Teasing Orlando
Zorah was sad when the call ended, and Chester reached out and patted her hand.
“I know you don’t agree with our methods Zorah, but I hope you understand our terror here.”
“I understand but I miss him.” She rubbed her chest which was suddenly aching, “it’s weird. A few days ago, all I thought about was leaving him, you know. I was so angry with him for being a mobster and for his sexual history I wanted to walk away from him.”
“What changed?” Orlando asked as he moved to sit beside her. “Why are you missing him now when a few days ago you wanted to leave him?”
“The woman on the yacht,” Zorah said quietly. “She texted me. She somehow got my contact information, and she sent me text messages. She said she was working for someone who was a friend and wanted to get me away from Icaro. I considered it but as I thought of it, I realized how much I wanted to stay and try. I hadn’t tried at all. I fought him at every turn and was mean and arrogant with him. I threw his past in his face over and over. Women and men are in arranged marriages all the time and they aren’t all bad. Women all over the world complain of men who cheat, lie, abuse them financially, emotionally, or physically. I’ve literally been given a husband who wants me and only me and wants to spoil me rotten.”
“He’s a dangerous man, Zorah,” Chester said quietly from her other side.
“I know. There is a reason they call him the Beast and I also know the men in his family are equally vicious. But for all of their brutality, they treat me like I’m special. Dagoberto Lucchesi told me he’s waited his entire lifetime to have a daughter and now he feels he has one in me. There were times I was so angry and so frustrated, and so I avoided the entire family. He would come and sit with me in the garden.”
“I imagine he pressured you.”
“No. Icaro’s mothers, female cousins, and aunts all constantly tell me how much I’m loved and how I simply need to open my heart and let Icaro in but not Dagoberto. He would sit with me and just be in the quiet with me. He never told me I needed to do one thing or another. He just kept me company and I asked him once why and he said he always wanted a daughter and since I was his daughter-in-law, he was going to be there for me the way I needed him to. I didn’t need to say anything if I didn’t want to, but he wanted to be there in case I wanted to talk.”
“You do know he’s wanted in many countries for murder for hire.”
“I’m sure you are too,” she snorted at Orlando. “He would never hurt me. There was a situation recently where a nurse was shot while I was there. It was Dagoberto who moved to protect me from the scene and gave everyone hell for letting it escalate the way it did before I was removed from the room.”
“You’re saying his entire family adores you?”
“No!” she gave a laugh. “Avaline’s grandparents hate me because they think I’m a whore with loose morals.”
“What?” Orlando frowned angrily.
“Icaro took me to The Walrus for a night of dancing. I’d never been to a club before. I told him since he’d slept with a bunch of women before me, I was going to dirty dance with a bunch of sexy men. I did too.” She met Chester’s amused gaze.
“It was your first day in Rome, right? We didn’t get eyes on you until the next day when you went to the spa.”
She nodded.
“Icaro must have been pissed.”
“Not in the least. He encouraged me to dance. He gave me drinks, stood up on the balcony, and watched over me, but he let me dance with whoever I wanted.”
“I can’t picture it.”
“He’s not a jealous person and he said after the number of women he was with he has no right to argue if I want to go and sleep with hundreds of men.”
“None of this is adding up to me,” Orlando grunted. “I want to hate the fucker.”
“Why?” Zorah turned to face him bluntly, “are you harboring some kind of attraction to me you won’t admit in front of Chester?”
Orlando pulled his head back in surprise, “what? No. Hell no. Unlike your husband, I don’t date little girls, especially ones I watched grow up.”
“You don’t think I’m attractive?”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re attractive Zorah. You are a lovely woman. However, you’re my niece.”
“Not biologically,” an imp inside her was enjoying making him uncomfortable. They’d kidnapped her and brought her here. She could at least have some fun at their expense. “I mean, Icaro is man enough to admit the age difference doesn’t matter to him. Why can’t you?”
“Zorah, I don’t feel that way about you.”
“But upstairs when I was in my towel you definitely looked.”
“You saw her in her towel?” Chester growled furiously.
“No!” Orlando threw his hands up in the air. “I thought she was still in the bathroom. I was putting her clothes on the bed for her. She came out. I didn’t look! I wouldn’t be so disrespectful to my niece.”
“You keep saying niece like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“I am not trying to convince myself. I am not sexually attracted to you Zorah. While I think you are lovely, beautiful even, you are far too young for me to even think of in a sexual way. It repulses me. While some men might be able to look past an age gap, I am not one of them. I also cannot emphasize this enough for anyone in this room,” he made a pointed glare at his best friend who was trying not to snicker, “I consider you, my blood. While we do not share DNA, Chester is my brother. You are his daughter. It makes you my niece, my family. Even if I was the kind of guy to date women half my age, I’m not the kind of guy who does incest and as far as I’m concerned touching you would be exactly this.”
“He’s really protesting a lot,” Zorah shot twinkling eyes at Chester who finally let a guffaw escape his lips.
Orlando hissed, “oh the two of you are having fun at my expense?”
“You shot me with a tranquilizer dart, sedated me, catheterized me and you were rude on the plane. I think this is the least of what you deserve.”
“Fine but just so you know, it was my sister who suggested the catheter not me. I was content to let you piss yourself.” He tugged her hair as he rose from his seat and walked out of the room.
Zorah exchanged a look with Chester and then they both burst into laughter.
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