The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 52

‘’Joanne’s here, I don’t need two of you tending, get upstairs and take the rest of the night off.’‘

‘‘No! I won’t go upstairs and twiddle my thumbs till four a.m. I’m happy down here and I don’t care if your new toy is here, she’s not capable of replacing me and I don’t intend to let her.’’ I have a stubborn determination too, and he can back off and get a grip if he thinks he can send me to bed like a child. That woman may be sharing his bed but over my dead body is she also going to be sharing this club. We built this and we run it together without interference. I am done being bossed around, pushed and trampled on by this arsehole.

‘’Since when has disobeying me ever been in your best interests?’’ Low tone, I’m in the danger zone. I really am sick of this little control method nowadays, so instead of sinking back like I normally would I flash my own little fierce at him.

‘’Is this because other men dared to touch me?’‘ I flash at him, tossing back my hair over my shoulder with a manicured talon.

So fucking transparent it’s unreal.

I honestly think I should book him a shrink appointment myself; this control thing he has going on was maybe sexy in the early days of meeting him, but when it’s rammed down your throat at every turn and his tight leash of possessive is around your neck, it gets old very fast.

‘’Yes. Now get up the fucking stairs.’’

Well he isn’t denying it anyway, and he did lose his cool very fast. I swear Carrero is unravelling the longer I know him. That cool controlled mask slips more often with every passing week, and I wonder if he’s brimming on an almighty breakdown. Maybe I do get to him too, in the same way he riles me, as he is certainly not the calm composed Carrero of the early days anymore.

I slam my clipboard into his chest with an aggressive air, pushing it at him until he takes hold. Anger spiking and having a tantrum of my own, lifting my chin and tossing my locks back in an air of outright attitude.

‘‘You have an uninvited guest, someone not on the list and the body count is off. Go get your new girl to figure that one out, if she has the brains.’’ Alexi’s arrogant look drops to one of blank as he flits his eyes down to the board instead, flipping it back to look at the names.

‘‘What?’’ He scans the list and then looks back at me with a furrowed brow. ‘‘You’re sure?’’

The change in mood and manner highlights that he’s at least listening and taking this seriously, so I too pipe down and move forward so surrounding ears do not hear. Putting our differences aside when it comes to something in ‘’our’’ club being off. We take security seriously and an imposter is never a good thing in this kind of business.

Our issues with one another will always come second to making my baby run perfectly.

‘’It’s hard to take a head count when everyone’s disappearing and moving around the rooms, but I am certain we have one extra that’s unaccounted for, and I don’t know who he came in with. One of your members didn’t detail a guest.’’

‘’What does he look like?’’ Alexi moves closer, voices hushed as he gets in against me, dipping his head close to mine to make sure no one picks up on the issue we are discussing. He is a man who likes to always look like he has everything in hand.

‘‘You’re paying for the dry-cleaning bill, seeing as she’s your disaster. I didn’t need any help down here and this dress is irreplaceable.’’ I snap at him, completely distraught and enraged as I haul myself free of his grip childishly. ‘’Don’t fucking touch me.’’ I grit it out under my breath as an afterthought in rage because he’s a bully, a bossy shit, and I am done playing his stupid games.

He lost the right to touch me after what he did in the Hamptons, and he will never get it back. His touch makes my skin crawl now. He lets me go but holds me still with those focused eyes and furrowed brow.

‘‘I’ll pay for the cleaning or a new dress, now don’t make a scene or I will publicly spank you.’’ He warns in an equally hushed tone, but I just roll my eyes at him.

‘’Of course you will.’’ Sarcasm oozing with disdain and even I know that’s an empty threat. He might get someone else to spank me, but this complete distaste for violence against women is a weakness for him that he should stop emphasizing. It’s not honour or a code if that kind of trait is discovered by someone like Santagato.

He just scowls and growls like a good old beastly monster, and I make a move before I encourage some other form of discipline. I am still sore about that damned room and that god awful cross among every other thing he has inflicted on me and just hightail it out into the corridor to work my way back to the lift before he rethinks my free pass.

Wiping my dress in a completely useless manner and tutting and sighing at how ruined it is. The security men are huddled in a little group laughing and joking by the back door and pay no attention to me. The ones nearer the rear exit are gazing outside with the door open, and something going on back there that is either entertaining or dramatic enough to gather them like gossipy women to watch.

I don’t stop to find out what and walk along the quiet empty hall to the left which houses the lifts, concealed from the club and the door, pull out my card and swipe the nearest pad to get one to open. I wander into the first one that slides open gracefully, turn around and then jump in fright when a figure slides in beside me and covers my mouth with his hand before thrusting me against the wall aggressively.