Page 8

8

Andre

T he past week has been a busy one. Despite the lack of legit clients in the office, I’ve had more work than usual for the family. I’ve also been tidying up and updating a million little things around my new apartment.

Not that it was messy or anything. I like organization. It’s necessary for me to do my job. But at the same time, I’m not sure if my status quo is good enough for Stella Rovina.

I want everything to be perfect for her because, one wrong move and I have no doubt she’ll bolt.

At the same time, I want to make sure she has no option but to sleep in my bed at night. Despite all her conditions, I know a spoiled princess like her would never sleep on the floor.

But for the moment, I have to stop compulsively thinking about my bride-to-be and concentrate on the task at hand that’s sitting across from me in my office.

“You’ve got two options here, Denny. You can either sign over your restaurant to the boss, or you can come up with the four hundred Gs you owe him. I want an answer right here, right now. Do you have the money or not?”

How ironic is it that the exact amount this man owes Creed is what I stupidly spent on a goddamn engagement ring for Stella? And I think she hated it.

“No, but I can get it!”

“By the end of business today?” I ask him with my brow raised.

“Just give me until the end of the week!”

“That’s not going to happen. The boss gave you six months already. Do you know how generous that was? He doesn’t usually give more than three to five days for most of his business associates. You got the benefit of the doubt, but now he’s done waiting.” I push the large, sealed envelope across my desk toward him. “All the transfer of ownership paperwork is inside. Talk to your own attorney if you want, but before the clock strikes midnight tonight, those documents are going to be signed — either in ink or your blood when Tristan comes to your house and picks them up. Is that understood?”

The forty-something man swallows hard enough for me to hear across the desk and slowly reaches for the envelope. Even though he’s about to lose everything he’s ever worked for, I don’t feel bad for him. He knew the risk he was making when he gambled away his life savings. Now, it’s time to pay up.

“Mr. Ferraro will allow you to continue the restaurant under the same Abrams family name for a generous salary, including a ten-thousand-dollar bonus. That information and check is also in there with the other paperwork. Who knows, maybe one day you can earn the place back.”

“We both know that’s never going to fucking happen. Where would I get four hundred thousand dollars? It took me twenty years to save a quarter of that!”

“You should have thought about that before you blew it in one week on some stupid sports bets. Now get out of my office. Tristan will come by your house a minute before midnight tonight to pick up all the signed documents, unless you drop them off here earlier.”

“No need to send the cutthroat enforcer. I’ll come back here,” he huffs before he gets to his feet and strides to the door.

Once he’s out of sight, I lean back in my executive chair and sigh while rubbing my palms over my face.

Sometimes, I hate my job. Mostly I hate cleaning up the messes people make when they do business with the family. That’s why, on the side, I take on pro bono cases, helping people for free who are getting screwed by the system. It feels like I’m balancing out some of my assholiness.

“I’m about to head out to grab some lunch, Mr. Ferraro,” my assistant, Victoria, says from the doorway. “Can I pick you up something on the way back?”

“No, thank you,” I tell her without lowering my hands. “Shut the door behind you?”

“Sure thing, sir.”

Victoria is one of the most efficient, loyal employees I’ve ever had, but in the year and a half she’s worked for me, her attire has become smaller and smaller. Her skirts are shorter, her blouses snugger with fewer buttons fastened. Oh, and her heels have gotten a little taller to accentuate her long legs.

She wants me to fuck her. And while she’s a beautiful woman, I know better than to screw around with an employee, even if I wasn’t engaged.

Victoria was one of the first I told about my impending nuptials. I thought once she heard I was getting married, she’d give up and wear enough clothing for the cooler winter weather.

I was wrong.

If anything, she’s going all out, as if making her last stand to try to tempt me before I say my vows.

When I came into the office this morning, I noticed her dress was so damn short, I could see the tops of her lacy thigh highs while she stood there with the files I needed for the day in her arms.

The next thing I know, she’s bending over to pick up the paperclips she “accidentally” knocked off her desk just before I arrived.

The woman is wearing thigh highs but no fucking panties in my goddamn office.

I really wish I didn’t know that tidbit about her.

Not that I’m the least bit tempted. No, her bare pussy just has me thinking incessantly about Stella’s.

The wedding, my night with my new wife, cannot get here fast enough.

I assume after there’s a wedding band on my finger, Victoria will finally give up her quest for good. If not, well, I’ll have to suck it up and fire her because I will not have her walking around my office, flashing her pussy at me, when I have a prickly wife waiting for me at home.

Stella is the only woman I’ve ever wanted but couldn’t have before this damn wedding was arranged.

In fact, the few women I’ve slept with over the past several years while she continuously turned me down could all be her twins. They each had dark hair, were a foot shorter than me, and were curvy as hell like Stella.

But despite how much they may have physically resembled the woman of my dreams, they were sorry ass substitutes.

And not a single one of them had her pretty cerulean eyes.

After what Stella’s mom said about her saving money on batteries, well, there’ve been a few new editions to my fantasies, starring my wife-to-be.

Fantasies that get me hot but make me jealous of the goddamn devices at the same time.

I never thought I’d be envious of a vibrator.

If Tristan and Creed knew I want to break a bunch of dildos just so they never penetrate my wife again, they’d lose their shit and never let me live it down.

Since my office door is shut, and Victoria, the only one allowed to open it, is out to lunch, I pull up the photo of Stella that’s been on every phone I’ve owned for years. One saved to the cloud and that’s been the focus of many of my late-night jackoff sessions.

It’s Stella in a tiny blue bikini with a sheer floral dress blowing in the summer night coastal wind.

Undoing my pants, I fist my semi-hard cock and stroke it fast and furiously, still unable to believe this gorgeous woman is about to be my wife.

Does she think I don’t know that as soon as her mom passes and Saint gets the money from Creed, she’ll try and bolt?

That’s why I need to convince her to give me more than one night, so I can put my baby in her while I have the chance.