the bar and back toward where Sal and Sarah were standing just a few minutes ago. But she’s not there. Neither of them is. Where the hell did they go? I think about going after them, but how can I do that if I don’t know which way they headed?

Dammit. I don’t want her with Sal right now, not when the last thing I saw was him hitting her. I want her with me. My dick perks up at the thought, but the truth of the matter is I want her for more than just a good fuck. I want her for…well, for
her
.

And I don’t know what the hell has come over me tonight. Sure, I could make Sal look like an idiot by sneaking in under his radar and stealing his girl. But I don’t just want to piss him off. I just want
her
.

Forget it, Nick. Forget her. Just find somebody else for the night.
It would be the easiest way out of this mess. I could go back to the blackjack table and see when the dealer’s heading home. She’s my type—pretty, trained to behave herself, used to the way things go down in the family. But I can’t stop thinking about Sarah. The way she felt against me when we were dancing. The way her hair smelled against my face.

She’s going to be mine. No matter what I have to do, Sarah is going to be mine.

 
I
’d enjoy
the smell of the spaghetti sauce I’ve got cooking if I didn’t know it was going to go onto Sal’s plate. That is, if he ever gets his ass home to eat dinner. I haven’t seen him since the party last night, when he dragged me out, shoved me into a car, and sent me home. He didn’t get into the car with me, and he didn’t come home last night. I know damn well where he is, too. Out with one of his
comares
, one of his stable of mistresses who don’t live at his house. I guess I should feel privileged that I get to share his living space. Somehow I really don’t.

I don’t even want to think about last night’s party. I swear I can still feel the marks on my face where he backhanded me. All because he didn’t like it that I was dancing with Nick. It’s bad enough he treats me like that at home; having him smack me around in front of everybody who was at that party—all the men in Spada’s little crime family, all their wives and girlfriends, all the people employed to run the casino while we had our little shindig. I want to cry just thinking about it.

Your own fault, Sarah.
My brain likes to remind me of the way things really are. And it’s right—it is my own fault. I should never have let myself get into this position. But I hadn’t seen another choice at the time.

I pick up my spoon to stir the sauce. Gravy, my mom always called it. It was an Italian thing, and I never picked up the term, mostly because the kids I went to school with looked at me funny if I did. Still, her recipe is the best one I’ve ever made.

On the floor next to me, Sal’s little floppy dog makes a barking noise. He either wants out or he’s hoping I’ll give him some kind of treat, since I’m cooking. By the look on his face—what I can see of it through all that goofy fur—it’s the latter. I smile down at him. He’s an okay dog, even though he’s Sal’s. Sal likes him better than me, I’m sure. At least he never hits the dog like he does me, if that’s an indication of his level of affection.

Thinking about Sal, I smile to myself and take the spoon out of the sauce. I make sure it’s not too hot, but I also make sure it’s got some sauce on it. When I’m sure the sauce isn’t scalding, I hold the spoon down. The dog licks it enthusiastically, his floofy tail wagging in ecstasy.

When he’s done, I put the spoon back in the pot and give the sauce a few thorough stirs. There you go, Sal. Enjoy your fucking spaghetti.

I glance at the clock. This sauce is going to have to simmer for a while before it meets Grandma’s standards. I turn it down and mull what else I can do for the day. I could stay home, finish some of the chores Sal expects me to do…

No. I’m sick of saying, “How high?” when he tells me to jump. When he told me yesterday he wanted me to make sure the house got clean today, he said, “If you’re going to be my wife someday…” and I thought I was going to vomit. I can’t even think about that. Yeah, I got myself into this mess, but marrying him would make it not so much a mess as a living, breathing hell.

Strange how it’s okay that I’m using him to keep my business afloat, and it’s okay that he’s using me to make himself look good, but it’s not okay that he wants to make that a permanent situation.

Of course, maybe if he hadn’t started hitting me on a regular basis, not to mention the verbal and emotional abuse, I’d look at things a little differently. As it is, it’s untenable. I can’t keep it up. I certainly can’t imagine being married to him.

