Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(57)
“Get your purse,” he says again in a low voice.
“Say please.”
“No.”
“Marie, you should probably just go,” Gianna says in a warning voice. Deliberately disobeying my husband? Holy cow she probably thinks I’ve lost my mind. Well, at least she's not trying to come along to get a minute alone with Alek or anything like that.
I just blink at him. I'm not moving a muscle.
He stands there for at least a couple of minutes and then takes two short steps in one direction and two short steps in the other direction. He looks back over his shoulder with a scowl and then turns to me, letting his hands fall in front of him and folding them politely, if a little bit sarcastically.
“Marie, would you do me the honor of getting your ass in the Jeep… Please?”
Gianna kneels under the counter to fetch my purse for me and holds it out so that I don't have to break eye contact. That's nice of her. At least finally somebody shows me a little bit of respect.
“Gianna, would you mind covering for me today?”
“Oh, um, sure, Marie,” she says in a polite voice.
“Thank you very much.”
And without even needing to blink, I walk across the room with my head held high and then stand patiently in front of the door until Roman swings from behind me to open it.
That's right, open the door for me. Because I'm a goddamn lady.
***
“Where are we going?”
Alek turns around in his seat. “You should've brought sunscreen.”
“Yeah, well, everybody failed to tell me that I was going anywhere, so how the hell was I supposed to know that?”
He winks at me. We seem to have fallen into the habit of Alek or Roman saying something smart, me saying something smart back, and Alek giving me that look. That look he has that says he wants to eat me for dinner or something.
“Lucky for you, I brought extra,” he informs me. He slides me a tube of SPF 50 and turns back around. It's the good stuff, department store stuff. Not too greasy.
“You've got pretty good taste in skincare,” I remark.
“Yeah, well, I freckle,” he shrugs.
I see Roman shudder. I can’t imagine him ever admitting to something as dainty as freckling, although it sort of amuses me to try to imagine it. I want him to let me put some of this on the tops of his cheeks at least. I worry that the new skin on his face is still tender in the sun, but I have no idea how I would even ask him.
“So, really? Nobody's gonna tell me where we’re going?”
“It's just a thing,” Roman growls.
“It’s just a thing, just a picnic,” Alek says to nobody, poking the screen of the GPS. We’re heading north, nearly out of the city. Northwest, actually.
“A picnic? Like a birthday party? Like a family reunion or something?”
“Or something,” Alek nods.
Fine. I can play this game. I do not even care. Besides, if I say anything else one of them will start antagonizing me for fun. Just forget it. Nevermind.
We drive through Evanston to the Skokie border, then head north again toward Wisconsin. The street gets all dark and leafed over, dense with trees as Roman pulls into a forest preserve. Traffic is tight here, with cars stretching out for blocks in either direction.
“Some family reunion ,” I mutter to myself as Roman parks the Jeep. Alek opens my car door for me and helps me out.
“You know, if you would've told me I was going to be walking around in the mud, I probably could've worn appropriate footwear,” I grumble as we pick our way through the parking lot.
“Just say the word and I'll carry you, Princess,” Alek says with the leer.
It's tempting, for sure. Five inch heels on grass are no fun for anybody and so eventually I just kick them off. I stuff them in the top of my bag and walk barefoot. Roman looks at my feet with alarm. But he does look for quite a long time, it seems like. Already I’ve got a dusty film covering my bright red toenail polish. Great. Just great.
I know they’re not going to tell me anything so I just follow as we head down a curving asphalt path to a large tent. There have to be hundreds of people here, and I hear the sounds of something like house music coming from one end of the tent.
It's still pretty early in the afternoon but I'm sure there are a few dozen people over there dancing with their arms up. Russians. They're hilarious. Something about dancing in the middle of the afternoon just cracks me up.
But I have to admit, it smells amazing here.
“What’s that smell?”
Alek glances over his shoulder at me. I guess they were talking, but I really didn’t notice. He goes back to Roman. I start to head in the direction of the food smell but Alek catches my elbow.