His Dirty Demands

by Fiona Murphy

  “Wow, time-out on the worst-case scenario. Maybe you’re the game changer he’s been waiting for? I have never known the man you described. I mean look at you, you weren’t looking to switch jobs. You were all content buried in your safe place, but a salary to die for and a chance to do something different changed you. People change. Eventually they get tired of being confined by their past; maybe Cesare is too. What would it hurt to try?”

  As I hang up I wonder. What would it hurt to try? Except I can’t stop thinking it would hurt as badly as falling from the top of the Sabatini building.

  5

  Alicia

  I swear the clock is going backward every time I check it. At least Jeanine hasn’t brought up what we talked about last night. Although I shriveled when the first time I saw Cesare, he looked right through me as if I wasn’t even there. The fucker didn’t even acknowledge me. Then it happened again as he came back from lunch. It hurt, and it pissed me off. I don’t have the best temper—Bethany often calls me a bear once I’ve been set off. I’m at my absolute worst before coffee in the morning. Bethany has learned to, as she said, not poke the bear before I’ve had coffee.

  Is that why at seven fifty-eight, as I watch the seconds tick fast on my watch, I’m in the peach dress? I wrap myself in a faux-fur coat that covers me from neck to ankle to hide the dress until the last possible moment. Did Cesare’s ignoring me poke my bear, and now I’m ready to poke back? I jump at the ringing phone. It’s the driver. I let him know I’ll be right down. I’m not in heels higher than two inches, only because I can’t walk in those things. Taking a deep breath, with a goodbye to Grover I lock my door.

  The driver is different than the last time. He’s out of the car, holding my door open for me. I slide into the limo, glad to feel the warmth after the frigid cold of the night. I want to kick myself for the way my heart starts beating faster, and those damn bees start buzzing as I slip into the car. The back of a limo usually feels roomy, but not with Cesare in it—his presence fills every inch.

  I fight a shiver as I feel his eyes run over me, grateful he cannot see below the coat. My hair is in a tight bun, mainly because I was all thumbs and after trying to get it to go into soft waves nothing else looked good. He nods, then his deep voice startles me with a single word. “Seat belt.”

  Numb hands struggle to fasten my seat belt. We’re barely five minutes from my apartment when his phone rings. “Hello.”

  A woman’s voice can be heard clearly. “Hi, is this Cesare Sabatini?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, this is Monica. I’m uh, I guess you could say the entertainment Rodney ordered for the night. Except he started early. He’s so drunk the guy can hardly stand. He kept talking about this dinner like it was really important, but I have to warn you he is not up to it. He passed out in the shower when he was trying to get ready.”

  Cesare’s jaw tightens. “Thank you for informing me of Rodney’s status. Have a good night.” He rolls his shoulders as he cracks his neck. Then his eyes are on me. “It would appear Mr. Billings is not up to dinner. However, I am still hungry. I’ll leave it up to you. Would you like me to have Daniel return you home for the evening or continue on to the restaurant?”

  The coward in me votes to run back home, but my stupid stomach growls loudly. I hadn’t been able to eat a full meal all day. He chuckles. “Dinner?”

  I nod, shaken by the way my stomach flips in response to his chuckle.

  Only a few minutes later the car comes to a stop. Seconds later the door is open, and Daniel offers his hand to help me out of the car. I need it as my legs are wobbly. The cold propels me toward the bright lights of the front of the restaurant. Porters is a place I’ve read about. However, I’ve never been here. A woman offers to take my coat. Without thinking, I nod then untie it and undo the five large buttons.

  Once it’s off, I give it to the woman. Is that a growl? I turn to Cesare and I’m enveloped in a wildfire burning out of control. Cesare’s eyes are blacker than black, his face is still, yet savage anger emanates from him in waves that crash into me. A fear I can’t name has me stepping back from him. He sees it, and his jaw tightens. He blinks, and it’s gone, and I’m cold to my core.

  “Miss?” The hostess is waiting, looking from me to Cesare.

  “Sorry,” I whisper as I move to follow. Yet I feel like I should be saying it to Cesare, and I don’t even know what for.

