The Don Bows Only To His Curvy Crush Chapter 08
The Married Man and the Sit-Down
The backseat is a pressure cooker.
I can feel Dante being furious. What I can’t figure out is what he’s furious about.
We’ve never held hands. We’ve never called this anything. There’s no line for me to have crossed.
“You into Ryan Cole?” Dante says. Flat.
I nod. “Yeah. Since college.”
Ryan had just broken out. Some tiny art house film, and boom — youngest Golden Reel Best Actor in the ceremony’s history. Nobody could touch him.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve.” Dante laughs, no humor in it, and tugs his collar loose.
Then, casually, he drops a bomb.
“Save yourself the trouble. He’s got a wife. Nobody knows.”
He doesn’t wait for me to react. Just shoves the door open and gets out, pissed.
—
He drags me to a Family sit-down.
Old-money Moretti crowd. Capos, cousins, sons of somebody.
Half the talk is about who’s up and who’s out this quarter. The other half is business.
I keep my head down and eat.
Every time my plate goes empty, Dante refills it without looking at me.
After I finish another small piece of pie, Dante steps outside to take a call.
The second the door shuts, one of the men slides over, smiling.
“Lena, sweetheart — pictures don’t do you justice. No wonder our Don Moretti finally lost his head.”
“You have no idea what a relief it is. Some of us thought he was scarred for women. That he’d never touch another woman again.”
I freeze mid-sip. “Scarred?”
The guy glances toward the balcony. Drops his voice.
“Ancient history. Years back. Some fat assistant of his latched onto him. Wouldn’t quit.”
“Nobody knows exactly how she pulled it off. But she got his first time out of him.”
“After that? Nothing. No girlfriends. No hookups. You bring up sex around him, his face goes gray.”
“That little fattie really did a number on him.”
Their words drives an ice pick straight through my chest. My fingers go white around the glass.
So that was what I did to Dante.
I always thought the shame that night was mine to carry. That I was the fat girl who got what she deserved.
It never once crossed my mind that the man I loved — that I might have wrecked him.
If I could go back, I would erase that night. I would erase myself from every hallway he ever walked down.
I would make sure Isabella Marino was never a name he had to remember.
I lift my eyes toward the balcony.
Dante is already off the phone, leaning against the glass door, watching me.
Something dark and unreadable churning in his eyes.
The second our eyes meet, my whole body starts to shake.
I grab my bag and stand up.
Behind me, footsteps.
I walk faster.
Until, Dante’s voice — cracked open wide.
“How much longer are you going to run from me?”
“Isabella—”