Queen of Hearts, page 4
“Yeah, I noticed she was a little handsy.” Eli’s shoulders shake as he laughs, glancing over to our table where she’s obviously gushing about me with another actress, whose face I recognize, but the name escapes me.
“A little?” I scoff as I order another scotch at the bar, where we’re perched. I quickly knock it back and tap my hands on the counter for another. “If I didn’t know she was from Fort Windermere I would have sworn she was some Hindu goddess, desperate to make me worship at her altar.”
Every time I tried to move away it was like she grew another pair of hands. Hands that just kept stroking, and grabbing and pulling at me like she was trying to climb into my tux with me. Her lips against my skin as she whispered filthy things in my ear, despite Elijah being sat right next to us.
Eli gives her another look over, this one more appreciative as a flash of interest in his black eyes. “Hey man, don’t knock it. Magic hands are always a bonus in my book.”
“Yeah, well maybe you should dance with her then.” I really didn’t want to. I mean, I would, because I was a gentleman and it was all part of the persona of Julian Asaro, lawyer, philanthropist, and spokesperson for the city. Plus, it would look good in the gossip columns tomorrow, even if that reporter Oliver Staddon didn’t know his ass from his elbow when he wrote about me. I guess I should be a little more grateful, since his articles seemed to imply I was a soft hearted man holding out for the ‘one’, rather than the truth which was I only had casual sex complete with signed NDA’s because I had a mafia organization to run and an insane jilted teen bride stalking me.
“She isn’t my date, and as you already pointed out-—I’m here to work.” Handing me a glass of soda water, he gives me a look. One that says ‘You’re here to work too, lay off the whiskey.’
“Fuck you,” I growl under my breath as I accept the glass, even though the shit tastes like TV static and sadness.
Taking a deep breath, I turn towards a group of politicians a few feet away from us when one of them calls my name. “Gentlemen, a pleasure to see you all here this evening. And for such a great cause!”
And so, the schmoozing continues. I spend the next two hours shaking hands and talking to what feels like every single person in this room between food courses and drinks. My cheeks have been kissed, my back slapped, my hands have been shaken so much they now just move up and down on their own. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing at awful jokes, but this is who I am and what I do. And I do it excellently.
It isn’t until the dancing begins that I realize I can’t find Maddison and Eli has done his usual thing of vanishing into the shadows, trying to avoid socializing. Bastard. I suppose that lets me off the hook from the dancefloor for a while as I meander through the crowd back to the bar, letting out a small sigh as I manage to polish off another scotch without Eli breathing down my neck.
As I sit nursing a second sneaky glass, a petite brunette approaches me with a small smile. She’s wearing a black strapless gown that hugs her ample figure, her cleavage inviting and decorated with gold chains that drape from a thick solid gold choker, across her collarbone and down over her bare shoulders. Her mask is the opposite to mine, but equally elegant in black with gold filigree embellishments. We look like a couple, like the embodiment of yin and yang, as she takes a seat at the bar beside me.
“Excuse me.” Her voice is gentle and soothing, something about it echoes in my mind. “I hope you don’t mind but your date had to step out and take a phone call, something about a new casting?”
I blink, privately relieved. “Oh, thank you for letting me know.”
Looking up at me with big brown eyes, she bites down on her bottom lip nervously. The pink flesh is darker and swollen when she finally releases it. “Would you like to dance? I mean, just while your date is…otherwise occupied? I’m not sure if she’s territorial over you, so I thought I would ask now, while I have the opportunity.”
She grins and something about that makes me relax. Her gorgeous body doesn’t hurt either. Maybe she’d be willing to fill in a non-disclosure and come home with me tonight? That is, if I could get Maddison to give up on her insane quest to get her feet under my table.
“Have you been waiting for her to leave before you approached?” I tease, enjoying the way she nudges me with a soft laugh.
Offering her my arm, I lead us to the dancefloor where I don’t hesitate to bring her into my chest and begin swaying us to the hypnotic medley the orchestra is playing. She smells like roses and cherries, there’s a hint of cinnamon clinging to soft skin as I hold her in my arms.
We dance in silence, one song morphing into the next but I’m unwilling to end it yet. As the next song begins, I spin her out and pull her back into me once again, like she belonged with me. She throws her head back and laughs, and it makes my chest tighten. There’s something oddly familiar about the small woman in my arms, something that feels like I’ve done this before. “Do I know you?”
“Hmmm, I don’t know. Do you?” She tilts her head, and it’s like it’s there. On the periphery. Just out of reach.
She reminds me of that night. The smell of roses. The cinnamon. The little laugh. I spin her around, watching her carefully before putting my hands back on her waist. “You remind me of someone…but she was blonde. With green eyes.”
“All things that can be easily changed Jay.” Her voice is smoother now, less innocent as she pulls me closer. “Besides, I noticed you have a preference for brunettes and I wasn’t sure you’d dance with me otherwise.”
We’re now dancing so close to one another that we’re practically inches away from making out in front of all of Newtown’s elite.
“Rosie?” I hiss, tightening my grip on her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Awh, is that any way to greet your ex-fiancé?” Her warmth breath tingles, skirting over my skin as she looks up at me, and it’s killing me that half of her face is hidden by a stupid mask. Ten years. It’s been ten years since that young girl in the garden had vanished, and now I wanted to see the depraved monster left behind. The one I helped create.
“My homicidal, insane ex, you mean? Besides, I’m not sure you even qualify as my ex. We didn’t exactly know each other all that well.” My voice is dripping with sarcasm, I hate being caught on the backfoot, unaware and that’s exactly what she’d done. Why was it that I could run an entire empire in the shadowy depths of this city, under the noses of almost everyone in this room, and yet I managed to miss the woman in front of me because I was busy staring at her cleavage and her lips?
“Want to change that? I have no qualms about getting to know you more…intimately.” Her tongue darts out, the pink tip swiping over her bottom lip. I’m ashamed and aroused as my dick twitches in my trousers. “I mean, it will suck when I finally get to the top of my list. But we’ll get to make some fond memories before then.”
Ah yes, nothing kills a boner quicker than a reminder that she actually wants to kill me. And yet, I still haven’t let go of her.
The song changes again and we keep dancing. I keep my voice low and I lean in, and whisper against the shell of her ear. “I could have you arrested, hand you over to security.”
She swallows, and I can’t work out if it’s nerves or just because we’re in such close proximity. “For what?”
I step back, twirl her and bring her back in with my eyebrow raised. “For being the Queen of Hearts.”
“And how would you prove it, Jay without giving yourself up at the same time?” The corner of her mouth pulls upwards. “Besides, I think you like this little game we play.”“Don’t be delusional. You’re killing people.” I know I’m frowning now, but I can’t help it. I don’t care who’s watching, I just need to know if she really is as irredeemable as Eli thinks she is.
Pouting, she tries to give me sad eyes. “You don’t like my gifts, Jay?”
“It’s murder.”
“It’s retribution for a massacre.” It’s like a switch has been flipped as she straightens, and leans in closer. Her words are flat and cold. Despite her small stature, she’s still an imposing figure somehow. Her mouth is now pulled straight, smile completely gone, as if she wasn’t just flirting and making jokes two minutes before.
“Rosie…” I try to pull her flush against me, to offer her comfort but she resists.
“It doesn’t seem so unwarranted now, does it,” she hisses before biting on my earlobe sharply, the pain shooting down my neck as I try not to cause a scene or draw attention to us.
It proves pointless a moment later when a fire alarm begins blaring through the ballroom and everyone starts rushing towards the door.
“Ah, time’s up!” She grins brightly, taking a step back and melting into the hysterical crowd. It’s like I was dealing with two different people, I think to myself as I try to follow her. I can’t keep her in my line of sight, her black clothing and height meaning she’s easily swallowed up in the panic.
