Kristen Ashley - The Promise

I didn’t answer, just held on to his wrists at my jaw and stared in his eyes, knowing it would have been early.

After the franchise idea crashed and burned, possibly.

After the sandwich shop tanked, probably.

The minute he started things up with Sal.

Definitely.

“You got it good. You got someone who looks after you; you got someone who gives a shit. Livin’ the way you lived, losin’ shit you didn’t even know you should have, do you ever think you’d leave?” he pushed.

“No,” I breathed.

“No,” Ben agreed.

I kept holding on, staring into his eyes while I said, “I think the noodles are gonna turn mushy, Benny.”

“I don’t give a fuck, Frankie.”

“I also think I need tequila with dinner,” I went on.

“Lucky for you, cupboards are bare, but I got that.”

“You’re the shit, Benny Bianchi,” I whispered and watched him close his eyes.

Then I felt his hands pull me to him. He kissed my forehead before he moved me back and, again, looked at me.

“You gonna let me give you good?” he whispered back.

God.

Benny.

“Yes.”

“You gonna freak and bail on me?”

“No.”

His fingers dug in again as he said, “That’s my Frankie.”

I wanted to, I really did, but I couldn’t stop them. The tears hit my eyes, one dropping and sliding down my cheek.

Ben saw it, pulled me by my jaw into his chest, and let go only to wrap his arms tight around me.

I did the same to him.

Another tear slid down, but I held tight to Ben and got control.

While I did, Ben held tight to me.

Minutes later, he moved to put his lips to my hair and said there, “I’ll get the noodles, babe. You deal with the rest.”

“Right,” I agreed.

“You good?” he asked.

I was better than I’d ever been, in the arms of Benny Bianchi.

“Yep.”

“Good,” he murmured, then kissed the top of my head, let me go, and went to the noodles on the stove.

I turned to the counter and dealt with the rest.

***

The next day, Ben and I went to the market.

We got napkins.

I was hustling out of the staff kitchen on my way to my office with my clean coffee cup because it was Friday and no one wanted to come back to the office on Monday seeing the dried remains of last week’s coffee in their mug.

Even though it was barely four o’clock, the place was nearly deserted. It was May, summer was coming on strong, and people were way past cabin fever. They wanted out and about and to make as much of the weekend as possible.

I was one of the last in the office, because even though I’d been there seven months, I wasn’t the kind of person to slow down. I had numbers to reach, but I never looked at numbers to reach as numbers to reach. I looked at them as numbers whose asses needed kicked. I was guiding my reps to kicking that ass, and even though Ben was right then at my apartment, having called ten minutes ago to tell me he’d arrived, I wanted to make sure it was all good at work before I left. I hadn’t seen him since I spent the week with him two weeks ago. He was down for a long weekend, leaving on Tuesday, and I was taking Monday off.

So I had to have my ducks in a row so I could be all about Ben and not have work encroach on that.

I’d already packed up so when I got to my office, I put down my mug, grabbed my purse and my computer bag, nabbed my keys and cell off my desk, and hightailed it out the door.

I was walking by Randy Bierman, the Director of Research and Development’s door and saw he was the only one left in the office. He was mostly turned in his chair to look outside, phone to his ear.

In all the time I’d been there, I still didn’t know what to make of Randy, seeing as most of the time he was kind of a dick. He treated his assistant like shit, was cranky nearly every day, and he was intensely secretive. Always behind closed doors. Rushing to his office the instant his cell phone rang. Shutting the blinds on the window wall to his office, like we all could read lips or had superhuman hearing.

The guy was research and development at a pharmaceutical company, so secretive was part of the job description. But on my first day, I’d signed a nondisclosure agreement that was twelve freaking pages long, and I was management, as was everyone on our floor. I had stock options. I liked getting my salary. I liked the zeroes at the end of that salary. I’d hardly screw that pooch, nor would anyone on that floor. Especially since, if we did, we’d be memorizing the inside of a courtroom and selling a kidney to afford our attorneys because Wyler would sue us until we were living in a box on the street.

Still, a girl had to make an effort and I worked with the guy.

