Chapter 24 RóISE

"Oh, wear the pink jumpsuit. Please, Rosy." Fiona presses her palms together and looks at me with puppy dog eyes from where she's sitting on my bed.

Miceli is taking me to the shelter to pick out a kitten. Miceli. Not his sister-in-law, which is who I assumed would actually accompany me when I opened the present at my birthday.

My fake boyfriend who will one day be my very real husband is not the type of man to give a coupon for a trip to an animal shelter as a gift. Did he even know the shelter exists before my birthday party?

I don't think so either.

"Come with us," I say, pulling the jumpsuit off the hanger in my walk-in closet. "You can wear something pink too."

"I don't know." Fiona chews on her thumbnail.

"You know you want to. There's a whole litter of kittens. You can get one too and they can play together."

My cousin's eyes cloud. "Until you move out."

"That's eons away." I strip out of the yoga pants and oversized black t-shirt I put on after my shower this morning. "We're not even officially engaged."

"I don't want to horn in on your date," Fiona tries again.

But I know my younger cousin wants to go. She loves animals and Uncle Brogan won't get mad if Miceli gets her a kitten from the shelter too.

I think.

If he does get angry, I'll tell him it was my idea .

"It's not a date." It's an obligation Catalina created when she got me the pale pink princess cat bed and slapped Miceli's name on the card.

"Pretty sure it is."

"I promise it's not." Even if it will be the first time the Italian underboss and I go anywhere together since signing the contracts.

He didn't even pick me up for my birthday party he was supposedly throwing for me.

"Come on." I give her my best lost kitten look. "It won't be crowded. You know how mob guys are. Miceli will have the shelter cleared before we get there."

"He's Cosa Nostra. Maybe they do things differently."

"Want me to find out?" I ask.

Allessio will know. I still have Miceli's number blocked on my phone. The underboss made the plans through his soldier. He didn't ask, but I couldn't give him a hard time about that because I blocked his number.

Besides Allessio and Zoey know my schedule better than I do now.

Fiona bites her lip and shakes her head at my offer. "What should I wear?"

I grin at her tacit agreement. "This."

I hand her the pink velour hoodie and pants I grabbed from my closet when I was getting my own outfit.

Fiona's eyes round in shock. "That's even more in your face than your jumpsuit."

I look at the two outfits critically. She's probably right. The velour ensemble is in your face, hot pink and my jumpsuit is rose pink.

"Do you want to wear the jumpsuit?"

"No." Fiona is decisive. "The velour is stretchy. I like stretchy."

"The jumpsuit is stretchy too." The French terry cotton has give to it, but it's definitely not as soft as the velour.

"I don't know how you stand wearing something you have to practically strip out of to go pee." Fiona gives an all over body shudder.

"You told me to wear it," I remind her.

"Because you like jumpsuits."

And she likes jackets with hoods she can pull over her head when she's feeling overwhelmed.

Fiona grabs the clothes and climbs off my bed. "I'm not wearing a pink t-shirt."

"If you did, it would probably make Miceli's eyes bleed," I weedle.

"Have you thought that your new penchant for pink could end up as good aversion therapy for him? By the time you get married, it's going to be his favorite color."

"That's assuming he associates it with something positive. "

"You are the best thing that will ever happen to him," Fiona says with staunch loyalty and no empirical evidence to support it.

"You're prejudiced." Miceli liked me before he knew who I was.

More than liked. He wanted me so much he kept me up most of the night. My vagina was sore for three days after even with the witch hazel pads Kara suggested.

Worth it though.

I'll never forget that night. Because even if it was with Miceli, I didn't know it and he wasn't my enemy then. Sex will never be the same again.

How can it be? Now, I know who he is.

I ignore the loud clamor of protest from my ladybits.

The underboss is no more excited to get married than I am. If he was, this would not be the second time I'm seeing him since that day in his brother's office.

If he wanted to get around a blocked number, he would. That he hasn't says everything about how he regards our future.

A necessary evil.

He's possessive with the primal instincts of an alpha predator, but I'm not his one good thing.

His aversion to pink and my joy in needling him are both safe.

The look he gives me when I get downstairs is two parts horrified, one part disbelief.

Along with the jumpsuit, I'm wearing pink tennis shoes and a matching wrap style headband holding my curls back. It's a lot of pink.

Which I'm starting to like for more reasons than bedeviling Miceli.

Pink is a cheerful color and I find myself smiling more when I get dressed to go out.

"Hi, Miceli," Fiona says from behind me.

His gaze slides past me to take in my cousin. She's wearing an olive green t-shirt and beat up black Converse with the velour tracksuit.

"Hello, Fiona." Miceli's voice always gentles when he talks to my cousin. "I take it from the pink outfit that you are coming with us?"

"Why do you say that?" I ask.

"Am I wrong?" he counters.

"No."

"It's a good thing I brought the Beamer and not my McLaren."

"A McLaren Speedtail has three seats," Fiona says.

Miceli nods and smiles. "Which would leave no room for the kitten carrier and you. Besides, I never allow passengers in the seat to my right."

Security reasons, I bet, but I don't ask .

"I still want to know why you think Fiona wearing pink indicates she's coming with us. She likes pink."

"I'm sure you do too, but you wearing so much of it is a dig at me."

"That's pretty conceited." If true.

"Deny it."

"My styling choices are my business," I sidestep.

"That's what I thought. You didn't wear any pink in Portland, or that day in Sev's office." He makes it sound like an accusation.

"You two met in Portland?" Fiona asks before I can reply. "When? How?"

"Those are excellent questions, and your cousin can answer them all in the car," Miceli says.

My glare could singe paint but it doesn't even make Miceli blink. "I'm not answering any questions."

The look he gives me says, "Want to bet?"

From the look of rabid curiosity on Fiona's face, I don't like my odds.

"For your information, I was playing a part both in Portland and in Don De Luca's office—"

Miceli cuts me off. "Call him Severu." He opens the front passenger door for me.

"You call him Sev." I climb into the BMW, settling on the butter soft leather seat.

Miceli leans down, his face so close I can feel his breath and he winks. "My cousin and I do it to annoy him. Sev's never liked having his name shortened."

I don't have a response. I'm too busy trying not to close the distance between our mouths.

With a smirk, Miceli straightens, steps back and closes the door.

"I don't like when people call me Fifi either. Fi's okay, but Fifi sounds like a dog," my cousin offers from the backseat once Miceli is seated behind the wheel.

I wish I was in back with her, but I'm stuck in front with Mr. Tattletale De Luca. He didn't rat me out to my uncle, but he's obviously ready to tell Fiona everything.

It better not be everything. She's too young. Even I didn't tell her the details of that night. Most of them.

I might have mentioned Ares is impressively huge in the male anatomy department. Oh, God. Please don't let her say anything about that .

Yes, that was a prayer.

I'm not big on organized religion, but if I don't believe in God, how do I believe I will see my parents again one day?

I'm not giving that up. They're waiting for me wherever Heaven is and we'll be a family again.

But the priest who buried my dad said, "As a man sows, so does he reap."

Not comforting.

I've refused to go to mass with my family ever since.

But I still pray and right now feels like a good time to ask TPTB for help.