“What? Wait, Rosie—” I call out, my voice dying out as the alarms blared overhead.
“Jules, we need to get out of here!” Eli grabs my arm and starts pulling me with the crowd towards the door. He looks stressed, as we’re pressed up against so many people, all pushing and shoving despite there being no actual fire in the ballroom. Didn’t they realize we needed to exit calmly?
“Where the fuck have you been?” I shout at him, shaking him off. Frustrated that she’d been here, in my arms, and now in the blink of an eye she was gone again.
“I was with Maddison; she fell down some stairs in the foyer. Reckons she was pushed, so I was waiting with her and hotel security for the ambulance when the fire alarm started going off.” Elijah looks at me, confused as he leads me out a side door, avoiding the circus in the hotel reception. As we jog down an alleyway, he makes a call and minutes later the car pulls up.
He starts checking me over once we are seated, making sure I’m alright before he grabs my chin and turns my head abruptly. “Fuck, what happened? Your ear is bleeding!”
Curling my hand into a tight fist, I grunt. “Rosie Gambino.”
“Fuck.” Eli sinks into his seat, not sure what else there is to say. The Queen of Hearts had been right in my hands, smelling like a freshly baked god-damn pie and I’d let her get away.
Fuck indeed.
Chapter Four
ROSIE
“You did what?!” Lola screeches before she bursts into laughter. “You can’t just go around pushing his dates down stairs!”
I swallow the rest of my wine in two large gulps, “She tripped, Lola. Tripped.”
My best friend snorts. “Yeah. Over your foot.”
We’re in her tiny kitchen, two days after the charity gala and I’m finally filling her in on how my evening went. I would have called her, but I tended not to use my phone very often since I cycled through burner phones quicker than I could count to ten. Besides, it was nice having someone excited to see me when I turned up on their doorstep. There were others, who offered me a bed and place to stay but they did it out of obligation to my parents or the belief that I should be running The Family. Lola wanted me here in her cramped little apartment because she missed me, because she loved me and that…that hurt as much as it lit me up.
The wine is making me morose, so I shake my head and crack an egg into the bowl she just handed me. “Are you going to help me make these cookies or not?”
“Still can’t believe you’ve resorted to terrorizing his dates, Ro.” She shakes her head and pushes aside the magazine we were looking at earlier in which a very sad looking Maddison Miles talks about her ‘traumatic’ evening at the hottest charity event in Newtown. She praises Julian for taking ‘great care’ of her even though I know he left her with the paramedics and did nothing more than send her a basket of fruit afterwards. Lying little toad.
Lola grabs a marker from the drawer as I mix in chocolate chips, and begins sketching out something on a sheet of paper. “And nope, I’m going to watch you make cookies while I make a sign to stick in my window for the creeper across the street.”
I narrowed my eyes at her window and out into the darkness of the building opposite, as if I could see the stalker across the road, which I can’t. But he doesn’t know that. “Why don’t you call the police on him.”
Shrugging, she gives me a small smile. “He’s not bothering me yet, just…watching.”
I keep mixing before I cover the bowl and chill the mix in the fridge as she tapes the giant dick she’s drawn to the window. “Hmmm, so no murder vibes then?”
“Rosie…” Glaring at me over her shoulder, she huffs. “Are you even allowed to ask that? You’re my best friend and you actually murder people.”
I kept very little from Lola because I’d never needed to. When I ran ten years ago, at eighteen years old, I ended up wandering the streets. Alone. Afraid. Covered in blood. I wasn’t even sure if I was in Newtown anymore, and it turned out, I wasn’t. I’d somehow, in a complete haze of grief and rage, made my way to East Point, a city a few hours away. That’s where a bruised and scrawny, twenty-one-year-old Lola found me and took me in. She never asked whose blood I was wearing. Never demanded anything from me. Never made me explain anything. She simply took me as I was, and that was that.