  We’re seated in a very private corner in the back half of the restaurant. I thank the woman for the menu then stare at it blankly. Cesare says something in a murmur I barely take in. It’s coming, I can feel it, it weighs down every second. The sound of a match striking and flaring brings my head up. Cesare is lighting a cigar.

  “You can’t do that in here.” A lone eyebrow goes up as he taps the end into an ashtray in front of him. “You are so rude. I don’t want to breathe that crap in. If you want to kill yourself, at least leave me out of it.” Still nothing except another drag on the cancer stick.

  It’s still there, the weight of the words I know he’s holding back. I can’t take it anymore. “Fine, say it, damn it.” I want to slap him when his only answer is the brief rise of an eyebrow, again. “I know you have something to say about the way I’m dressed, so just fucking say it already.” Nothing except another drag of the cigar. I hate the way I don’t feel like gagging to make my point.

  “Okay, fuck it, I’m out of here. I agreed to a business meeting, not to being looked down on and ushered to death with second-hand smoke from you. I’d rather have the tuna fish waiting at home for me.” I push up from the table, emotions crashing hard and chaotic inside me.

  “Sit.” The word is so quiet, it’s almost a whisper. I go still, not sure I heard it correctly, in time to see the cigar being stubbed out from each side, slowly yet thoroughly. His jaw clenches, a ripple of movement I can’t take my eyes off of. Then his eyes rise to mine. “Please.”

  I tell myself it’s the please, but I’m sure even the slightest further entreaty would have my stupid, weak knees folding for him. “Thank you for putting out the cigar.”

  The tip of his mouth goes up so slightly it’s barely discernable as he nods. Yet still, he says nothing as he turns to his menu. Frustration bubbles in me—I won, but I didn’t get what I asked for. I want to know I managed to poke him, to unsettle him. Hell, I don’t know. I want my reaction; without it I’m lost.

  A waiter comes to take our drink order. I order a sparkling water, lost at the idea of wine. “I’m not much of a drinker,” I admit.

  I don’t even recognize the wine he orders, but whatever it is makes the waiter practically giddy. “You should at least try a glass with your steak, it will enhance the flavor. Do you know what you want?”

  Had he seen me staring at the menu in confusion? The closest I’ve come to steak is when meat was on sale and it was a skirt steak or a roast. I had actually been staring at the salmon to make everything easier. When I meet his eyes, they are patient—a first I’m desperate to answer. “I don’t have a lot of experience with steak. Although I would like to learn, especially if you’re going to have more dinners at places like this. Oh, I’ve heard of filet mignon.” He winces. “I mean, it is expensive—”

  “If you would allow me to order for you, I think I would order something you will enjoy much more than a filet mignon.” His words are cautious, for the first time it isn’t an order.

  “I would appreciate it, thank you.”

  When the waiter comes, Cesare orders a porterhouse medium for himself and a rib eye medium for me. I try not pay attention that our sides are exactly alike. It was a small thing, it means nothing. Once the waiter is gone, it still bothers me like a pebble in my shoe. “Are you really not going to say something about the dress?”

  For the first time since I took off the coat, I feel it: heat scorching my entire being. His eyes run over me from my face to the tops of my breasts that grow heavy below his gaze. How does he do that? My skin is too tight, my lu
ngs have shrunk. Then it happens again. He blinks, and it’s gone. I want to scream for what I’ve lost; the pain is so sharp it stuns me.

  “What is there to say?” A single shoulder moves up dispassionately. “You chose to wear what you want. You are well within your right to do so. This will, however, inform further dealings you and I have together. If you were my assistant, I would fire you. However, you are not my assistant. I will make my displeasure with you clear to Dante; in what way he chooses to deal with you is up to him.”

  “Dante warned me about you. He told me to tell him if you made a move I found uncomfortable, that I didn’t have to put up with anything I found unacceptable.”

  I don’t know why I said it exactly. Maybe it was the mention of Dante, maybe it was to voice Dante’s suspicion that Cesare would attempt to make a move on me. I don’t know if I said it to prevent him from making a move or to push him to do something, anything to make it clear what the hell I’m dealing with. I swear it’s not knowing what it is Cesare wants, really wants, that’s making me crazy.

