The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 122

Weirdly, my day isn’t as bad as every previous year.

I find myself watching movies and eating cake without really pondering anything of the past and anytime I catch sight of my new pretty, it makes me feel kind of strange. I have no idea why. I mean, I love jewellery as much as the next girl, but I have never been particularly attached to any I ever owned.

This one little bracelet is fast forming some strange attachment to my heartstrings so that anytime I catch a glimpse, I smile. Stupid little inward bubbles I cannot explain.

Maybe it’s because in all the twenty-nine birthdays I have had, this is the first one someone bought me a gift; Even if it was from him. It’s a strange feeling to think of it that way, yet it has somehow distracted me from the usual routine of tears and low mood and lying in a depressive state. The dandelion reference got me thinking and maybe I’m not done with it yet.

My tattoo had a meaning once, and despite the road I have travelled, I’m here. Safe and protected, earning wages and doing something I can have pride in. No one touches me in ways that I don’t want to be touched anymore, not even Alexi, and I’m no longer surviving on street smarts and wiles to get by. I’m no longer stressing about where the next lot of money is coming from or dealing with the likes of Tyler, sex, and drug distribution. My body is my own for the first time in a long time.

I may not have risen in any spectacular way or become someone normal people would aspire to be like, but that dirty little child from the streets of Hackney, who was always hungry and cold and fearful of the men who would creep into her room. She’s safe … she’s warm … she’s fed, and even though Alexi is a tosser of epic proportions, I know he won’t let anyone hurt me. In his own weird fucked up way, he’s always been my protector when it comes to the outside world.

That night in the club, he saw a man with his hands on me and I don’t know what his motives were really. Be it that he thought he was hurting me or simply that I chose another man after refusing him, the fact remains, Alexi will always protect me no matter what is happening between us. He could have hurt me, or punished me, but he didn’t. He turned on someone who was touching me, even if it was misguided. I don’t forgive him for his behaviour, but I am not as mad as I was.

In fact, since I have come back, he hasn’t tried to punish me at all. Controlling me is not high on his list of priorities anymore either and I wonder if my novelty wore off. If it was no fun after he broke me, and he’s victimising some other poor girl somewhere else. I don’t even want to think about that and as fucked up as it sounds … the thought gives me a jealous pang of agony low down in my gut; Hating some imaginary girl who may not exist, for starring in his sadistic games and monopolising his attentions.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I guess I can live with the fact that I owe him something … even if it annoys me. He didn’t need to bring me back here and he didn’t need to give me half the club either. I still don’t understand why he gave up fifty percent so easily and I will probably never get an answer that is honest.

He’s a complete enigma to me sometimes and if I could just have a little tiny clue as to how his thought process works then that would be grand.

I know I should probably thank him for the gifts but a part of me still doesn’t trust that I wouldn’t be playing into his hands. I mean, I’m grateful and I do love them, it’s just … there has to be a reason.

He always has a plan.

On the upside, I have been so preoccupied with his reasoning that half the day has gone by with my head on that instead of more depressing things. I guess I owe him for that, even if it wasn’t his intention at all, and I now feel restless and bored instead of close to putting my head in the oven and I’m itching to go buy a dress that my bracelet will look pretty with.

I’m a shopaholic. It’s a problem.

I think coming from nothing and having to scrape all I had to be able to afford nice things made me this way. I have a serious addiction to owning material things because I never had any growing up. I guess I have my mother’s addictive personality but seeing as it manifests in buying clothes and shoes I am happy to indulge it. A lot healthier than the crap she would inject into her body or pour down her throat, and I would never hand over a child to pay for a new Birkin bag or the latest Versace outfit. I like nice things around me … whereas she liked to live on another planet and disconnect from the reality of the world.

I’m also hungering for real food after that cake and nothing in the refrigerator is screaming to be eaten. It’s all too healthy and wholesome for me today and I have a craving for takeout, or greasy and spicy and completely not good for you, food.

I get up and head to the bedroom to throw on a face and some clothes, aware that I feel better than I expected, and I wonder if my new circumstances and more positive outlook on life concerning my current state of affairs have really been at the root of my different attitude to today.

I am a year older, a year wiser and a year further away from the worst kind of beginning. Maybe I am finally learning how to let that go. Stop looking back and starting to look ahead.

Jackson is hovering by the door looking awkward, seeing as I have been in the lingerie department for the best part of an hour, and it’s obvious he doesn’t normally go knicker shopping with his wife. I told him not to come with me, I was quite happy to have a day going solo, but he got one sniff of me in the lobby and that was it. With Alexi in the building, there was no way he was going to let me wander off without an escort.

He’s my shadow for the day and as much as I told myself I needed solitude, he’s been pretty good company; Carrying bags, making jokes, being a sunny personality in my outing. He doesn’t know that today is any different to any other day, or so I assume. Although a couple times he has looked at me like he wants to say something, and he is being way more amenable than normal. I mean, usually, by now he would be looking fed up with my hours of retail therapy, instead of standing guard by the door with a perma-smile on his face as though he is having the best time ever.