Page 85 of Fight Me Little Pearl
“Well, I’m not-”
“I can’t allow that,” Vance says coldly. “La Signora Barone won’t be going anywhere with you.”
“Excuse you.” I glare at him. “You do not speak for me.”
“You’re right,” Vance answers unapologetically. “I speak for Signore Barone when I say this. You can’t go with this man.”
I had been about to politely turn Federico’s invitation down, but the high-handed way Vance spoke to me made me quite angry. It reminded me of the way my father used to speak to me.
“Where would you like us to go, Federico?”
“Call me Rico, please.” He chuckles. “Federico is such a tongue twister. I don't even call myself that.”
I laugh. “Rico it is then.”
“Thank you,” he says. “Valentino has a lot of bars in town. Let’s go to one of his properties so he won’t get mad. That way you’ll be protected at all times.”
Everyone is walking on eggshells around my husband. It’s funny in a morbid sort of way. “Yes, I’d love to go. I’ve never been to any of his bars.”
Federico’s eyebrows rise enquiringly. “He doesn’t let you?”
“My husband doesn’t stop me from doing anything.” I glance pointedly at Vance, who stares back unflinchingly. I see why Valentino likes him. He’s annoyingly good at his job.
“Good. Then we have nothing to be afraid of.”
Federico grins at Vance. Vance doesn’t respond, but there’s a look on his face that says he won’t let the outing happen. I’m interested in seeing just how he plans to stop me.
“Excuse me.” Federico pushes his chair back. “Just need to use the bathroom quickly.”
“Sure. You know the way.”
“Down the hall.” Federico grins, sets his phone on the table, and hurries away.
I feel Vance’s gaze on me like a heavy blanket as I turn my attention back to my food. It is then that I hear a muffled noise. The sound is coming from Federico’s phone. He had accidentally left a video playing on his phone.
I’m about to look away when I hear Valentino’s name called. The phone’s volume is muffled, but it’s not far away from me, so I’m certain I heard it. I lift my head and look at the screen, but I can’t make out the details of the moving images as the device is angled away from me. Then I hear my husband’s name spoken by a woman’s voice again and damn the consequences, I reach for the phone.
My fork drops from my fingers as I register what I’m watching on the screen. In the dim, seductive lighting of a small room, Valentino is sitting on a leather chair. He is wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves are rolled up his muscled forearms. He looks sexy and handsome, but that’s not what my eyes are riveted on.
There’s a gorgeous, almost-naked lady dancing over him. She writhes like a snake on top of him, pushing her breasts close to his face and sinking her face so close to his crotch she is almost giving him a blowjob. The breath whooshes out of me when she arches her hips into his crotch and then lowers her head towards his face. She has a long mane of hair, so I can’t tell if she actually kissed him or not, but judging from how seductive the dance is, I can imagine they must have fucked afterwards.
Obviously, I’m not a man, but even as a woman, I can see that this hussy and her moves are sexy. There’s no way Valentino wouldn’t have thought that too. He’s an extremely sexual man, and the slut obviously wants him badly.
A voice next to me pierces through the protective walls I’m erecting around me. “Please, La Signora Barone, put the phone down.”
I turn to see Vance’s unsmiling face. I look at him and the horror in my body must have shown on his face because he stands suddenly. I feel as if I have fallen from a cliff edge into a dark abyss. This is my father all over again. My hands are shaking as I hold the phone out to him.
“Would you like to watch?”
“Put the phone down, La Signora Barone.”
“Of course, you’re right.” I hit pause and set the phone back on the table, angling it the way Federico left it so he wouldn’t know I touched it at all. I look at my food. It has gone cold. The cheese is a congealed yellow blob. “Don’t tell Rico,” Iwhisper shakily. “It was rude of me to look at his phone without permission.”
Vance doesn’t respond. He just stands there as still as a statue behind me.
A smiling Federico returns seconds later. “I bet my food is already cold,” he says, lowering himself onto his chair.
I raise my head and try to smile, but it is impossible. My heart is breaking. There is an explanation. Of course there is. This must have happened before I came on the scene. But there is no respite in that random explanation. Valentino was wearing his wedding ring in that video.