  Cesare sighs. I feel like a recalcitrant child. “In what way have I made you uncomfortable?”

  I hate him. He’s going to make me say it while ignoring what he’s done. Asshole. “I just want it on record. Dante has already talked to me. I doubt he’d find me wearing this dress a firable offense.”

  A humorless laugh rumbles from his chest. “No, I’m sure the fucker would believe I have received exactly what I deserve.”

  From somewhere deep down where I long thought there was nothing left, I ache at the thin thread of pain in his words. Even as I tell myself I’m wrong, I know I’m not—the feeling is too familiar to me for me to be wrong. Pain was never something I would associate with Cesare Sabatini, so tall, so big. He looks indestructible to me, yet that thread of pain in his voice tells me he’s not nearly as tough as he looks.

  “I’m sorry I wore the dress.” The words are a whisper. I mean it—no matter what I thought I wanted, I never wanted to see him looking so tortured. If I had it to do again, I’d never have touched the damn dress.

  Our eyes meet, and for the first time the heat there isn’t scary. The way it envelops me makes me feel safe, secure. “Tell me about yourself, Alicia.”

  Out of everything I thought he might say, it’s the last thing I expect. It takes a moment to process the request; the way he says my name causes a tingle deep down low I have never experienced before. That light accent turns my name into something uniquely sexy as his tongue caresses the syllables. Normally, I have no problem admitting I’m boring, but right now I struggle to find the words. “I don’t know, there isn’t much to tell.”

  “Not according to Dante, he mentioned you went to my alma mater.”

  The information stuns me. “You went to the University of Illinois at Chicago?”

  A brief smile stuns me into smiling back. “Why do you find that surprising? I’m also wondering how much research you did on our company. It’s common knowledge I went, even more so I wasn’t able to graduate until I was twenty-five, as I didn’t start there until I was twenty and working at the same time.”

  “Maybe I should have done more checking. I guess I thought you went to some fancy school or something. I know Dante went to Northwestern and has a master’s from the Kellogg School there.”

  He nods. “While I had won a football scholarship to the University of Michigan, I couldn’t leave Enzo and Dante. There was no one else who could take care of them. We only had one living grandparent at the time, my mother’s father in Florida who was in a care facility. Her brother had died years before and my father’s brother was in jail. Besides, we’ve always been close. I couldn’t leave them after everything that happened.

  “I was busy working and taking care of Dante and Enzo. I got classes in when I could, which for a few years wasn’t often. Not to mention it wasn’t cheap, and sometimes we needed rent paid or a new drill more than I needed to pay tuition for a degree everyone kept telling me I didn’t need if all I was going to do was flip homes.”

  “But you always knew you were going to do more than flip homes.” It’s not a question—it’s clear Cesare had his eyes on a bigger prize from the beginning.

  His smile is brief. “Two-flats and condos were enough to pay the bills; however, I always had plans to do more. I knew there were things I didn’t know, and some of that knowledge would come from the street, but the rest would come from school.”

  Since he’s being so open, I ask the question that’s been on my mind since I researched him. “Is it true? That your uncle helped you start your company?” His uncle Tony Sabatini is a known lieutenant of the Cappelli crime family.

  I’m relieved the question doesn’t anger him. He shrugs. “It wasn’t my uncle, at least in the beginning, he was still in jail on murder charges at the time. His son, my cousin Dominic, was the one who helped me out. It didn’t matter that my father went to law school and became a prosecutor and decried his family. Once he was gone, family was family, and my cousin was the only person at my parents’ funeral who made me promise to call him if I needed anything. I promised, but I didn’t call.

  “There was next to nothing left over after the estates were settled—my parents were living from paycheck to paycheck and from credit card to credit card. I managed to hide the cash we had around the house, which was almost seven thousand, and didn’t last nearly as long as I hoped it would despite us renting a two-bedroom apartment on the edge of Rogers Park before it was rehabbed.

