Shameless - Sybil Bartel Page 0,3
while I pretended it was the music mogul’s daughter with the huge tits.
“By the way, I’m hungry. I need something to eat. And coffee. No fast food or any gas station shit either. Real food.”
My orders were to bring her the hell back to Miami, not take her out to eat. “We’re not stopping for a sit-down meal.” I reached behind her seat and grabbed one of the bottles of water I had and dumped it in her lap. “Pick a drive-through or eat when you get home.”
“Miami is like six hours away,” she complained. “That’s practically both lunch and dinner. I’m not waiting to eat until I get home, and I’m not eating fast food.”
“Then starve.”
“Just stop somewhere. You’re getting paid by the hour. What the hell do you care?”
Fucking Christ. “No.”
“Why?” she demanded. “You afraid to be seen out in public with me?”
“Dressed like that?” I tipped my chin at her bullshit outfit for cold weather and lied. “Yeah.”
“Liar.” She smirked. “All men want a woman who dresses like this.”
Fuck my life. “Not gonna work.”
“What’s not going to work?”
“Cut the attention-seeking bullshit, princess. You’re not getting any from me, and we’re not stopping.”
“Oh, come on.” She threw her hands up. “We’re not even on the highway yet.” She stabbed her finger at the window. “You just passed like five restaurants. What the hell is your problem? It’s a half hour to get some decent food. Leo’s paying for it anyway. What do you care?”
Close to giving in just to get her to shut the fuck up, I gave her shit one last time—in part to see how she’d react. “You want to know what happened to the last woman who gave me shit?”
Quiet a beat, she stared at me.
I stared at the road.
She broke first. “Is that supposed to scare me?”
Lifting an eyebrow, I fucked with her. “You’re not?”
“Is this some kind of veiled reference to the last time you saw me? Like some passive-aggressive bullshit about how you had to rescue me and my stepmom from my asshole dealer?”
“Rescue?” I half laughed. “Is that what you’re calling it?” Bitch was junkie high, selling out her supermodel stepmother to her dealer for a score. It didn’t get much more fucked than that.
“Whatever.” She crossed her arms.
She was lucky I shot her dealer before he shot her mother. Whatever was right. “Pick a fucking drive-through if you want something.”
Before she could bitch at me more, my cell rang. Picking it up, I answered without looking at the caller ID. “Shade.”
“Oh my God.” Summer bounced in her seat and pointed. “There!”
“Sfumatura,” a woman said in Italian.
Breathless, contrived and superior. I’d know that voice anywhere.
Carabella Contessa Palermo Vincenzo.
Former client. The last cunt I’d stuck my dick in. And the woman whose calls I’d been avoiding all day.
Fuck.
“Shade,” I corrected. I wasn’t a goddamn tinge or nuance of anything. She knew I hated that play on my name. “Hanging up now.”
“You will not hang up on me,” Cara countered confidently.
I switched to Italian. “Yes, I fucking will. You know better than to call me.”
“Your Italian is rusty,” Cara chided. “You sound like an American.”
“Because that’s exactly what I am.” Goddamn, I needed to end this call before it went FUBAR.
“Turn in, turn in,” Summer practically yelled.
“Don’t be contrary,” Cara pouted. “I need you. And who is that? Who are you with?”
“Oh my God, you’re going to miss the turn!” Summer reached for the wheel.
“Stop,” I growled at Summer in English before taking the turn because I was fucking distracted.
“I do nothing, amore mio. Who is that woman?” Cara demanded. She’d always been jealous as fuck despite the fact she was the one who was married.
“None of your business,” I barked at Cara in Italian before pulling into a parking lot of some restaurant and glaring at Summer as I switched to English. “Wait here. Rule number two. Fucking remember it.”
Cutting the engine, I yanked the key out, got out, and slammed the door shut behind me. Standing in the goddamn cold, I did what I swore I would never do again.
I gave a fucking mafia princess the time of day.
“What do you want, Cara?”
SLAMMING HIS DOOR, SHADE TURNED his back on the SUV.
A shiver wracked my whole body—from the cold, from hearing him speak Italian, from the dominant threat in his tone before he got out of the Escalade—from all of it.
Nosy as hell, I tried the window even though he took the key. No luck. I leaned forward as far as