“Well, I watch Animal Planet, too, and you don’t see me chasing rabbits around or laying eggs in the sand, do you?” Milene says without taking her eyes off the screen. “Are you going to dictate what I watch now?”
“Maybe.” I don’t give a f*ck what she watches, but I quite enjoy rattling her cage.
Milene co*cks her head to the side and arches an eyebrow at me. “Is that some compulsion? Ordering people around just because and expecting them to dance to your tune?”
“It’s how things work around here, Milene.”
“So, you say jump and people ask how high?”
“Pretty much.”
She scrunches her nose. “Your life must be a really boring endeavor.”
Yes. I never realized just how much until she barged in and made a mess of my entire existence.
“Grab your purse,” I say.
“I don’t need a purse for lounging on the couch.”
“We’re going to have a look at one of the lots I bought.”
“Not interested. But thanks for the invite.” She throws a placating smile at me and shifts her attention back to the TV.
I straighten and walk toward the couch. Milene pretends she doesn’t notice me when I stop in front of her. I bend, grab her around the waist, and lift her onto my shoulder.
“What the f*ck!” she yelps. “Put me down!”
Ignoring her protests, I head toward the front door. I want to spend time with her, and she has no say in it.
“You controlling, rude, overbearing asshat . . .” She rattles on with her insults, while she pounds on my back with her fists. It’s . . . quite amusing.
I carry her toward the elevator and get in.
“. . . absolutely no care whatsoever about other people’s wants . . .”
I hit the button for the garage.
“. . . find a therapist who’ll help you with your issues . . .”
The elevator dings when we reach the underground level. I step out and pivot toward my car as another vehicle parks next to mine, and Nino gets out.
Milene continues to babble, “. . . a f*cking Neanderthal with zero . . .”
I pass my head of security—who stares at us with his mouth agape—open the passenger door, and deposit my wife onto the seat.
“Put on your seat belt, Milene.”
She tilts her face up and presses her lips together, then gives me the middle finger. I close her door and walk around the hood to get into the driver’s seat. Milene is sitting with her arms crossed, staring through the windshield at the concrete wall.
“Milene,” I say.
She snorts.
Reaching over, I grab her chin and turn her head. We stare at each other for almost a minute. The defiance in her eyes turns me on so f*cking much. I don’t want to break her spirit because I enjoy the ways in which she tries to defy me. But she needs to understand there is a leader in every pack. And in this particular menagerie, that would be me.
“Seat belt,” I whisper.
Milene exhales through her nose, reaches for the seat belt, and tries three times before she finds the buckle. She is still looking at me, her eyes boring into mine. I move my thumb to lightly brush the line of her lower lip, then lean away and start the car.
I turn around, looking over the green expanse as far as my gaze can reach. The vast field is surrounded by trees on three sides. It’s beautiful.
“I thought you said you bought a lot,” I say, “not half of the state.”
“I bought several. I still haven’t decided what I want to build on this one, so I’m acquiring all the available land. Just in case.” He takes my hand and leads me back to the car. “Are you hungry?”
I expected the lot he mentioned to be somewhere in the city, but we drove two hours to reach it.
“I’m starving,” I mumble, looking down at our intertwined fingers. I should pull my hand away. But I don’t.
“There’s a restaurant twenty minutes from here,” he says as he opens the passenger door for me. “I eat there when I come this way.”
“Some posh place, I presume?” I ask when he starts the car.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
I gape at him. “I’m in f*cking jean shorts, Salvatore. Even if they let us in, everyone will stare.”
He gives me one of those pinning looks of his, then reaches for his phone and calls someone.
“Jonathan,” he says into the phone, “I’m coming for a lunch with my wife in fifteen minutes. We don’t want to be disturbed.”
He doesn’t wait for the person on the other end to reply, just ends the call and throws the phone onto the dash. Rude much? And what will this Jonathan guy do, anyway? I assume he’s the manager.
I shake my head and train my eyes on the road in front of us. “You have a very strange way of handling phone calls.”
“How so?”
“What happened with ‘Hello, how’s your day?’ or ‘How are you?’ You know, common courtesy.”
During the two-hour drive over here, his phone rang at least seven times. With each one, he said exactly two words: “yes” when he took the call, and then either “yes” or “no” after listening to the person on the other end of the line. He’d cut the call right afterward.
“I don’t care how they are or how their day is going, Milene.”
I turn my head and stare at him. I kind of assumed that was the case, but I didn’t expect him to be so blunt and admit it. “You are one exceptionally rude person.”
“What I am, is uninterested.”
“Uninterested.” I nod. He’s absolutely nuts. “About the people who work for you, or people in general?”
“In general. With one exception,” he says and levels me with that unnerving gaze of his. “You.”
I blink in confusion and quickly avert my eyes. Should I be flattered or terrified?
Probably both.
* * *
“Whoa.” I stop in my tracks as we pass through the restaurant’s rear French doors.
The place is situated near the edge of a forest. It’s a big one-story colonial style mansion. What leaves me speechless, however, is a huge garden in the center, placed under an enormous iron dome covered with vines and greenery. The tables and chairs are all done in white wood, with flowerpots scattered around to create a jungle-like aesthetic. It’s magnificent. And completely empty of people, excluding the manager who greeted us at the doors.
Based on the size of the parking lot and the number of tables, the place can accommodate more than a hundred people. It’s lunch time. How come there is not even one table occupied?
Salvatore’s hand lands on the small of my back as he ushers me toward a table on the side of the garden area, set next to a lemon tree planted in a red terracotta pot. He pulls out the chair for me and takes a seat opposite.
“Is something wrong with their business?” I ask in a quiet voice.
“No. Why?”
“Well, I’m under the impression you need guests to run a restaurant business.”
“They have more customers than they can handle,” Salvatore says and takes the menus the waiter brought. “What do you want to drink?”
“Lemonade.”