I shudder as I check the sauce again. I drop a lid on it and turn the heat down just a bit more. I need to get the hell out of this house for a while. The sauce will be okay on its own for a few hours. And if Sal doesn’t bother to come home, and his sauce is ruined because it’s on the heat too long, then that’s his own damn fault, isn’t it?

* * *

T
he bakery
—
my
bakery—smells like home and comfort when I open the door and head inside. It’s warm, the air full of yeasty smells. It’s enough to draw a smile onto my face in spite of everything.

Sadly, though, the smile doesn’t last long. I love this place—was willing to sacrifice everything for it, including my happiness—but things haven’t turned out the way I hoped they would. Sales started out fairly brisk, but then they fell off. I know I could get things going again, but it would take some money to invest in things I desperately need, like updated equipment, the capacity to produce a wider menu, and, yes, advertising. But I can’t get the money, because
somebody
is holding the purse strings far too tightly.

That somebody, of course, is Sal himself. If it weren’t for Sal, I wouldn’t have had the money to start the business in the first place. If it weren’t for Sal, I’d have the freedom to do what I need to do with the bakery, but not the money. The deal I made with him was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life, and there’s no way I can get free of it.

There are a few customers at the counter, being helped by Mandy, the only employee I can afford to have in today. I rotate a few people, but it’s hard to keep staff paid when there’s so little money coming in. I know Sal refuses to let me improve the place because he wants to keep me under his thumb. As long as I’m there, he has control of the bakery, which gives him control over me as well as a convenient place to launder his dirty mob money. I should have figured that out from the get-go, but no. I went into the deal believing in the innate goodness of humanity. More fool me.

“Sarah, can you take a look at this?” Mandy asks me. I move to stand behind her. The cash register is being wonky again. Because of course it is. One more thing to be broken. One more step closer to the destruction of my life’s dream.

I poke a few buttons and finally get the machine to open, letting me pass the customer her change. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” I tell her, and hand her a coupon from the counter. Maybe she’ll come back. Selling a stack of pastries at twenty-five percent off is better than selling no pastries at all.

I hear the bell above the entrance ring, and there’s a man in the doorway, holding the door open for my departing customer. My breath catches. He’s broad shouldered and handsome, wearing suit pants and a dress shirt. He’s also the guy I danced with at the party last night. Nick. I have to say, he’s a hard man to forget, with that dark, almost blue-black hair and green eyes. There’s a scar on his right cheek, but it just makes him that much better looking, as far as I’m concerned.

My body gets hot just looking at him. I remember the way it felt to let him hold me when we were dancing last night. He’d held me so close I could feel him getting hot for me. But even with that big erection giving him trouble in his pants, he’d stayed the gentleman. Mostly. Well, he didn’t try to rub off on me, which frankly is more than I expect from most of the guys who were there last night.

He gives the woman a nod as she moves past him and then lets the door fall shut. Looking up, he meets my gaze and smiles.

“Hi,” I say. “May I help you?”

Mandy gives me an odd look. She’s probably figured out that I know this guy, or recognize him at the very least. I’m suddenly self-conscious and wonder if he likes the way I look in my everyday clothes. He obviously liked the way I looked in my eveningwear, but this is a whole different me. I’ve got my hair in a ponytail, and I’ve got on jeans and a T-shirt—stuff that won’t end up ruined when it gets flour all over it, as it inevitably will. The only thing I’m missing is my apron, and that’s just because I haven’t quite managed to put it on yet.

“I need some pastries. Maybe some rolls?” he says.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. We specialize in pastries and rolls.”

“I figured you did.”

I tilt my head, giving him a look that’s far more flirtatious than I normally dare with anyone. “What clued you in?”

“The sign above the door. It says
bakery
.” He grins and moves closer to the counter. “So…baked goods, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Mandy moves back away from the cash register. Catching the movement out of the corner of my eye, I turn my attention to her for a few seconds. “Why don’t you head on home, hon? I know you’ve been here all day without any help.”

“Okay, sure.” She smiles at me, then at Nick, then takes off her red apron and heads out the door.

“Poor thing. She’s probably starving,” I comment, watching her go.

When I look back toward Nick, his grin has turned to a slight frown. “Don’t you have anybody else to help her out?”

