“I tried to close my eyes, Arciero.” Yakov grinned, making fun of the entire situation. Curtis was furious.There had to be something I could say to explain why I was at the same table with the man he warned me about and why I didn’t tell him I was coming here. It didn’t seem like it but there wasn’t any situation I couldn’t get myself out of—I was a professional liar, for heaven’s sake. But seeing him standing there, obviously battling the urge to punch Yakov in the face and drag me out of there had my brain short-wired. I couldn’t string two words together.Was there any chance the floor could open up and swallow me alive?I didn’t wait for him to drag me out. I walked over to him, trying my best to remain silent in case I said something that would make things much worse.Any hope that we could forget about what he just witnessed flew out through the window as soon as we got to his office and he locked the door behind us. “Explain.”I could have made something up about wanting to pl
Curtis“Don’t forget the chocolates. That’s the best part of a picnic.” I heard Mother say on my way downstairs. In the living room, Angelica was packing a picnic basket of some sort. She stopped when she saw me and wiped her hands on her dress.“Where are you two going?” I asked, taking a peek into the basket. I wanted nothing more than to steal one of the cookies packed in a transparent cookie box but Angelica and I weren’t exactly in talking terms right now.“On a picnic.” Mother answered. “Do you want to come along? It will be fun, I promise. We baked your favorite cupcakes.”While that was tempting, I had a better idea about where to go if they wanted to go out. “I’ll drive.” I offered.“You don’t need to.” Angelica was quick to say. “We are only going to the garden.”“I have a better idea.”I picked up my keys. The two exchanged glances before Angelica picked up the basket and left the picnic blankets on the couch. We wouldn’t need them.Mother was first to take the backseat and
Angelica “Angel, your ring is so pretty.” A little girl said to me, touching my ring finger with her own little one. She had just introduced herself as Sasha. “Thank you. Do you want to try it on?” I asked. I had caught her staring a few times with interest and when she heard my suggestion, her eyes lit up and she nodded excitedly. I slid my ring off and onto her thumb. Her smile made my heart melt. Soon, all the kids were surrounding us to check it out. The next thing I knew, I had flowers in my hair. “You look just like Rapunzel.” A little girl gasped. “Rapunzel has blond hair, Amber. Angel’s is black.” Sasha corrected her. “Angel looks like an angel.” Another girl said, and soon I was being called a princess, a model, an angel, and every compliment in the kids’ dictionary. “You’re all so adorable.” I squeezed the closest of them into a hug. I didn’t realize how much I loved kids until I started meeting so many of them. “Will you stay with us?” A little boy asked. I couldn’
Curtis We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We hungrily explored each other’sbodiesy. My cock was throbbing. I couldn’t wait to bury myself into her wet, sweetness but first, I wanted to taste her. I threw her onto the bed and she bounced against the mattress with a slight giggle as I climbed on after her. Her jeans were taking ages to get off. “You are not allowed to wear such inconvenient clothes anymore.” She playfully scoffed. “Sure, bossman. I’m only allowed to wear little dresses that give you easy access. Am I allowed to wear panties?” “I would prefer if you don’t.” I lifted her hips to get off her jeans and my cock twitched at the sight of how soaked her white cotton panties were. “On second thought, I don’t want anyone getting to smell the sweet scent of your arousal.” I parted her legs and buried my head between them, grazing her through her panties. She arched her back. “Curtis, please.”“Please what, baby?” I yanked her jeans out the rest of the way and nudged
Curtis “Who?” She frowned at me like I was asking her something that should have been obvious. For a moment, she looked like she was going to go on a rant. Then she smiled and shrugged it off. “Forget it. Are you hungry? Angelica made extra vanilla cupcakes earlier.” I was indeed hungry, and I also knew Mother wasn’t one to change her mind. If she had decided not to tell me who she was talking about, she wouldn’t tell me even if I nagged her about it. So I grabbed one of the cupcakes instead. One bite and I decided to grab a few more and take them with me. The only thing as sweet as Angelica was food made by her. The cupcakes had what most pastry lovers would think was way too little sugar but she managed to make them tasty. Mother was watching me devour the first one, then the second. When she couldn’t hold her tongue anymore, she said, “She decided not to go along with the measurements she always uses so you would enjoy them too. She was thinking about you.”“It’s just a cupcake
AngelicaFor hours after Curtis left, I scoured my copies of the Arciero book of records—at least the ones I could understand with the help of translation dictionaries. It was strange. They had to be a hundred tasks but none of them had anything to do with Curtis or Giancarlo.He had mentioned having nothing to do with his family business before but I had taken it as him finding excuses to extract himself from them. Now, I couldn’t be so sure. I couldn’t help wondering what else I could have assumed he was lying about just because the truth didn’t sound very believable.Before I could sink into a rabbit hole of overanalyzing every word he had ever said, I reminded myself I didn’t have access to every record yet. Maybe everything he did for the family businesses was recorded in the other languages. Now that I was certain who called the shots, I only needed to ask him who wrote the records—if only he could speak.It was great that he was suffering but I wished he was able to give me all
“Are you done?” Spider met me at the door just as I got out. I glanced at the huge clock on the hallway wall with a frown.“You said I had thirty minutes. It’s only been ten.”He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the changing room. “We need to talk. Get changed.”All I had to do was take off the scrubs so I grabbed the hem and pulled them off, and shrugged at him. “I’m not putting these back where I found them for obvious reasons. I’ll dispose of them instead.”He scoffed. “How cautious of you. You know what’s crazy? You are overly cautious when there's really no need to be, but you are too lax about things that require your caution.”“What things?” I wondered.He grabbed my arm to drag me out of the hospital. Once we were a safe distance away and he had checked to ensure he had not missed any part of the footage, he turned to face me just as I ditched the scrubs, mask and gloves into the nearest trash bin.“What the hell is going on with you? On one hand, you get too close to Cur
Curtis“How soon do you think he’s going to stay alive?” Giancarlo asked out of the blue, pulling me out of my thoughts yet again.He was talking about our father.“I don’t know.” I had not been to the hospital again but the last time I was there, his condition seemed stable. He seemed like he would be able to recover from his injuries.“I wish he just died.” He grumbled, but then his expression fell as he fell into deep thought. Whatever he had just thought about was probably exactly how I felt about this whole situation.Unlike in loving families where everyone would be sad right now, I felt nothing. I hated my father for everything he did to us growing up and everything he made me do, his impending death did not make me feel anything. I wasn’t sad about losing him but I wasn’t excited either. It felt like closing a book I was done reading. Except, I would not revisit this particular book.“Are you going to visit him?” I asked.He considered my words for a while before his lips twit