Page 10 of Silver Fox Grump

5

MAISIE

I have a meeting first thing Monday morning with the Blackwood triplets and my dad, and I am aiming for invisibility. Two of the Blackwoods—but not my boss, I’d know—and my dad are in the conference room when I walk in.

Taking a seat, I pray. Sometimes they just get on with business and I take notes and it’s?—

“What happened to your face, Miss Matthews?” one of the Blackwoods says.

I wince. So much for hoping no one would notice.

“Nothing!” I tip my head down. It’s a black eye. Not as bad as the bruise on my bottom, but rather more difficult to hide at work.

“That isn’t nothing!” my dad explodes. “Tell me immediately!”

I already have a reputation in Morden for being clumsy—no one has forgotten my cupcake disaster on my first day—and there’s no way I’m telling anyone that I was trying to dance on a table, and fell off. Not even a proper table, either. A coffee table.

I have my pride.

“Shark attack,” I reply, looking up.

There’s a shocked silence, then one of the Blackwood brothers bursts into laughter.

“Vito, that isn’t funny.” Rafe Blackwood rolls his eyes. “Was the shark a biped?”

“Pretty sure sharks are fish.” I try to stare him down, but he’s a mafia boss, and I’m really not.

“So, this was a diving incident,” Vito drawls. “It is an impressive shiner.”

“Should have seen the other guy.” The coffee table looks even stupider with those foam corner things than I do with a black eye. Revenge was sweet.

“The shark? I’ll nip down to the aquarium,” Vito says.

“Was it your boyfriend?” asks Rafe pointedly.

“No!” I’m falling over my own tongue to get that denial out. My dad will go nuts if he thinks I’m dating. I’m blushing, which doesn’t help. Because this was all started by my thinking about how much I adore my boss—who doesn’t know I exist—and being determined not to be a tragic case.

Great job on that one.

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Dad growls. “Or if she does, he’s twice as dead now.”

“Twice as dead? Is this like the ‘shark attack’?” Vito grins like he’s enjoying this. “We’re not playing by the laws of physics anymore.”

Oh god.

“I mean that she’s the mafia princess of Mitcham, and when she marries it will be because I have arranged it. Any man who touches her before then is dead. And anyone who hurts my daughter is dead as well. Twice dead.” My dad says this as though it’s totally logical, then turns to me.

“I’ll let the shark know,” I say brightly.

“So what did this shark look like?” Vito is leaning back in his chair, evidently enjoying this. “Grey? Purple? Blue?”

“Brown, actually.” I think I’m now implying I was hit by a table. Or that a table is my boyfriend. Who would be twice dead, if he existed.

I’m so screwed.

Bracing his forearms on the table, my dad pins me with a look that is as ugly and violent as it is protective. “Who hurt you?” He enunciates each word like they’re bullets.

“It was...” A table. And a book.