We were best friends, found family—sisters. We even looked alike, both blonde although her eyes were green where mine were blue. And she was tall and leggy, whereas I was shorter and curvier. We milked it when we needed to, whether we used it as a story to lure men in before we robbed them or whether we said it simply to give each other comfort. It didn’t matter. She was the only family I had left.
“People who deserve it,” I remind her as I pour us both another glass of the cheap red wine she bought from the store. One day we’d have enough money to waste on nice wine and fancy glasses to drink from. One day when I took back what was rightfully mine.
“Irrelevant,” she retorts as she grabs her glass and sinks down into the second-hand loveseat she bought at a garage sale a few weeks ago. We spoke about my family, and Julian often, but Lola never mentioned hers. When I wanted to move back here after living in East Point for a few years, she never even blinked. There was no one she had to say goodbye to and no one she talked about. Her only stipulation was that we avoided Aberfalls, and that we never went there and that was just fine by me.
“Do you want cookies or not?”
Watching me wipe down the counters and clean the dishes she tilts her head, thinking about it. “Are you using the cannabutter?”
My baking was legendary in her building and one of her neighbors, a small-time dealer named Brad, had given us some cannabutter last week. I wink. “Nope, saving that for the brownies on the weekend.”
My weekend plans consisted of special brownies, dancing and maybe a hot body to crawl into bed with. For a moment I picture Jay, stripping off his shirt, slowly. One button at a time, all seductive and sexy. The man is built, I could feel it when we danced, his muscles moving under my hands. For a moment I wonder if there’s a way to lure him out with us on Saturday, but I know that’s just wishful thinking. The man’s so upstanding in public I bet he’s never even experienced the nightlife in Newtown, not like he should. He probably just skulks around in the background, making sure his dues are paid and his Captains are behaving.
“Then yes, I want cookies,” Lola grins. She thinks cookies made with the cannabutter taste funky and she has a point. But cookies are quick and easy to make, whereas decent brownies take time, they need to cool down to get that soft gooey center.
“What’s your plan for Asaro now? I think you like him,” she teases in a sing-song voice, blonde curls bouncing as she gives me a little shimmy.
She was much prettier than the other ‘Flowers’ at The Top Hat, and she worked hard, learning new dance routines all the time, taking care of her body. They didn’t deserve her but at least she had the choice not to sell her body there, thanks to the new regulations Jay introduced. It was her business, her body and that’s the way it should always be in this town for women like Lola and me. It’s one of the reasons I’d been able to garner support from others in The Family, I wanted to protect them and I would do anything to ensure they were safe. Julian Asaro was losing men every year, admittedly…it was my fault. But if he’d had the balls and the ability to stop me, then he should, otherwise he was just another weak leader with a soft spot for a pretty face.
“I think you like your stalker,” I snap, tossing a dish towel at her head.
She glances backwards at the window, now partially covered up, the outline of her artistic cock rendering shining through thanks to the street lighting. “He tips well, keeps his hands to himself and makes eye contact instead of staring at my tits. Of course I like him.”
Men like that were usually too good to be true, especially to the dancer in The Top Hat. “Are you sure he’s not dangerous?”
She flashes me a smug expression. “Oh, he’s dangerous, Ro. But so am I.”
We laugh but I feel more settled about it when we finally come to portioning out the cookie dough mix on a baking tray. Lola wasn’t some airhead stripper, and sometimes I had to remind myself of that. She was the one who taught me how to survive on the streets, how to build a life with the scraps we managed to pull together and nothing but our brains. She also wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, and in return for her taking me in, I’d shown her how to handle a knife and a gun like my father had taught me. You wouldn’t want to meet either of us in a dark alley, and yet because of the hair and cute smiles, we were always underestimated.
“Are you really going to kill him?” she asks, voice quieter now. Concerned.
No.
