Too Late. I'm Married to the Godfather novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Donna

The lobby learns Carly is the Marchese family's Donna, Whitney's bracelet turns up in her own coat, and Grayson's big deal dies, but Whitney whispers something about stairs that no one should know.

The guard let go of my arm so fast he nearly fell over.

The hotel manager came running from behind the desk, a small bald man in a tailored jacket.

He had already gone gray in the face.

"Mr. Marchese. Sir. I didn't know you were in the building."

"I was upstairs checking the playroom for tomorrow." Giancarlo set Rocco down. "Now I'm down here."

Rocco ran straight to me and hugged my knees.

"Mama, I had a cupcake. Daddy said one. I had two."

"I can see that, baby." I wiped his chin with my thumb.

Giancarlo looked at the manager.

"Why is my wife's bag on the floor?"

The manager turned to the guards. The guards turned to Whitney.

Whitney had lowered her phone at last.

"Your wife?" she said.

Grayson laughed. It came out high and wrong.

"I'm sorry, there's been a mix-up. This is Carly Ames. She's, um, an old friend of mine. She's going through a hard time."

"I know who she is," Giancarlo said. "I married her."

The manager cleared his throat.

He stepped past Grayson and bent his head to me.

"Donna Marchese. I am so sorry. This will never happen again under this roof."

Donna.

Nobody had ever said it to me in public.

I had asked them not to. For four and a half years I'd been Dr. Ames at work and Carly at home, and the title stayed in the family's back rooms where it belonged.

Now forty strangers in a hotel lobby had heard it.

Whitney's face went through three expressions in a second.

Grayson's watch hand dropped to his side.

The bigger guard was already on his knees, picking up my pens.

"Leave it," I said.

He froze.

"Leave all of it on the floor. I want everyone to see it when she empties her pocket."

Giancarlo came to stand beside me. He didn't touch me. He just stood there, close enough that I could feel the heat of him through my ripped parka.

"What do you want done, Doc?" he asked, low.

That was Giancarlo. He would have burned the lobby down if I'd asked.

He'd also stand there all night and wait, if I asked that instead.

"I want her to turn out her coat," I said. "Herself. On camera."

Every head turned to Whitney.

She laughed and held her phone up again.

"This is insane. I'm not being searched by the mob."

"You're not being searched," I said. "You're searching yourself. Left pocket."

"I'm calling my father."

"Call him after."

Giancarlo said nothing at all.

He only looked at her.

Whitney's hand shook as she put it into her left coat pocket.

It came out holding a diamond bracelet.

It glittered under the chandelier.

The lobby made a sound.

"Oh," Whitney said. "Oh my God. It must have slipped off. It must have fallen in."

"Into a pocket with a flap," I said. "That's a talented bracelet."

Somebody near the revolving door snorted.

The man with the luggage cart said, "She was filming the whole time. She's going to post that."

Whitney shoved the bracelet into her purse.

Grayson stepped toward Giancarlo with his hand out and his best smile on.

"Mr. Marchese. Grayson Tate, Lyle Capital. I believe we're meeting tomorrow at ten. The waterfront proposal."

Giancarlo looked at the hand until Grayson took it back.

"We were," Giancarlo said.

"I'm sorry?"

"The Marchese group won't be meeting with Lyle Capital tomorrow." He turned to the manager. "Or any other day."

"Sir, with respect, this is a two-hundred-million-dollar..."

"You gave my wife twenty dollars," Giancarlo said. "That's what you're worth to me."

Grayson went red from his collar to his hair.

I looked down at the twenty still crumpled in my left hand.

I walked over to him.

I held out my right hand, palm up, and waited.

He stared at me. Then he understood and dropped the tab into it.

I folded his twenty around the tab.

I pressed it into his breast pocket and patted it flat.

Then I stopped.

I took it back out, unwrapped the bill, and kept the tab.

"Sorry," I said. "That one's mine. You can have your money."

I let the twenty fall on the marble next to my diaper cream.

Rocco tugged on Giancarlo's sleeve.

"Daddy, why is that man red?"

"He's embarrassed, bud."

"Why?"

"Because he was rude to Mama."

Rocco considered Grayson seriously.

"You have to say sorry," he told him. "That's the rule."

Grayson opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Giancarlo nodded to the guards.

"Walk them out. The front door, not the side."

The guards took Grayson by one arm and Whitney by the other, the way they'd held me ten minutes ago.

"Don't you touch me!" Whitney shrieked. "This coat is Valentino!"

"Ma'am, you need to come with us," the bigger guard said.

I didn't smile.

I wanted to.

Grayson tried to look back at me over his shoulder. He looked like a man doing math and hating every answer.

They were nearly at the revolving door.

Whitney yanked her arm free and turned around.

She walked back across the marble toward me, fast, her heels cracking.

Giancarlo moved half a step in front of me.

Whitney stopped an inch from his shoulder and leaned around him, close to my ear.

She smelled like gardenias.

Her voice was very soft.

"Still taking the stairs, Carly?"

Then she smiled and walked out into Fifth Avenue.

I stood there with the tab cutting into my palm.

Nobody knew about the stairs.

Not my mother. Not my best friend. Not the man beside me.

Nobody but the police officer who wrote it down five years ago, and the two men on the landing.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend