Beauty and the Barracuda

by Winter, Nikki

  Sighing, she flopped down into her desk chair and did a quick spin before going through mail and notes Alana had written. She stopped upon seeing one in particular.

  James…

  Eye twitching, she crumbled up the note. He just wouldn’t disappear, would he? He had to continuously remind her of what he’d done. He had to make himself seen because he couldn’t seem to grasp that he no longer had a say in what she did and didn’t do. His ego would never allow that. At one point she’d found his commanding nature attractive but now, compared to Sansone, James simply looked like a little boy still chasing his favorite toy car around, attempting to get it back after someone else took it.

  James had never understood rejection and wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of it. Over the years she’d had her fair share of overzealous pricks with too much money and too much time on their hands, but this one rankled her more than most. Why? Because at one point she’d been planning a life with him. She’d thought she had found the thing that little girls dreamed of and grown women searched for. She’d thought she’d found…what she had with Sansone.

  As if materialized from her very thoughts, he came strolling into her office and flopped back on her love seat, completely unaware of the panic currently choking her.

  “Have you noticed,” Sansone questioned mildly, “that Luc and Sammie have been extremely quiet lately?”

  She blinked, trying to find her voice while controlling the inclination to blurt, “I’m in love with you!” What would happen the moment those words left her mouth?

  Heart hammering, Nyssa cleared her throat. “Uh…have they been quiet or have we been having sex in every place imaginable?” There. She’d put them firmly on a neutral subject. Deflection had become her best gift over the course of their ridiculously complicated relationship. She hadn’t let it slip as of yet and she wouldn’t now.

  He grunted. “A little bit of both, methinks.”

  “Now that you mention it,” she said, feeling fully in control of her impulses now, “I haven’t heard Sammie on her radio broadcast lately. I should probably check on her.”

  “And I need to go back to visiting the Trenton home with Luc. I’ve been neglecting my duties lately,” he replied, mentioning the orphanage where Luciano had grown up. He was currently relocating it to a better part of town. Sansone spent a majority of his time there, mentoring the younger kids and donating funds to keep things running like clockwork. Occasionally Nyssa visited with him, enjoying her time with the toddlers, wondering if she’d ever get to the point where she’d be a mother—wondering if she’d be a mother with the man lying next to her.

  The fear of failure held her desires in a chokehold. She’d seen so many relationships fail in their line of work. So many couples who appeared to have it all, just to walk away angry and torn apart. Her own relationship with James served as an example of that very thing. She didn’t want that for her and Sansone. She needed to be sure that this was the end-all, be-all for both herself and Sansone before either of them did damage that couldn’t be repaired.

  “They should really stop avoiding the inevitable and admit that they’re meant for one another,” Sansone stated.

  Nyssa shrugged. “I think they’re scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of the unknown. Neither one of them is sure the other is really all in. It’s keeping them both from crossing over.”

  “Hmm.”

  She caught his stare. “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “That hmm. What was that?”

  He closed his eyes. “It was nothing.”

  “That’s a lie.” Nyssa sat up. “It was definitely something. You never make that noise unless it’s something.”

  “Maybe this time, it was simply a noise.”

  She wasn’t buying it and opened her mouth to tell him that very thing when a soft knock on her office door stopped her.

  Looking up, she found what appeared to be a delivery guy with a bouquet of flowers standing there. “Miss Blackwell?”

  Nyssa shot a questioning glance at Sansone who simply shrugged before she stood and walked toward the doorway. Taking the flowers from him, she said, “Let me get you a tip.”

  He shook his head. “No need, ma’am. It’s already been taken care of.”

  “Oookay…” she replied slowly as he tipped his hat and left her there.

  Turning the small vase about, she looked for a card, and once her eyes landed on one she let out an exasperated breath. “Jesus Christ…”

  Dinner?–James

  A hand reached past her and snatched the small piece of paper. She turned just as Sansone crumbled it. “What part of no is he not understanding?”

  Nyssa sucked in a deep breath. “He’s persistent. That’s been his game since we first met. He sent flowers, candy, whatever he could until I agreed to just have coffee. No matter how many times I refused, it only made him work harder. Part of me believes that’s why he was so successful.” Playing with a few of the petals, she sighed. “I don’t know how long he’s in town or exactly what he’s here for but I can say, in all honesty, that he won’t stop until I agree.” It was true. She knew it like she knew that whatever affection she’d had for him died the day he depreciated what she thought she meant to him.

  But he’d given her something amazing, hadn’t he? Something frightening yet incredible. Something she could never give up, no matter how many times she’d said she would. But she could never truly enjoy it without allowing past insecurities to haunt her. She refused to open a new chapter with Sansone because the last one was still bookmarked. Perhaps it was time to end that.

  “Which will be never.” Sansone snarled, bringing her thoughts to a halt. “He doesn’t get to talk to you. He doesn’t get to look at you. Sometimes we want what we just can’t have.”

  “Logically what you’re saying is right.” She walked away to place the vase on the edge of her desk.

