Fall For My Ex’s Mafia Dad
Chapter 78

I drag my hand down my face and force myself to look at Kent. He's looking right at me, of course, from his place outside the room. Looking at me as I sit in the clothes he sent, having a movie night with his son.

"Is it a surprise?" Daniel asks, working hard to pull Kent's attention back to him. It doesn't work. Kent keeps his eyes fixed on me. "I'm just having a nice evening in with my fiancé, after all," Daniel continues. "What's so surprising about that." Kent ignores his son. I shift uncomfortably under his gaze, looking down at the popcorn in my lap. I look up when I hear Kent speak again.

"Well," he says, his voice conclusive. "I wouldn't want to interrupt. You two have fun." He pauses, looking me straight in the eye for a good ten seconds before turning slowly and striding away, perfectly in control. Daniel rudely slams the door after him. "Daniel," I sigh. "Do you have to be such a d**k?"

"He's being a d**k, Fay!" Daniel explodes, throwing his hands in the air. "What he's doing to you - how he's treating you! I'm saving you from that!"

"Daniel," I hesitate, looking at him with sorrow on my face. "Did you ever think that maybe..."

He goes still, staring at me with his mouth open. I trace the design on my duvet, awkward.

"Seriously?" Daniel breathes. "He got to you too?"

I look up at him, a little rueful. He did.

"Can we just...enjoy the night?" I sigh, gesturing towards the empty side of the bed. "You scared him away - isn't that what you wanted?"

Daniel sighs too, putting his forehead in his hand and closing his eyes to think it through.

"Just come watch the movie with me" I plead softly. It breaks my heart to see my friend so upset, even though...well, even though I know that this isn't going to end well for us. That if I start sleeping with his dad, things are forever going to be changed between Daniel and me.

And suddenly I decide that what I actually want - really - is one last real night with my best friend. While he's my best friend.

Daniel nods then, perhaps coming to the same conclusion, and climbs back into the bed with me. I rest my head on his shoulder and he gives me a chaste little kiss on the forehead, both of us apparently deciding not to talk about it. Perhaps, in this case, silence is best.

We finish Clueless, and a couple more movies, before I eventually drift off to sleep with my head still on my friend's shoulder.

But I swear, my last waking thought is to wonder what the hell would have happened, really, if I made Daniel go away. And called Kent back.

And let him peel this little fur robe from my shoulders and drop it to the floor.

I wake up the next morning to the sound of a knock on the door at six AM. I groan, blinking awake, and look sideways to see Daniel doing the same in the bed next to me.

"Mornin"," he murmurs to me, rubbing his eyes. When I get up, Daniel turns over onto this stomach, burrowing back into the pillows.

"Lazy," I chide, smiling at him and heading for the door. "What, you don't get up to receive your own clothes deliveries in the morning?"

"Clothes deliveries?" Daniel asks, peering at me. "Your clothes are delivered?"

I open the door and give the housekeeper standing there a smile, accepting the folded clothes and the white box beneath. My eyes raise at that - the white box in the morning is new. Then, I turn back to Daniel, frowning a little. "You don't get clothes delivered?" "No, Fay," Daniel says, sitting up and staring at me. I see him put it all together in his sleepy mind as I walk back to the bed. "Oh, gross, seriously? He picks out your clothes every day?"

"I kind of like it," I say, shrugging and laying out the clothes I've been sent this morning, tossing the white box on my vanity and hoping Daniel doesn't ask about it. "Takes a lot of pressure off of me. And he has good taste."

"It's so creepy, Fay," Daniel whispers, scrunching his nose.

"He's been doing it since I moved in," I reply, nonchalant as I admire the pretty blue and white dress with scalloped cap sleeves that Kent sent today. "I thought it was Fiona, at first, but she told me it's him."

"That's so weird," Daniel whispers, all in a rush, and then collapses back onto the bed.

I smile at Daniel, laughing a little, but then my laughter fades as I look carefully at the dress in my hands and wonder...well, wonder if I maybe got too used to this. Maybe I haven't thought enough about how weird this actually might be.

As I study the dress I consider that Kent controls pretty much every aspect of my life now. He decides what I wear, what I do all day, where I go, where my money comes from, where my sister and my father live. And while I've accepted a lot of that as part of living under a mafia boss's roof and enjoying the luxury of my situation...is this really what I want for my life?

I sigh, tossing the dress onto the bed, looking at it. It's a delicate, pretty thing - where was Kent imagining me going in that dress?

Did I want to go there?

I shake my head.

"Okay, Daniel," I say, clapping my hands and making him groan at the noise. I laugh and move to the side of the bed, shaking his shoulders and making him wake up. "Go away! You've outstayed your welcome! Leave me alone so I can get changed!" "No!" He shouts into the pillows, laughing too. "I want to sleep! Leave me be! You just get changed - I won't look."

"Get up!" I shout, laughing and grabbing a pillow, which I start hitting him with. "I'll see you in twenty minutes at breakfast, lazy."

Daniel grumbles his assent and climbs out of bed, stretching and yawning. I see him eye the white box as he heads for the door, and then he brings his eyes to mine, curious. I just shake my head. "You don't want to know, Daniel."

"You're right," he murmurs with a sigh. Then, he blows me a little kiss, heading next door to his own room to get ready. He pulls my bedroom door shut behind him.

As soon as he closes it, I move to my wardrobe, my mind made up.

Even though I just said that I'd meet Daniel at breakfast, I actually have no intention of doing that. I pull some of my riding clothes out of the back of my wardrobe, as well as my shiny black boots. Then, I hastily get ready for my day, eager to get to breakfast before anyone else does. Or, more accurately, past breakfast, and to the garage.

Because today, I have no real desire to hear what Kent has planned for me in that blue and white dress. Today, I want to do precisely what it is that I want to do. And today, I want to see my horse.

Forty minutes later, after successfully evading everyone but Jerome, who I made give me keys to the car, I pull up to the stables just as the sun is coming up. I park the Lexus in the spot closest to the barn doors - the one usually left open for Kent. But today, I decide, it's for me.

I give some of the workers a happy smile as I rush down the aisle to Heathcliff's stall, pulling open the latch to the door as I beam at my pretty boy.

"Hey, handsome," I murmur to Heathcliff, who gives me a happy little whinny and huffs at my hand, looking for a snack. I oblige him, pulling a sugar cube from my pocket that I snatched from the espresso bar when I snuck into the kitchen for just one sip of coffee before I ran for the garage.

"Did you miss me?" I softly ask my horse, scratching his forehead and then working my way down his neck. "I missed you."

And then I take the little box of grooming tools off the shelf at the top of the stall and get to work, brushing Heathcliff's coat until it shines and braiding his mane. I take my time with it, relishing the feeling of having all day to do this, to do precisely as I please. But also, a little thrilled at the anticipation that... Kent isn't going to like this.

That I've defied him, again. Avoided him, again.

And that I have every expectation of seeing him later, all pissed off at me. Worked up into a fury.

Just how I like him.