I took it, my eyes never leaving Capo’s. His eyes never left mine. It was intense, but somehow I didn’t care. I wanted to stare at him. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get tired of looking at him.
Seeing him from a distance suddenly felt like a sin. All of his features were better seen up close.
Capo took the seat across from me, his cologne filling my nose as his clothes were pressed from the movement. Rocco gave us a minute as he thumbed through the papers situated in front of him.
Capo reached across to take my hand again. “Mariposa,” he said. “You can call me Capo or Mac.”
I cleared my throat, knowing it was going to sound off when I spoke. I still hadn’t taken his hand. I knew how it felt against mine, and I was almost afraid that a spark would go off when we touched. I wondered if a spark had gone off when he had touched me in the dark at The Club? I had felt it. “I’d rather call you Capo,” I said, my voice small and full of sand. “And you can call me Mari.”
I reached out to make the connection then, not wanting to be a chicken, but when I got close, I slapped at his hand, like I was giving him a sideways five. Too soon. It was too soon to touch him again. To be caught up in him. I didn’t want my eyes to give away what he possibly didn’t see in the darkness. How much he had affected me.
He grinned, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Mariposa,” he said, using an Italian accent on the Spanish word. “I’ll call you Mariposa. The butterfly.”
The butterfly. I moved my head to the side, somehow thinking I could see him better. It didn’t make things clearer, but from any angle, he was stunning. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen apart from my favorite. The butterfly. That was why I hated when people who meant nothing to me called me by my full name. It was the only thing special about me, and when they said it so plainly, like it meant nothing, it reinforced all that I felt—unseen. A caterpillar still stuck in the ugly phase of its life.
Coming from his mouth, those full lips, I didn’t mind. I liked the way he had said it, with a roll of his tongue. Mariposa. He made it sound…special. Beautiful even.
“Mari, you asked me why you were here,” Rocco said, breaking through the fog surrounding me.
I nodded, taking another sip of water.
“Careful.” Capo grinned at me. “It seems the water here is thicker than normal.”
I narrowed my eyes. Smart ass. Then I turned from him, making a deal with myself not to look at him again until Rocco shed some light on the paperwork in front of him.
“Are you familiar with arranged marriages, Mari?”
“Arranged marriages?” I repeated, sounding as dumb as I was sure my face looked. Of course I knew what they were, but why in the hell was he bringing them up during this meeting? I expected words like sex submissive, or discussions about the price of flesh and what I would and wouldn’t do for a buck. But marriage?
“An arranged marriage is when—” Rocco started.
I lifted a hand, stopping his explanation. “I know what it is, but what does it have to do with why I’m here?”
“If you had known what you were getting into,” Rocco said, giving me a pointed look, “I wouldn’t have brought it up. However, since you were chosen by Capo for this arrangement and you were not previously made aware of the situation, I am here to make things clear. Arranged marriages are not uncommon in our culture, though usually both sides of the family are involved. That aside, Capo wants to take a bride. After spending some time with you, he chose you. That is why we are here, Mari. Capo wants to marry you.”
“Marry you?” I repeated, looking between the two men, able to look at Capo again since Rocco had explained why I was there. Neither one of them laughed or looked remotely like they were playing around with me. However, I laughed. Cackled like a witch.
Then I became quiet, realizing how serious they were being. “Fucka me,” I said, wiping my eyes. Then I turned them on Capo. “You really want to marry me?”
He nodded once, really slow, really sharp. “An arrangement.”
“I got that part.” I sat there for a moment or two, absorbing all of this. It started to come together.
He’d been vetting all of those women. Maybe playing the field to see which one he had a connection with. He blindfolded them so they wouldn’t see him and then recognize him on the street after.
Reclusive was the word Sierra had used to describe him to Keely.
He had the women who’d been flirting with other men escorted out of the party.
Sierra was one of his choices.
Marriage. He wanted me to marry him. He chose me for this arrangement.
I stood from my chair, refusing to look at him. I wanted to, just once more, but couldn’t. This was hard enough as it was. “I’ve wasted your time. You picked the wrong girl for this job. Marriage is not in the cards for me, not even for an arrangement.” I turned to go, but I stopped when his voice struck me like lightning in the back.
“You came to me looking for a job, and now that I’m proposing one to you that doesn’t include cheapening your morals for money, you’re going to walk out. At the very least, tell me what scares you about this arrangement—an arrangement with specifics that you haven’t even considered yet. Walking out without hearing the details doesn’t make you a champ, Mariposa. It makes you look like a scared child. Now sit down and prove me wrong.”
“Okay,” I said, turning around. I hung my bag on the chair again, taking a seat. Even though we were discussing marriage, there was no doubt that this was a business meeting. A merger of two lives brought together by paper and pre-thought-out details. If I were going to do this, I had to become as business-minded as possible. Emotions had to be swept from the table, but I had something to air that demanded some feelings first. “Before this meeting officially begins, and all sides have been considered, you have to answer a question.”
Capo stared at me for a minute and then nodded once. He picked up the glass of water and took a sip, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Why me, Capo?”
His name felt odd on my tongue. I didn’t say it how Rocco did, with an Italian accent, but I did my best to give it its due. He had done the same for mine, so I wanted to give him the same respect. His face changed when I had said his name, though, and for some reason it brought me back to The Club, to the candlelit room. The intensity. The intimacy.
“Do you mind if I return a question with a question?”
I put my arm out, as if to say, go ahead.
“Why not you, Mariposa?”
I picked up my glass again, carefully taking a sip. When I set it down, I answered truthfully. No one in this room had time for lies. “I saw the other women at The Club. Your choices. Sierra was my sister’s roommate. I saw her first thing in the morning. I saw her when she was tired beyond what sleep could cure. But I never saw her unattractive.” I pointed to my face and then slid a finger down the slope of my nose.
His eyes went from relaxed to hard in a matter of seconds. I wondered if the outside world ever considered it a subtle change, something that happened in a blink and then was gone, but I caught it. Too aware of him already.
“Will you believe me if I dispute your feelings?”