  “But?” he hedged.

  Turning around, she leaned back, folding her arms across her chest. “There shouldn’t be a ‘but’.”

  His jaw worked. “And yet there is, isn’t there?”

  She squeezed her biceps. “But I’m thinking this is one particular battle that has been a long time coming. In the light of day I need to put it to rest.”

  “Why?”

  Nyssa frowned. “Why what?”

  “Why do you need to put something to rest that should already be dead?” He took a step forward.

  “You said it yourself last night. He still has the ability to pull a response out of me.” Rubbing the back of her neck, she added, “I want it to stop. I can’t keep associating this”—Nyssa waved a hand between the two of them—“with that.” She then waved a hand at the flowers.

  “And you need to sit across from him in a steakhouse to make it stop?”

  “I’m sensing tone.”

  “You’re fucking right you’re sensing tone,” he responded. “I want you far, far away from him.”

  “Why are you getting so worked up?”

  “Because I don’t want whatever bullshit he tells you to damage all the progress we’ve made.”

  She blinked as irritationality quickly sparked in her chest. “What you’re saying is that you honestly believe he could make me forget that I crawl into your bed every other night.”

  “That’s not—”

  “What you’re telling me is that he has the ability to completely erase how I spoon-fed you chicken noodle soup just a week ago after you managed to catch a cold because you didn’t listen to me when I told you to stop sleeping with the window open on the nights I’m not there.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “What you’re basically informing me,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, hard, whisper, “is that he can come along, snap his fingers, and I’ll pretend like I never even knew you.”

  Sansone stared at her and she stared back. “What I’m saying,” he retorted softly, “is
that we have an extremely fragile balance taking place. If one side tips too far, we’re uneven again. We both know Luc and Sammie aren’t the only ones struggling with preconceived notions about what their relationship should and shouldn’t be.”

  “And what exactly does that mean?” Nyssa queried, standing straight.

  “I’m not stupid, Nyssa. I know how to read people. You know I know how to read people. I see exactly what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing, then, oh great wise one? Please inform me.” She waved a hand.

  “You’re keeping me at an arm’s length so if things go south, you’re not left picking up the pieces of a shattered public image. It’s easier for you to fuck me behind closed doors than to kiss me on the cheek in the middle of the deli when I remember your favorite sandwich. I can sit with you at a table and have you hold my hand beneath it but you won’t call me anything other than your goddamn partner when some fuck face is across from you, staring at you as though he’s going to stick his hand up your skirt as soon as he gets you alone.” Sansone spread his arms out wide. “That’s what you’re doing.”

  Her eyes narrowed on him as he paced across the room. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I distinctly remember us agreeing to take things slow and keep them quiet.”

  He spun on her. “No. That was your decision. I don’t give a shit who knows we’re together. Only one of us seems to be concerned about that and it’s you.” Sansone began pacing again.

  “Oh, bullshit! You didn’t exactly screech in displeasure when I suggested it.”

  His laugh was hard as he pulled a hand through his hair. “Nyssa, you don’t suggest anything. You demand, you coerce, and you tell, but baby, you never suggest.” He snorted. “And I let you get away with it because pushing you means a fight and a fight means I have to sleep alone, on purpose. Color me uninterested in the prospect of that.”

  “Sansone, you’re acting like I treat you like some dirty little secret.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No!”

  “So then why is it we haven’t told anyone?”

  “Because…”

  “Because…?” he pushed.

  “Because I’m not exactly comfortable with all the changes as of yet. It’s only been a month, a month where I’ve spent the majority of my time with you, so don’t act as if there’s something horribly wrong with the way things are now.”

  “There’s nothing horribly wrong with the way things are now?” Sansone goaded. “Did you seriously just say that?”

  “Sunny—”

  He held up a hand and she stopped. “I have to listen to the goddamn comments other men make about you around the office and I can’t say shit. I have to look at interviews you do for magazines and read the consistent untrue tale that you’re single and I can’t say shit. I have to question when I’ll ever see you just fucking relax while we’re out and I can’t say shit. And do you know why I can’t say anything?” He balled his fists up at his sides as if he were resisting the need to throw something. “Because I’m afraid that if I open my mouth, you’ll flip and I’ll find myself five steps back after having just taken one forward!”

  She stopped at the look in his eyes and simply gazed at him before exhaling. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not about you being sorry, Nyssa. It’s about you being honest. You don’t want anyone knowing because you think that if I leave you, it will hurt a lot less without the added questions and speculation on what happened. For some reason that I still can’t fathom, you refuse to believe me when I say I’m not going anywhere.” He tugged at his hair. “I can’t win for losing with you, and I’m beginning to feel as though it will always be that way.” Sansone dropped his hands. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t help but think that the moment I give you an excuse, you’re going to walk out on me because you’re too afraid to stop being afraid. I’m. Not. James.”

