Chapter 346

The rest of dinner is anticlimactic, uneventful and about as interesting as the fifteen minutes we spent in the ladies’ room making polite strained conversation. Everyone seems to be on their best behaviour after the interlude and the meal goes on with no more drama.

It’s not exactly riveting company or thrilling conversation. The majority is discussing the casino, family, New York and stock markets. I swear, for a moment, I forgot Alexi is even a crime lord at all when he can be exceedingly convincing at playing boring businessman and plays nice with imbeciles and their puppy dog wives.

Alessandra and Gino are itching to get the night going, I can sense it seeping from them. Alessandra told me in the bathroom we are heading out to a club after this, just the four of us. To party the night away and I’m not complaining, after spending most of the day in bed. I want to experience a night out like we had in Miami with the way Alexi and I are now. I think it would increase the enjoyment tenfold, being able to curl on his lap and get crazily drunk and horny before letting him carry me back to our shared bed.

That has me excited with anticipation for a good fun filled night, drunken crazy sex with my hot Italian and then lazing away in bed with him as we recover. Sounds like heaven.

I still really love the fact that I get to sleep beside him every night. It’s weird, something I’m not used to and a complete novelty I’m still in the throes of treasuring. I never thought I would ever look forward to sharing a bed with a man on a long-term basis, let alone actually want to be in a relationship with one. I never thought I had it in me to not run a thousand miles from a man trying to trap me into his life this way, yet here I am. Not even attempting an escape.

The opposite in fact. I look forward to climbing into bed with him, even if all we do is curl up close and sleep. It’s a connection like no other and takes trust to be that vulnerable beside someone else, from both sides. Sleeping nose to nose while wrapped up cutely.

I find myself glancing his way through dinner and dessert, even when we move to after-dinner drinks. Listening to him and his men talk and just bask in his presence. Enjoying being able to relax beside him, watch him and be secure in knowing that afterwards, I get to have him all alone and monopolise his attention. Nothing terrifying or sadistic, just tender and safe. My Lexi from his bolthole, the version I was afraid was a one-off. It’s not. He is with me always and I’m starting to realise he is always under that mask, ready to reassure me in tiny ways when I get worried about how he seems.

He isn’t the dual personality I once thought him.

His little looks in return are not lost on me, neither is the subtle way his hand occasionally strays under the table to stroke my thigh or rest on my knee. Little intimate touches kept under wraps just to tell me he likes me by his side. Reinforcing the fact that no matter how Mr Mafia he seems on the surface; his heart still beats for me inside that body. That little shining, flickering candle that never goes out.

Outwardly he seems like he always does, smooth, unemotional and far too cool, but I can see through it.

Alexi is controlled by choice. He masks everything from probing eyes and it’s only now I have got to know the layers of him I can see subtle tells. He does feel, he does care, and he gets rattled. It slips sometimes, but mostly, he keeps it all behind doors of indifference until he is alone and can let it loose. Those closest to him get to see more of who he is, and I get to see everything under that.

I realise that is something very special not even Mico gets to see. The way he is with me, I doubt he has ever shown anyone else in his life for a very long time. I get the special parts of him just like he gets the deepest secret parts of me. That’s why this is working. We both have something more to give that is only meant for each other. Something just for the two of us. A safe space to be weak, vulnerable, gentle, honest. No judgment and no one trying to use it against us in that little bubble.

I never knew I had it in me to be worthy of love or had any love to give that someone like him would want. What we have between us though, is probably the purest and most sacred thing I’ve ever had in my life. He feels like home. I never knew that a person could be that haven I had longed for all my life, that a man could be all the things I yearned for tied into one. Home, security, safety. He is all of those things and so much more and I don’t need to search for that place anymore. Alexi makes me want to be the best I can be for him. My life is no longer about just me and focusing on myself.

He is all that I need and want.

“Right, can we wrap this up and go find a nightclub? I’m bored to my back teeth of talking money and shop.” Gino finally butts in, verbalising what I’m feeling and thankfully Alexi nods. A little subtle sigh that indicates he is done.

“Yeah, time to let off steam and go find a club. You guys coming?” Alexi invites the two, now less surly cousins, but the stricken look on the wives’ faces suggests they won’t be coming if they do fancy a night of fun. I get the impression women get left behind. Invitations stop at the men and they get no say.

I can almost guarantee they are the type of wives who follow the Mafia mistress rule. Don’t mention them, don’t make a fuss and know that weekends are mistress days. Turn a blind eye and don’t get upset.