So I stopped by his door and was about to knock, just to give him a wave as a nonverbal good-bye, when I heard him speak.

“I don’t give a fuck. It’s the last time, no more. You come at me again, you will force my hand, and how you force it, you will not like. Are you understanding me?”

He didn’t sound happy, and the words were definitely not happy, so I did not knock. I backed away and headed to the elevators, thinking maybe I should give up on Randy. Nothing Randy did gave any indication he was anything other than what he seemed to be.

A dick.

And it was my experience that dicks weren’t worth the time, even (and maybe especially) when you worked with them.

I gratefully left that behind and was in my car, happy to be heading home. A home that was a kickass apartment that had a courtyard with patio furniture I could finally use. A home in which a hot guy I was coming to love (okay, I was mostly there already) was waiting for me, and after two weeks of phone calls with him, we had three unadulterated days together.

These were my blissful thoughts when my phone rang.

I’d tossed my cell on my purse in the seat beside me, but my Bluetooth was in the vinyl around my stick shift.

I snatched it up, put it in my ear, and hit Go.

“You’ve reached Francesca Concetti,” I greeted.

“Frankie, amata.”

Sal.

“Hey, Sal.”

“You’re well?” he asked.

“Yep. You?”

“Things are good,” he answered.

“Gina?”

“Gina, not so good.”

I felt my neck get tight.

I knew I shouldn’t. Ben was right, Sal was probably a sociopath. But I still liked him.

I could easily blame him for Vinnie’s death, but he didn’t twist Vinnie’s arm to make Vinnie work for him. He didn’t say no to Vinnie joining his crew, but still, that was all on Vinnie.

And when Vinnie was working for Sal, before, and definitely after, Sal and his wife, Gina, were good to me. Take out the Mafia part and they would have been the parents I would have wanted to have.

I’d never say it to Vinnie Senior and Theresa, because they’d lose their minds and probably never speak to me again, but Sal and Gina were a lot like them.

Sal was a little more intense, rougher around sharp edges that were covered in a veneer of refinement that came with money and power. Gina was a little quieter than Theresa, but she found ways to do what she had to do as an Italian woman, mother, and grandmother, which consisted of meddling, getting her way, and controlling her family.

Sal did not like me and look after me just because Vinnie died and he felt that was his duty. He cared about me. Genuinely. The same with Gina.

Seeing as he was a crime boss and she was his spouse, the smart thing to do after Vinnie died would have been to extricate myself from their lives to the point it was just about Christmas cards, eventually losing their address and stopping even that.

But I was me. Frankie.

And apparently, even when I should, I didn’t bail.

This thought would have made me smile, but I didn’t smile because I was worried about Gina.

“Something’s wrong?” I asked cautiously.

“Yeah, amata, somethin’s wrong. She’s got a lotta love for her Frankie. She hears her girl has moved to Indy but comes home to Chicago frequently and she doesn’t get a call? She doesn’t get an offer to meet for coffee? Her girl doesn’t come over and sit at our table?”

Shit.

I drew in a deep breath and shared quietly, “Sal, honey, you probably know, but I’m seeing Benny Bianchi.”

“I know, cara, and good for you. Good for him. It’s about time that boy pulled his head outta his ass.”

I blinked at the road.

Sal kept going.

“Now he’s shoved it right back in. He finally got you where he’s been wantin’ you and where are you? In Indy. He’s in Chicago. Amata, what is that?”

“I had a job to take in Indy, Sal.”

“And he’s got a pizzeria that makes more money than Tiffany’s, Francesca.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, slowing for a stoplight.

I heard him expel an exasperated breath, then explain like I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, “It isn’t like you gotta work.”

Oh. That was what it meant.

“That’s not the kind of woman I am, Sal.”

“Benny got his head outta his ass…again…he’d have words with you and make you that kind of woman.”

I reminded myself he was a mob boss—a mob boss who loved me, but a mob boss who very likely did a variety of pretty scary things to people who pissed him off.

Therefore, I didn’t turn my full attitude on him when I said, “Love you, Sal. You know it. And no disrespect. But the fifties were a really long time ago.”