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Chapter 9
Angelina
Hewasdistantonour date. I couldn't ignore that fact. It was blaring at me like a Las Vegas sign. This was the first thing that I thought of when my eyes opened. Sure, I was in a mansion and pretending to be a fiance. I should have just embraced the adventure. But at the same time, those little subtle cues from Tomaso reminded me that everything in my life was unreal. We could not keep up the charade forever.
I laid in bed for a good while. I could smell the bacon downstairs. I could smell the eggs as well. The perfect breakfast in the center of a world that could come crumbling down at any moment. It was like being on some sort of Hollywood set. I was playing a character, yet I had feelings for the character across from me. How could that be? How did I get to the point that I was at? I just didn't know why it had to be so complicated. Why did we need to go on a real date? Why did I have to have real feelings for a man to who I was only supposed to be attached on paper?
The sun was shining outside of the window. Just like the breakfast downstairs was perfect, the weather was also. I shouldn't have been upset. I shouldn't have been questioning things. What I should have been doing was going with the flow. But I guess when you want something to be perfect, and all you think about is losing something that you really like, you start to overanalyze.
Because of this, I forced myself out of bed. I needed some activity. A distraction would have been great. But of course, as I got out of bed, I spotted Tomaso's shoes by the closet. I spotted his pants draped over the chair in the bedroom. And when I went into the bathroom, his razor was out, and there was no avoiding the man, given the fact that I was in his home. This wasn't going to be easy. The situation I was in was going to give me a headache.
If my stomach was growling, I would have stayed up in the bedroom for a bit more just to try to wrangle the thing sitting irritably in my skull. There was no time to sit around and be scared of facing what I was feeling. I went downstairs and bit the bullet.
At the stove was Tomaso, topless, in pajama pants, muscled back. It was a site that was just as delicious as the smell of him cooking breakfast. God, how I just wanted that for my future. But in the back of my head, it kept telling me we couldn't keep the charade up forever. It was almost like it was that traditional scene you'd see in every show, one demon on one shoulder and one angel on the other. This battle was going on in my brain over how I should act and think. As he served me breakfast that morning, I looked up at him the second the plate hit the table and started a drama I probably didn't need to start. I always believed that if you had a fear, you needed to face it head-on without beating around the bush. And this is what I was doing.
"This whole contract thing, you know we're not going to be able to keep it up forever. So what are we doing about this end date?" The words came out of my mouth so fast that they almost jumbled together.
His fingers had barely left the plate as I had finished saying what I said. It was almost comical to see his face. Caught off guard was an understatement. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened a bit. Clearly, he was taken aback. But oh well. That wasn’t my problem. My problem was navigating the tricky waters of whatever our contract entailed. It sucked, and I wanted it to suck for him too. Because if he wanted to close up and sew the seeds of being distant, then two could play that game. I sat in my discomfort. I allowed myself to feel the tension because I knew he was a pro at dealing with that stuff. I would bring the heat if he wanted me to play, stay in his life, and live by his rules. Maybe I was getting too cocky in my head, but whatever. The situation that I was in kind of called for it.
A long pause rested, unfordable, on his face while I guess he wondered how to respond. I found it amusing that it took him so long. It made me feel like I was the mafioso for a second. Wasn’t he supposed to be the big and tough mafioso who never got rattled? Yet there I was, rattling the cages like the bad girl I was.
“I’ll pick an end date eventually,” he said right before he took his plate from the counter and brought it to the table to sit across from mine. As I tried to control my irritation towards his answer, I peeped at how he had two extra pieces of bacon on his plate and many more eggs than I had.
“Gave yourself more food than me, huh?”
His eyes left his plate and cut their way toward mine. His jaw had also stiffened in what had to be some level of anger. “You’re really pushy this morning, aren’t you? What’s the issue?”
“I signed an opened ended contract to be your fiancee with some really vague terms and promise of having an end date. We’re in this now, I still haven’t met your father, and frankly, I don’t like how I feel like I can trust you one minute, and then the next, I’m dealing with being closed off.”
“When the fuck did I close up?”
“Watch your tone.” The way my words flew out of my mouth made me proud. I enjoyed that I could hang toe to toe with him. This wasn’t me being immature. It was my understanding of what needed to be done at this moment.
He looked down at his plate like a scorned child at the dinner table. He didn’t need to wear that look. He could have barked right back at me. He could be intimidating if he wanted to be. But not with me, I guess. And I was okay with that. I appreciated that he respected me. “Listen, Angelina. I don’t have a date in mind.” He finally looked at me. “I’m not looking to swindle you or anything like that. The truth is, this situation is fluid. We’ve barely even gotten our feet wet with it yet. You haven’t even met my father. Once we get all of that going, then I can imagine a clear ending.”
A clear ending. Did he mean that? What I had discovered while sitting there was that my entire rationale for bringing all of that up and poking the bear was to see whether or not he was in this for just the contract or if he was in this for a future with me. And hearing thatclear endingterm, man, that was a bitter pill to swallow. I was just at the other end of his contract. At the end of the day, I was nothing more than a fake fiancee. And it stung. Maybe just maybe, I was wrong and once again overanalyzing. But I don’t know. When something feels too good to be true, it usually is. I had begun to see the writing on the wall with Tomaso, our spark, and everything in between; all I could do was hope I was wrong about it. Was hope foolish in a situation like mine? I wasn’t really sure. That was the thing about hope. You would be a fool if it didn’t pay off. But you were a genius if it did.
In any case, I sat there and shoveled my food into my mouth. If he was one thing aside from being sexy and complicated, he was a good cook. And I wasn’t sure why, but knowing that little fact pushed him away even worse. I guess it was because it made him even more of a catch. I didn’t want to lose him or what I had with him. It all made me feel small, like a needy little girl.
“I didn’t give you as much food as me because I didn’t want to make you feel fat.”
I looked up at Tomaso. “What?”
He let out a little sigh. “My mother once told me that if I were to ever serve a woman a meal, make sure the portion is less than mine. It sounds stupid, but I remember little things like that.”
I held back a smile, which must have rested on my face like a smirk. My cheeks were also warm and must have been red. It was just so damn cute to me that he cared in such a way. It was also cute that he listened to his mother like that. " Well, I appreciate that. I don't feel fat now."
He chuckled and continued to eat his breakfast. Once again, I felt teased. Cute little moments like that were going to be fleeting. They weren't something that I could get used to. As much as I wanted to. I knew I was on borrowed time with this man.
This also didn't stop me from asking the all-important question, "When am I going to meet your father, by the way? Because every day that I don't, I think about it. And it makes me nervous."
He looked at me while chewing. Once he swallowed, he responded with, "Why does it make you nervous?"
I shrugged. "Because it's pressure. I have to pretend to be a fiancee. I've never been a fiance or spoken to someone in the mafia other than you. And, on top of all that, it's a level of acting."
"You just have to pretend that we're actually together. Just pretend we're in this kitchen by ourselves, like right now."
I paused. When I was going to say next. Probably wasn't necessary, but it was necessary to me. "But aren't we acting and faking right now? We're just co-workers, essentially, right?"
