I had the sweetest dreams.
Of him.
CHAPTER12
Mr. Big
An alarm kept going off.It wasn’t mine. I had a tight schedule. Wake up at 4, exercise till 5 in my gym, shower and eat by 6, then the rest of the day depended on the needs of the casino.
I didn’t mention it to Leonora, but Lidia’s schedule was tailored to fit mine. It worked for me, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to work for her and her brothers. I might need to bring someone on just for them. Or see if Lidia could accommodate. I wasn’t fucking exaggerating when I said she was the best. And her husband ran one of the most famous kitchens in the world like a tight ship.
Portofino’s kitchen—Nervina.
Like most unforgettable Italian restaurants that were built on the backs of the Italians who were proud of their recipes, Nervina’s dishes were from my family. Lidia’s husband took those recipes and brought them into modern day, but he was somehow capable of keeping the roots intact.
That was important to me when I took over.
The alarm went off again, and I knew I wasn’t fucking dreaming it. I also wasn’t imagining the Aphrodite in my bed. Her hair was plastered to the pillow, and she was clinging to me. Her arm was over my chest and her leg over mine.
It was like she hadn’t slept in years.
And…Aphrodite. I’d never given a woman a nickname before. I even gave Gio shit for months when I heard him call a woman he wanted to fuck a little minx. But the name suited Leonora. She embodied the idea of Aphrodite.
She was full of love and beauty, and maybe this was an off trait, but she was loyal. She took care of her brothers, even though she didn’t have to. She could have said let the state deal with them and lived her life.
Most of the world seemed to lose sight of those qualities, but when you went without, the value of those things goes up.
She was priceless to me.
The irritant went off again. It was her phone. I carefully detached her, and she just rolled over, sighing as she pulled the covers up to her neck.
Before it could go off again, and this time wake her up because she was turned toward it, I lifted it from the side table and took it with me into the bathroom.
She’d set an alarm so she wouldn’t be late to go to the hospital to see her brothers. Apparently, the younger one was staying with the older one. I suspected it had something to do with Leonora’s mother being indifferent to her husband’s kids with another woman.
She’d even added a note to the alarm:Get up!!! I know the bed is comfortable, but Angelo and Phoenix are waiting for you!!!
So was the fucking day. It was the anniversary of Portofino’s grand opening, and we had a celebration every year for it. So did Paradiso. We even shared a firework display. It lit up the sky behind both of our casinos with a merger of the American flag and the Italian flag. Our grandfathers thought it was symbolic.
Leonora would be on my arm. The entire city would know she was mine after the night was over. That meant that any man who looked at her twice would be gambling with his eyesight.
After I did the basics in the bathroom, I dressed in a suit and took Leonora’s phone with me to the bedroom. I set it back on the nightstand and took a seat on the edge of the bed. I placed my hand in the dip of her hip and leaned in close to her ear.
I breathed her in, and before I could wake her up, she said, “That’s creepy, Big.”
A laugh tore out of me, and her eyes fluttered open.
“Why are you waking me up so early?”
“You set the alarm.”
She popped up like she’d been electrocuted and snatched her phone. Her face immediately relaxed when she realized she was ahead of the clock. “I need to see my brothers. They don’t like it when I’m late.”
I leaned in and pressed a hard kiss to her forehead. “I don’t either. Today is a big day. I need you ready by 5 o’clock.” I pulled my wallet out and set a card with no limit next to the bed. “You’ll need a dress. The designer store downstairs has plenty of options, but if none of those will do, the world is your playground. Do your worse with that card.” I lifted my arm and checked the time on my watch. “Lidia should be here now.”
She stopped me by calling my name before I left. “What about you? No breakfast?”
“I usually have a schedule, but I’m breaking it today. I have a few pressing issues that need to be taken care of.”