I shake my head. “No. We can’t really afford to pay very many people. Most days it’s just me and Mandy. There’s a high-school kid, Jim, who comes in on weekends. That’s why we have such short hours.”

I generally don’t keep the place open past two or three. Most of the traffic comes by in the morning anyway. But I’m sure we could do additional business if we were open for people coming home from work. Or if we had coffee. Another thing Sal shot down as too expensive. No coffee, not even drip. God forbid I should ask for a couple of espresso machines.

“Yeah, I saw the hours on the sign,” Nick comments. “I was afraid I might be too late to pick anything up.”

I shake my head. “Nope. We’re still open. Technically.” I figure I’ll turn the CLOSED sign over as soon as Nick heads out. It’s not like people are standing in line outside the door, after all. “What can I get for you?”

“I was hoping for a few boxes.”

My eyebrows go up—usually I end up selling a couple of pastries here, a couple more there, a few loaves of bread every once in a while.

“Maybe whatever you have that’s going to go to the day-old shelves tomorrow?”

Okay, this is going to be a good sale. I can’t help but be a little excited about it. I start looking over the items in the display cabinet, tallying up what I might have in the back. “I think we can accommodate you, sir.”

“That’s great.”

He leans against the counter, and I can’t help but notice the way his shirt pulls tight over the solid, prominent muscles of his chest. I take out a box, unfold and assemble it, and start dropping donuts inside. “Are you having a party? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

He smiles. “I’m going by my mom’s place. They always like fresh bread and pastries.” There’s a hesitation, just long enough for me to wonder how many people live in his mom’s house that he’s buying several dozen pastries. “She’s in a nursing home.”

“Oh.” My voice comes out small, and I feel like I’ve made a misstep. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. She likes it there. She’s got a ton of friends, and I go by a couple times a week. We just lost my dad, so it’s good she’s got people there she can hang out with when she gets lonely.”

“Oh.” I seem to be having problems coming up with full sentences. “That’s great.” I set the full box aside and grab another one. “I mean, that she has friends there, and that you go see her.”

Nick nods in response then points toward the display case. “Are those apple fritters?”

“These on the left are apple; the ones on the right are peach.”

“That sounds phenomenal. Can I get a few of those?”

“Of course.” I put fritters in the second box. It gives me an excuse not to look at him when I say, “So… I enjoyed dancing with you at the party last night.”

There’s a moment of silence long enough that I finally look at him. His face has gone hard and sober, and my heart lurches. Whenever I see a look like that on Sal’s face, it means he’s about to haul off and hit me, or at the very least rip me up one side and down the other verbally. He’s very imaginative with his insults, is Sal. Sometimes they hurt more than when he actually strikes me.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “Should I not have mentioned it?”

Nick’s head jerks to one side as if I’ve pulled him out of his thoughts. “No. No, it’s not that. I just…” He smiles then, and that’s when I realize he saw Sal hit me. My face goes hot. I look back down at the pastry box.

“Sarah,” he continues, “I had a good time last night. I’m really glad I met you. I’m glad we danced.” Reaching over the top of the display case, he holds his hand out. “Very glad.”

I manage a smile in spite of the hot sense of humiliation that’s washed over me. I set another pastry in the box and then reach out to take his hand. His strong fingers squeeze mine gently, and then he lets go. “How about some rolls?” he suggests. “And bread. They always like to get fresh bread for sandwiches.”

I nod. “I’ve got some more bread in the back. I’ll go get some as soon as we finish out here.”

I’m filling another box with Danishes—cheese, cherry, lemon. He nods approvingly. “So how’s business? You get a lot of customers?”

My stomach dips a little. “Okay. It could be better. There’s a lot of work I’d like to do that I just can’t afford right now.”

“That’s too bad. Everything looks wonderful. And the smell in here is heavenly.”

That ekes a smile out of me. I love the way this place smells, too. It’s my favorite thing about it. I can only eat so many pastries and so much bread, but I can smell dough and yeast all day and never get tired of it. “I’ll tell you what,” I say. “When I go back to get the bread, you want to come along? I can show you the behind-the-scenes scoop.”