Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Angela appears and asks Charlotte to help her with something in the kitchen. And off the women go, but not before Charlotte pecks my cheek as a parting gift.
Someone else is talking to Bella now, the birthday girl, so I can’t return to her. I fidget. Try different positions with my hands and arms. But I’m not sure what to do with myself. Go to the food table? Stay here and wait for Mr. DiMarco to finish his conversation? I think maybe we’re still technically in the middle of a conversation, one that guy interrupted. When he walks away, will Mr. DiMarco expect to turn around and see me still standing here?
I’ve no sooner had the thought than the guy who interrupted walks away and Mr. DiMarco turns around to face me again. When he sees me still standing here, his face lights up. “Oh, good. You didn’t wander off.” He beckons to me. “Come with me, Auggie. Let’s have a chat.”
Oh, fuck.
On wobbly legs, I follow the mob boss and one of his stoic bodyguards to the back of the house, through a sliding glass door, and into a large backyard. The big boss takes a seat at a corner patio table, so I follow suit, while the dude in the dark suit stands nearby at full attention. Everything about this feels like a movie, except for the part that it’s all-too real, and I don’t see any cameras anywhere, and the woman I love—the woman I’d literally die for, if it came down to it—stole money from this powerful, scary man and his dark eyes are now boring holes into my fucking face.
“So, Auggie,” Mr. DiMarco says. “It warms my heart to see Charlotte so in love and happy.”
“Thank you, sir. I love Charlotte with all my heart.”
“I can see that. I have zero doubts you’ll love, honor, and protect her, exactly the way she deserves.”
Did he emphasize the word protect or did I imagine that? “Yes, sir. I will.”
Shit. I can’t live like this—in a constant state of fear. What I need to do for my own sanity and Charlotte’s safety is make sure this powerful, scary man knows if there’s ever any shit that’s going to hit any fan in relation to Charlotte McDougal, I want to be the one who gets splattered with it, instead of Charlotte. Every last drop of it.
I swallow hard. “I’m glad you’ve mentioned me protecting Charlotte, sir. I hope you know, as her fiancé and future husband, I’ll do anything to protect her. Literally, anything.”
“As you should. You love the woman. She’s gonna be the mother to your babies. It’s your job to protect her.”
“And I take that job, seriously.”
He nods. “If ever Charlotte was in harm’s way, for any reason—for instance, if ever she did a stupid thing and brought a shit storm upon herself, let’s say—you wouldn’t hesitate to step in to protect her from whatever consequences might come her way because of what she did.”
I nod slowly. He knows.
Mr. DiMarco lays his clasped knuckles onto the table. “For instance, if Charlotte did something stupid, like, I don’t know, steal sixty grand from me, I bet you’d want to protect her from whatever consequences might naturally flow from her doing such a stupid thing like that, right?”
Every drop of blood has drained from my brain. I’m incapable of speech. I glance at the nearby bodyguard. Is that guy going to wrap his thick hands around my throat and end me, any second now?
“Eyes here, Auggie.”
I shift my eyes to Mr. DiMarco, and he chuckles at whatever he’s seeing on my face. “You got something to tell me, son?”
“I took the money,” I blurt. “It was all me and only me. Charlotte had nothing to do with it. I’m very, very sorry for taking it, sir. It was a huge mistake. I tried to pay it back, but things got fucked up.”
He smiles. “That was quite the trick, you taking the money, since a) Carlo saw Charlotte pick up that duffel bag off the tarmac, which he then told me about, immediately, right then and there; and b) in corroboration of what Carlo told me, you’re nowhere to be found on the CCTV footage I asked Carlo to get for me, which he did. On the contrary, the one picking up that bag was Charlotte, and Charlotte alone.”
I feel like I’m going to puke. My mind is scrambling. Useless. Hurtling through space. “Charlotte wasn’t in her right mind, sir. Please, have mercy on her. During the flight, she found out she was getting laid off the next morning, and she freaked out. The bag was on the ground. You saw that, right? And yes while it was very wrong for her to pick it up and walk away, it wasn’t a heist or a planned theft. She did something stupid, spur of the moment, when she was in the midst of a panic attack about her imminent layoff, and . . . Please, sir. Please, hurt me, not her.” Breathing hard, I wait for the man’s reply, and when one doesn’t come, I add, “We tried very, very hard to pay you back. We had the full amount—sixty grand—for you yesterday, but then, we got duped and gave it all to—”