Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(174)

“Um, yes?” he answered carefully.

“But you’re here almost every day…”

He smiled and stared steadily back at me. I felt the gauges in my mind all entering the yellow-warning zone. If he didn’t leave soon…

“Well, you haven’t said yes yet,” he murmured in a low purr, dropping his chin slightly. Something snapped hard against my belly like a rubber band, twang.

Danger! Danger! Red alert! cried a helpful chorus in my head, and I swung around to grab the kit of cups and condiments that I had prepared for these sorts of sales. Melita was somehow beneath me, a puddle of soapy water around her knees from cleaning the pastry case. My heel hit the water and slid out from under me, dropping me on my ass, Charlie Chaplain style.

“Oh, shit!” Melita exclaimed.

“Oh no! Are you all right?” Owen asked, leaning over the counter, his voice tight with concern.

“I am so sorry!” Melita mouthed silently into the air. I nodded and held up one hand like, yeah, it’s OK. Please shut up.

Sitting still for a few seconds, I checked my body parts one by one for the second time in less than twelve hours. With the same witnesses and everything, I realized with a cringe. I seemed whole, even as I wished for a nice sudden loss of consciousness to drag me out of this humiliation like a pebble swept off a beach in a hurricane.

A big old ass-bruise, I thought ruefully. Oh, and yet another ruined shirt, I noticed with a frustrated frown. The bucket-sized coffee had split open, drenching the right half of my white uniform top. It stuck to me like dampened Kleenex, gathering in ridges over my lace bra. I plucked at it with my fingertips, trying to turn away.

“I was trying to, uh, stay out of your way!” Melita hissed. Her eyes were panicked and bloodshot.

I waved her off, trying not to be mean about it even as my skin raced with goosebumps in the air conditioning. “It happens, it happens,” I muttered. “Can you please help this nice man with his coffee? I’m going home.”

Melita edged toward the register, her hands holding her face, her mouth in a contorted pout of apology.

Clambering to my feet as gracefully as possible, I breathed evenly through my nose. It’s just a shirt, I reminded myself. And a little dignity, maybe.

“Just bring it by in a half hour,” Owen said, his voice low and even.

I forced myself to meet his eyes. Soaked in coffee, thoroughly disgusted by my lack of grace and painfully aware that I was practically naked in front of him, I expected to see judgment or perhaps a bit of a smirk… But, no. His expression alternated between concern and intense interest at his eyes skipped over the drenched, now-transparent shirt that clung to my skin.

I was reasonably sure he could see my nipple through the lace bra by the way his eyes lingered in a tight circle thereabouts. He didn’t seem amused at all. He seemed… hungry.

“Owen, I need to go change. Melita knows where your office is. She can--”

“No,” he said decisively, his teeth clenched. All the usual lighthearted jokiness was gone from his voice. Part of me was taken aback by his sudden change, and part of me was turning swiftly to jelly.

“Bring it in thirty,” he growled, not meeting my eyes again. He turned on his heel and strode toward the door, leaving me at the counter with my mouth hanging open, my skin burning under the clammy fabric, my inner turmoil still at red-danger-zone levels.

The glass door closed again with another chiming of the bell and Melita and I stood there staring at it for long seconds.

“Brienne, I just wanna say--” she whispered. I flung up a hand between us. Stop.

“I do not want to talk about it,” I growled through my clenched teeth.

“I’m just really sorry!” she squeaked.

“Dave?” I called out as I walked gingerly to the back room, holding my shirt out from my chest with my fingertips. “Uh, Dave!”

I heard the sound of chair wheels on the linoleum floor and Dave stuck his head out of the office door horizontally. Making a face, he retreated, then reemerged, standing. He held his arms out in dismay.

“Wh-- what happened to you?”

“Um, coffee? Coffee happened to me?” I looked down. I was soaked to my knee. “The splashing, burning kind?”

He waved me off like I was beneath contempt. “Fine, go,” he sighed. “Tell Carl we are out of two percent. Thanks.”





CHAPTER 4


I grabbed my sweater and purse from the hook and snuck out the back door. Luckily, mornings by Lake Michigan were pretty chilly even in July, so I always brought a sweater when I started my shift at 4:30am. Now, it helped keep me from looking like a wreck and drawing too much attention to myself as I hurried down Clark Street toward our apartment on Waveland.