  She wanted to say sorry again. She wanted to kiss him, ask him to take her home. She wanted to get lost the same way they had last night. She wanted to go to sleep with his nose buried in her neck and wake up to him complaining about how she’d stolen all the covers. She wanted to reassure him. But she couldn’t. Nyssa couldn’t look him in the eye and promise she would stop fearing that they’d fall apart because that fear kept her grounded—it kept her from getting too far caught up in a fantasy she’d harbored for as long as she could remember. Things didn’t happen this easy, this smoothly. Fairy tales weren’t real and if she let her guard completely down, dropped everything at his feet, what would she do when he realized there was a fine line between lust and love? What would she say to everyone when Blackwell & Sultana was no more and the man she’d trusted left her heart in her throat?

  So she stood there. She stood there and listened as he told her he needed to go and that he’d see her later. She listened as he sighed when she didn’t respond, heard him when he walked out of her office, and felt her spirit break the tiniest bit after he closed the door behind him. The most deafening sound, though, was the utter silence surrounding her the moment Sansone was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  “What a beautifully shitty morning,” Sansone murmured, turning over to punch his pillow as he tried to block out the screaming in his head and find some semblance of peace so he could go back to sleep. He was starting to remember why he hadn’t gotten trashed since his days on campus. There were just some pains a man couldn’t endure in his thirties. A hangover to end all hangovers was definitely one of them.

  “How much did I drink last night?” He placed a pillow over his face and breathed through his nose until the need to lean over the side of his bed and unleash everything in his stomach dissipated. His state of complete pain could be blamed on no one but himself, and if he were being honest, he’d admit he deserved it.

  Sansone had known he’d stepped in it the moment Nyssa’s office door closed behind him days ago. He was, in essence, a dick. He’d done the one thing he kept swearing he wouldn’t, and he’d left her there with the most hopeless expression on her pretty face. No matter how temporary it may have been, he’d walked out on her instead of helping to assuage the fear in her eyes.

  Sansone had allowed his own insecurities to override the knowledge he was dealing with someone who was astonishingly strong and yet so apprehensive about what the future held for them. Deep down he knew it had absolutely nothing to do with him and everything to do with her need to make sure this was what both of them wanted before they took any more leaps, but it had still burned when she couldn’t tell him she trusted him. He’d wanted her to follow him, to ask him to stay, to do something, and she hadn’t, so with typical male pride he’d kept going. Then he drank himself into the equivalent of a coma once he’d gotten home and stripped before climbing into bed just to wake up naked, cold, and alone. He could officially understand what his brother had felt a month ago when Samara had left Luciano behind to run back to her life in New York. This really fucking hurt.

  His intention was to teach her a lesson about how hard it was for them to be without one another for even a night, and he’d wound up punishing himself. During the last few days, she wouldn’t answer his calls or open the door for him when he went by her place. Now all he really wanted to do was curl up and let alcohol eat at his insides until he could roll out of bed, square his shoulders, and go in search of forgiveness from his cara. God, if that fucker Luciano could see him now…

  Sansone sighed and rolled over, attempting to find a spot on his sheets that didn’t smell like Nyssa and failing miserably. He’d have to deal with it or wash them, and he doubted the latter option would help. So there he lay, starting to doze.

  And that’s when one huge, ham-handed bastard with too-wide shoulders and the feet of a fairytale character came barreling into his room, belting out the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

  Sansone rolled from the bed and hit the floor in a tangle of sheets, only to pop back up seconds later. “Jesus H!”

  �
�Gah!” Luciano covered his eyes. “I’m blind!”

  “Luc?” Sansone roared. “How the fuck did you even get in here?” He kept changing the locks and the asshole kept getting past them!

  “The same way I always get in.” He motioned to his sibling’s form. “When did you become a nudist?”

  His lip curled. “My home, my naked. Don’t like it? Stop strolling in here like we’re sharing the mortgage every month.”

  “You don’t even have a mortgage.”

  “That’s not the point, you giant asshole!” He was not in the mood for this shit! Where was baby Jesus when Sansone needed him?

  “Look, you get that clothed”—Luciano waved a hand toward the door, careful to keep his eyes closed—“and I’ll make breakfast while getting right with Jesus.”

  Sansone snorted. “Wouldn’t your reigning master, Satan, take issue with that?”

  Flipping him the bird, Luciano walked out, calling over his shoulder, “At least my master knows I’m alive. When’s the last time Nyssa took time out of her day to actually acknowledge the fact you breathe her air?”

  Irritation burned in Sansone’s chest. He wanted to say that not only did Nyssa take time to acknowledge his inhales but that most of her gasps were caused by him. Instead he just retorted, “Low blow, Luc! Low fucking blow!”

  His brother’s laughter greeted him, and he snarled before snatching up his sheets and tossing them on the bed. Heading for the shower, he muttered how many different ways he was going to finally murder his sibling and get away with it. “Giant, goddamn, mouth-guard-wearing, over-bearing, sneaky, egotistical dick-face.”

  Sansone stood under the spray until he felt human again and then reached for the first bottle of body wash he could grab—which landed him with an eye full of some shit that smelled like lavender.