  “I kept working at the grocery store I’d been at for years and picked up another job bouncing at clubs on the weekends. At one of the clubs, a guy was drunk and wanted a fight. I was willing to give it to him. News got back to my cousin. Dominic offered me a job working for him as a collector, as his muscle. But I turned him down.

  “If I had any idea just how bad things were going to get when Dante caught pneumonia three weeks later, I would have said yes right then. Once Dante got sick, I called Dominic. I told him I’d work, but I needed to keep my hands clean. There was no way I could get locked up on something that would have Enzo and Dante taken away from me. He offered me everything I never thought I wanted but needed at the time.” He shakes his head.

  “What?” I barely notice when the waiter brings our plates. I’m annoyed at the waiter for waiting while we cut into our steaks and deem them perfect. Until I take a bite. “Oh my god, this is delicious.” I close my mouth as I groan at the succulent piece of steak. It has the perfect mix of fat to buttery rich, tender meat.

  A flash of heat hits me, and my eyes go to Cesare’s. Oh damn, he blinks, and it’s gone. His eyes are down on his own steak. I can’t take my eyes off his hands—they are long, thick yet still somehow elegant. I want those hands on me. What? No, yes, oh crap this is bad. “What?” I blurt the word out—anything to keep my mind from going down a road where it has no business going. “What did your cousin give you?”

  “He offered me a bout in underground fights. I would get two hundred dollars each fight.”

  My eyes are drawn to the nose Dante mentioned was broken three times. Dante calling himself and his brothers hoods. “You needed a job fighting?”

  A shoulder lifts. “I needed to hit something.” The words are bleak. Dang it, there goes that ache from deep down again. “At the time I didn’t realize I was walking around with so much anger inside me. I believed I was fine, that I dealt with it all.” God, the horror of his father killing his mother before killing himself; how could anyone deal with something like that? “I was wrong.”

  “I was angry at my mother for years. If I’m honest there are still times I’m angry at her for leaving my sister and me. I can’t imagine dealing with the anger, pain, and love that’s still there despite everything that your father did. The way he left you behind, trying to make sense of something so completely senseless.

  “I used to ask my grandmother why my mother left us. The why drove me crazy. My grandma said because she could.
She could, and she did, and I have to not focus on the why but what comes after. I think it would have helped to have something to hit for a while there. How long did you do it for?”

  His smile is barely there as he studies me. I couldn’t look away if I tried. There’s a new feeling between us; a tension I wasn’t even aware of has gone. I find myself smiling back. “For seven months and fourteen fights. Gradually I got him to pay me three hundred a fight and ten percent of the take of a win. After a few months, I finally had serious money and was ready to put it to good use. My uncle came out of prison then, and he offered to sell me a two-flat my mom had talked him into buying for her so she could renovate and sell, only she never got around to it. He helped in that he sold it to me for only what he paid, which was a steal my mother had negotiated down.

  “I had no idea what I was doing. I watched about a thousand hours of videos and earned about a hundred bruises. Enzo, me, and Dante worked our asses off, and after five months we had a two-flat that sold for twice what I paid for it. I immediately took the money we made and after paying bills, found a condo to rehab.”

  “You guys set yourself apart by buying outright the properties you rehabbed. Why?”

  “We didn’t want to worry about payments that ate into profits and the clock that starts ticking the minute you sign on the dotted line. It kept our jobs small and few, but it was a good thing—we were still learning with every property. I wanted us to be able to take our time, to do things right, and learn without freaking out about being on a deadline. It helped us to put out a quality product so that by the time we were on the ninth flip, we had real estate agents lining up the day it went on the market, and it was sold within six hours with a bidding war.”

  “From there it was only up. I’m guessing commercial was your endgame?”

  He nods. “It was. My uncle was the one who pushed me to commercial. The family had a large portion of commercial property—it was one of their few legal ways of making money in the lean times. The further I researched, I saw exactly what he was talking about and knew I wanted to go bigger than a condo or two-flat or bungalow in the ’burbs.” I swear he reads me better than I know myself. “No, after the initial sale of the two-flat the family has had no investment or anything further to do with Sabatini Properties. Both my uncle and cousin understood completely without any resentment.”