He nodded once, really slow, really sharp. “An arrangement.”
“I got that part.” I sat there for a moment or two, absorbing all of this. It started to come together.
He’d been vetting all of those women. Maybe playing the field to see which one he had a connection with. He blindfolded them so they wouldn’t see him and then recognize him on the street after.
Reclusivewas the word Sierra had used to describe him to Keely.
He had the women who’d been flirting with other men escorted out of the party.
Sierra was one of his choices.
Marriage. He wanted me to marry him. He chose me for thisarrangement.
I stood from my chair, refusing to look at him. I wanted to, just once more, but couldn’t. This was hard enough as it was. “I’ve wasted your time. You picked the wrong girl for thisjob. Marriage is not in the cards for me, not even for an arrangement.” I turned to go, but I stopped when his voice struck me like lightning in the back.
“You cameto melooking for a job, and now that I’m proposing one to you that doesn’t include cheapening your morals for money, you’re going to walk out. At the very least, tell me what scares you about this arrangement—an arrangement with specifics that you haven’t even considered yet. Walking out without hearing the details doesn’t make you a champ, Mariposa. It makes you look like a scared child. Now sit down and prove me wrong.”
“Okay,” I said, turning around. I hung my bag on the chair again, taking a seat. Even though we were discussing marriage, there was no doubt that this was a business meeting. A merger of two lives brought together by paper and pre-thought-out details. If I were going to do this, I had to become as business-minded as possible. Emotions had to be swept from the table, but I had something to air that demanded some feelings first. “Before this meeting officially begins, and all sides have been considered, you have to answer a question.”
Capo stared at me for a minute and then nodded once. He picked up the glass of water and took a sip, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Why me, Capo?”
His name felt odd on my tongue. I didn’t say it how Rocco did, with an Italian accent, but I did my best to give it its due. He had done the same for mine, so I wanted to give him the same respect. His face changed when I had said his name, though, and for some reason it brought me back to The Club, to the candlelit room. The intensity. The intimacy.
“Do you mind if I return a question with a question?”
I put my arm out, as if to say,go ahead.
“Why not you, Mariposa?”
I picked up my glass again, carefully taking a sip. When I set it down, I answered truthfully. No one in this room had time for lies. “I saw the other women at The Club. Your choices. Sierra was my sister’s roommate. I saw her first thing in the morning. I saw her when she was tired beyond what sleep could cure. But I never saw her unattractive.” I pointed to my face and then slid a finger down the slope of my nose.
His eyes went from relaxed to hard in a matter of seconds. I wondered if the outside world ever considered it a subtle change, something that happened in a blink and then was gone, but I caught it.Too aware of him already.
“Will you believe me if I dispute your feelings?”
“Yes,” I said. “You don’t seem like a man who has time for games.”
“You don’t look like the rest. You stand out. You could be a queen on a throne. One I’d feel privileged to call wife. You have the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen.” He steepled his fingers, watching me even more…intensely, almost studying me in a way that I wasn’t used to: with appreciation. “‘The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be calledwoman, for she was taken out of man.’ I’d be honored to call you bone of my bones; flesh of my flesh. My woman.”
It took me a moment to get my head on straight. His words were almost too blunt, but they were filled with so much truth, it made me a little faint.
Finally, I knew I had to say something, or he would see that he’d made me weak with a few words. “No one has ever…” What was I even saying? He made me too honest, admitting things better left in the darkness.He’s too aware of me already.Those eyes had too much light in them. I knew they were hiding darkness, too, but the contrast between the dark rings around his irises and the blue only made his light even brighter to me.
“Fuck them.” He waved a dismissive hand. “They don’t matter.”
“You do?”
“The only one,” he said. “Il capo.”
“I’ll accept your why,” I said, wanting to change the direction of the conversation. “But there’s more to this than looks alone. Give me other reasons why.”
Rocco and Capo exchanged glances before Capo spoke again.
“What if there are no other reasons? What if the only reason you’re sitting here with me is because I want to hear my name coming out of that pillow-soft mouth of yours, and for the rest of my life, I refuse to allow another man to have the same honor?”
I swallowed down a gulp of water, almost choking again. “That’s honorable,” I said, glad my voice didn’t waver. “But not the entire truth.”
