Kon (Trassato Crime Family Book 2)(23)
CHAPTER TEN
Carmela
I added some links to my proposal, reread my client’s preferences, and clicked send on the email. My online interior design business didn’t make much money, maybe one to three thousand dollars a month. I didn’t care, though. It gave me independence and something of my own.
Right after Rocco died, I dropped out of interior design school. I had missed weeks of school sitting by his bedside hoping and praying he’d wake up, only he never did. Eventually, his parents decided to remove life support.
I had fought for more time. A month, a week, anything. I’d be lying if I claimed I didn’t resent their decision at the time, despite the fact his scan showed minimal brain function. None of that mattered to me. I held out hope for a miracle. I wanted to have one more hour with him, so I could apologize, tell him I loved him, and kiss him like I meant it. I guess it made me selfish for wanting him back if only to clear my conscience and give us a less ugly ending.
He died within hours of removing life support. I grieved, I raged, I sulked. And after months of hopelessness, I started an online business where people could send me pictures of the room they wanted to redecorate, as well as a link to a Pinterest board documenting the things they loved and room dimensions.
For three to five hundred dollars, I would provide design options complete with paint colors and links to furniture that worked for their room. All of it was done anonymously so the work couldn’t be traced back to my family and me. I went to the coffee shop near the apartment where I lived before my dad died three times a week and worked, emailing proposals and researching trends.
The metal chair next to me scraped on the floor, diverting my attention from the computer screen in front of me.
“You’re a hard woman to get a hold of.”
“Konstantin?” I shut my laptop and glanced at the door. Evie said she might meet me here after her rehearsal. She’d landed the lead role in a new production, and she was dying to tell me about it now that she had returned from her honeymoon with Gian. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think?”
He set a mug of coffee onto the table and settled into the chair. His clear blue eyes drilled into me as if he was cataloging my features. He shifted his body to face me, his jean-clad thighs brushing against my bare legs. While we were barely touching, I felt him everywhere.
“I didn’t invite you, so honestly, I have no idea.”
The corners of his lips quirked up like he found me entirely too amusing for my comfort. I wasn’t stupid. I knew why he was here. I’d been dodging his calls and texts for nearly a week. After our seriously, judgment-impaired kiss and the weird business relationship marriage proposal from Nico, I needed space from both of them. I felt like a commodity rather than a person, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.
“Don’t play games. You’re avoiding me.”
He slid one arm over the back of my chair, his thumb brushing my neck beneath the fall of my hair. My lungs drew in the leather of his jacket mixed with the woodsy scent of his soap. Mini-sparks shot down my spine. Desire pulsed through me, roaming free and wild like it’d been suppressed for too long. My mind seized as I processed the sensation.
Oh hell no. Not this again.
I focused on the floor to ceiling windows in front of me, desperately searching for Evie’s telltale strawberry blonde hair. Now close to lunchtime, throngs of umbrella-wielding people filled the street. Pregnant gray clouds hovered over the skyline. It was going to rain. My feet itched with the need to hit the pavement and splash in the puddles like I did with Gian and Rocco when we were kids.
As silly as it sounded, I loved walking in the rain. It washed away the dirt and sins of the city like the symbolic dunk in the baptismal basin. The smell, so clean and pure, was unlike anything in the world.
“It’s only been a week,” I answered, glancing at my watch. Evie’s rehearsal ended nearly an hour ago. She could walk in the door any minute, and I’d have a clusterfuck of the first order on my hands. “We can do something tonight. Meet me at The Salty Fork for dinner. I haven’t been there yet. Surely you can snag us reservations. Text me the time and I’ll meet you there.”
I started packing away my belongings, hoping he’d get the hint I wanted him to leave. When I finished, I chugged the last of my coffee and checked my phone.
“A week,” he mused, tapping me on the shoulder with his tatted finger, and completely ignoring all my attempts to get rid of him. “That’s seven days too many. This whole thing has been hanging over our heads for over a year. I’d like to get my life back as soon as possible. Wouldn’t you?”