Sad really and another reason to never get married.

“Not tonight. We must get these two home and back to the kids. It’s a good thirty-minute drive out of the city to where we are living now.” Rob lifts a brow and flicks the first real glance at his wife in the past hour of sitting here. I guess to tell her to ready herself to leave in a brisk controlling gesture. She jumps to obey, pulling her bag to her and making a show of readying herself to get up.

They have all but ignored their women’s presence all night. They even sat them off to one side and paired up beside Alexi to monopolise his attention. I guess I should be relieved that no matter where he has taken me, even before we were a thing, he always sat me by his side and attempted to include me in conversation occasionally. He has never outright shunned me in a corner the way these men have. There was respect, even when I was an untrusted enemy he wanted to break.

Another tell that maybe I have always meant something to him, even before he knew it himself. Or maybe Alexi was just raised differently. His father seems to respect his mother, anyway.

“Next time.” Alexi shrugs off the refusal, uncaring if they come or not. He’s bored and wants to go out now it’s all wrapped up tonight, he’s eager to get going. I can tell that restless nature is fed up doing the mature dinner and business chat with company he is not too enamoured with. It’s practically coming off him in waves of heightened sparking energy that is settling around me, that need to release his excess. Buzzing and coercing me to feel that way too. He really affects everything around me so effortlessly.

He gets up and pulls my chair out to coax me to do the same, eager to get moving now he has seen an escape route, tossing his credit card on the table for the bill as the waitress comes scurrying over. Hand on my naked skin at the back of my dress, other on my arm as he slides me to my feet and keeps a hold on me.

“Yeah minus the ball and chain. We will leave them home and the four of us can go have a real man’s night out.” Arrogant cousin grins directly at me for a second and I don’t miss the implied tone. Rob really is testing my patience. That smug arsehole typical male show of intimidation that translates to ‘I will take Alexi to a strip bar and watch him fuck some random whore, bitch. Just to get one over on you’.

I smile straight back and just shrug innocently. Showing I have zero problem with that.

See, I know one thing for sure, Alexi won’t do what he doesn’t want to do. No man alive will ever sway that stubborn arse to follow the beat of another man’s drum. And he has made it abundantly clear that cheating on me is one of those things. I don’t have to worry about other women anymore. Even if my insecurities sometimes tell me otherwise. I can trust him to stick to the boundaries. Something he is actually good at. If he wanted multiple women, he wouldn’t have tied himself to just one. That’s not his style.

“Sure. My father might be with us for the next trip. See what he wants to do.” Alexi pulls me around to beside him by the hand and motions towards the exit while the waitress comes running back with his card. His reply mentioning his father is a way of saying ‘he won’t be up for anything sleazy’ and even I know that. Alexi is very verbal about the fact that his father has never betrayed his mother in all the years they have been wed. That loyalty and trust in their marriage are important to him. In all the times he came to the club he sat upstairs, and women up there were banned when he was using the VIP lounge.

Unusual for what they are but a sign Alexi was raised differently to the norm for these men.

They may have other weird lies and secrets concerning their criminal dealings, but the basis of their love is pure, and they do not cheat. I see it in Gino and Mico, and even Jackson. All devoted to their women and they never treat them the way these two cousins treat theirs. I can already see Alexi is cut from the same cloth as his father. When you get his heart, you keep it and it transports you to an inner circle of trust where he will never betray you.

No one bats an eye that he just paid for the entire meal and I wonder if this is expected when you dine with the boss. No one else seemed to volunteer to foot the bill, maybe it’s a dominance thing. The boss wants to pay, and anyone mentions it gets kicked in the balls. I could imagine Alexi doing just that. He is a bit of a controlling wanker sometimes.

Alexi takes me in hand a little firmly, guiding me out and pushing me towards the dining room exit with a little pressure on the base of my spine again, sliding lower as he feels me out. Still offering goodbyes and struggling to break loose from his cousin's ongoing chatter. They are clinging on a tad desperately.

Gino and Alessandra already followed suit, jumped up and made their farewells before heading out just in front of us, eagerly. I guess it was unanimous between the four of us that this dinner was less than enjoyable. They get to run off while we are being held back with ongoing conversation, and I sigh heavily.

An evening spent with men talking about casinos, gambling licences, profit and loss and all the yadda yadda to owning empires was incredibly dull.