Chapter 189
The following Monday, Alcee walked into the office she was sharing, begrudgingly, with her new husband and tried to keep her face straight at the sight of Raniero sitting in a chair opposite Torq’s desk.
She dropped her bag on her desk and avoided the way both men were watching her as she took her seat and booted up her computer.
“Not even a good morning?” Torq asked curiously.
She looked at him with resignation, “good morning. Why can’t I go back to my own office?”
“Because I miss you when you’re not with me.”
“Torq, I have so much to do and you’re already having meetings in here. I was late because Antero was relentless this morning. You created a monster with the service dog thing.” She pointed a finger at Raniero, “I blame you.”
“My shoulders are big. I will accept the blame.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled her chair into her desk and dug through her bag for earbuds. “The only way I got him to stop freaking out about leaving her home was by telling him the school alarm bells would scare her, and we couldn’t use noise cancelling headphones on a dog.”
“Noise cancelling headphones on a dog?” Raniero questioned.
“Yes. He even put his on Avalanche to test it, but they wouldn’t stay on her head,”
“We should invent such a thing.” Raniero looked to Torq with a grin.
“I’ll ask you not to mention such an idea to my son,” Alcee grunted at him.
Raniero looked at her and then let out a loud sigh, “I’m sorry Alcee for telling him to say his dog is an emotional support dog to get her in the church.”
“He needs to learn he can’t get everything he wants. He’s already difficult. We pick our battles but some lines we don’t even want to draw in the sand let alone cross.”
“I apologize. I was trying to make him like me.”
She shook her head. She logged into her computer and then frowned when she heard the grunting between the two men. “Do you always talk in caveman or is this for my benefit?”
Watching from her peripheral vision she watched Torq shaking his head emphatically at Raniero, but the younger man was nodding and then getting off his chair to walk towards her desk.
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“This should be good,” she muttered.
Raniero got on his knees next to her chair and put his hands on the armrest. “I humbly beg your forgiveness for my terrible behavior the last time we saw each other. Do you think you could ever forgive me?”
“What the hell are you doing?” she laughed at him.
“Apologizing.”
“On your knees?”
“It’s how Bastiano likes me to apologize.”
“Gross,” she wrinkled her nose.
He nudged her arm, “I bet it’s how Torq likes you to apologize too.”
“Torq, get your brother off the floor.”
“We’re married. He’s your brother now too. You can’t take Lorita and not take him.”
“Yes I can.” Alcee pretended not to see the hurt expression on Raniero’s face. “He thinks I’m a gold-
digging bitch who is trying to fuck you over.”
“I didn’t mean it.” Raniero whispered pursing his lips. “I was jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Yes. Look at you. You’re like his perfect match,” he waved between her and Torq. “I was worried I was being replaced in his heart with you, and I lashed out like a brat. I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
Raniero took her hand away from her keyboard and swung in his, “I promise I’ll be the best big
brother you ever had. I mean, it’s a low bar since I’m pretty sure I’ll never lock you in a room and
watch people beat you up.”
“Funny.”
“I am funny,” he grinned. “Hear that Torq? Alcee thinks I’m funny.”
“The way her eye just twitched tells me she’s about to stab her pen into your neck,” he snorted back. “I told you. Apologizing to her on your hands and knees isn’t the way to make it up to her. You apologize and then you never do your shit again. She appreciates consistency and integrity.”
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“But it’s not my style.”
“It’s not about you,” Torq commented. “It’s about making amends with my wife lest she orders me to send you back to Italy and I do.”
Raniero squeezed her fingers, “please don’t send me back with my mother. I’ll languish there.”
“I heard you put her on a pretty little island.”
“I did but I don’t want to live there. I like the city life.”
“Raniero, what do you want?”
“Your forgiveness,” he pouted prettily.
“This,” she waved at him, “really works for Bastiano?”
“He’s a kinky fucker and he likes it when I’m all submissive.” Raniero made wide eyes at her.
“Is he always like this?” she asked Torq bluntly.
“When he’s not acting like one of my most vicious assassins, yes.”
“You kill people?” she looked back at Raniero who was reminding her of every campy gay man in any
movie she’d ever watched in this current moment.
“Only when Torq tells me too. I’m very good at compartmentalizing.”
“What is the real you?”
“This,” he sighed, “this is me, Alcee. Needy, whiny, bratty and entirely loveable,” he grinned when she scoffed, “but I’m also really smart and I know when to recognize when I fucked up and I fucked
- up. I wanted my brother all to myself, but it was selfish and wrong.”
“What brought you to this epiphany?”
“Being alone when I knew I could be with you and Torq, getting to be part of the family for real.” He rested his chin on her arm, “I promise you, I will never betray you or Antero again.”
“Ugh, fine but if you do, I’m shooting you myself and I’m a terrible shot, so you’ll probably be
maimed and in a vegetative state instead of dead.”
“That would suck.”
“More than you on your knees for Bastiano.”
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The man in question stepped into the room to hear the comment and raised an eyebrow, “I don’t know if anything sucks more than that. He’s a fucking hoover.”
She squealed with exasperation at another intrusion. “This office has a bloody revolving door!”
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