My Mafia Madness

Chapter 30 - Body Language

When Alexa opened her eyes and looked around, she was surprised to find that the morning sun was shining in through the crack between two large, thick curtains draped over what she guessed would have to be a window underneath.

It was only then that she noticed the unfamiliar bedroom she was laying in.

A sense of panic immediately washed over her as she quickly sat up, her head darting around at the modern décor of the room.

“What the f**k?” she whispered to herself with fear.

The first thing she was worried about was her clothing and she pulled the covers aside to find that she was still wearing the same clothing as before.

Relief flooded over her.

At least she hadn’t been undressed by anyone.

The only thing missing were her high heels.

Frowning, she climbed off the bed and looked around.

The room was quite large in size, with plain white walls and dark oak furniture.

There appeared to be a walk-in-robe, off to the side and she slowly made her way towards it.

Reaching into the darkened room and feeling for a switch, her fingers flicked it on and the walk-in-robe suddenly illuminated, revealing racks and shelves of various kinds of clothing.

It included both men and women’s clothing.

She wondered who it was that lived here. Whose clothing this was.

Coming out of the wardrobe, she noticed that there were two closed doors.

One nearby and one at the other side of the room.

She tried the one closest to her first, opening it to find a large ensuite complete with a large shower, a bath, a toilet and a round white porcelain basin located in the centre of the mirrored bench.

“Fancy.” she muttered to herself softly with a smile.

“Yes, I like to think so.” came Dante’s voice from behind her all of a sudden.

“Oh, s**t!”

Alexa cursed aloud as she spun around to face him.

Her eyes now wide with fear as she immediately recoignised her billionaire boss standing with his hands buried in his pockets.

He stood in the middle of the room, with his eyes on her.

His black suit jacket was now missing, so was his tie.

The first few buttons of his black dress shirt were undone, revealing some of his inked artwork running along the front of his ripped pecs.

Alexa hated that her eyes were betraying her, drinking him in so hungrily.

“Mr. Romano… w…where are we?” she asked hesitantly.

“Somewhere safe.” he replied with but the hint of a smile.

“I can assure you.”

“Safe?”

She frowned at his answer.

Why wouldn’t he tell her where they were?

“How did I get here?” she asked, looking around the room.

“I… I don’t remember…”

“You fell asleep, Miss Myers.” he explained.

“My brothers and I returned to find you passed out on the couch.”

Alexa furrowed her brows with worry after hearing this.

“Oh my god! I am so sorry… how embarrassing!” she went on to frantically apologise to him.

“I can’t believe I did that. It was extremely unprofessional of me-”

“-Think nothing of it.” he cut her off, waving his hand dismissively.

Dante noticed as Alexa let out a soft groan, pressing her hand up to her forehead and closing her eyes with a frown.

Her head was absolutely killing her, and the room still seemed to spin in circles.

“Are you alright?” he asked with concern, strolling across to where she stood.

She nodded as she replied, “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just my head. I don’t feel very good…”

“Perhaps you should come and sit down.” he spoke firmly, pressing his hand against the small of her back and guiding her across towards the bed.

Once Alexa was seated on the edge of the bed, Dante turned and made his way across the room towards what appeared to be a small bar fridge.

It sat beside a small station set up with several glasses and an assortment of bottled alcohol.

Dante worked with swift skilfulness as he prepared her a much-needed drink of water.

Flipping one of the clean glasses over, he then bent down and opened the bar fridge, pulling out a plastic bottle of cool spring water.

From her seated position on the edge of the bed, Alexa watched as Dante’s muscular arms easily worked to unscrew the lid and carefully pour the cool water into the glass.

As he turned around and strode across to where she was sitting, she lowered her gaze, fearful that he might catch her staring at him.

He stopped in front of her and held out the glass of water for her to take.

“Thank you.”

She smiled, taking the glass from him and having herself a drink from it.

The cool water felt amazing as it ran down the length of her throat.

She found herself drinking almost the entire glass out of sudden thirst.

“I had you brought here to sleep off the effects of the alcohol.”

She shook her head, clearly still embarrassed by herself for what had happened. For what she had allowed to happen.

There was no way on earth that she still had a job after such a stupid stunt!

As if he could read her mind, Dante came to sit down beside her on the edge of the bed as he spoke with a reassuring smile.

“Relax bella, I have no intention of firing you just yet, if that’s what you’re worried about.” he lifted his left brow and smirked.

She frowned in disbelief, turning to meet his gaze.

“But I-” she paused, frowning in confusion.

“Wait, how did you know-”

“-What you were thinking?” he cut in, surprisingly finishing her sentence.

“How else? I read your mind, bella.” (beautiful)

Of course, Dante was joking, but Alexa clearly hadn’t taken his answer as a joke.

She still held her confused expression as she stared back at him.

Unable to hold himself back from laughing, Dante gave a deep and sinister laugh before he went on to explain, setting her mind at ease.

“Relax, I unfortunately am unable to read minds, bella. But I can read your body language.”

“My body language?” she questioned.

“What do you mean by that?”

“All people have a tell, Miss Myers. It’s in the way we move or act in certain situations. Like you just now.” he gestured toward her with a nod of his head.

“When faced with the possibility of losing your job, your shoulders slumped over, indicating intense amounts of guilt. I mean, who wouldn’t feel guilty about passing out drunk while on the clock. Especially in front of your boss…”

Alexa appeared to consider what he was telling her as she sat in silence beside him.

And Dante went on.

“The way a person acts in certain situations can tell me a lot about them. I guess you would say that I have a gift of some sorts, the ability to read people through their reactions. One, I’ll admit, that comes in handy in my line of work…”

Alexa gave a weak laugh.

“What? Sitting in board meetings and sifting through countless emails?”

Dante’s expression suddenly became much, much darker and Alexa noticed this as he spoke his reply with a deep tone to his voice.

“Something like that…”

She frowned, noticing that Dante had suddenly become distant as he stared down at the carpeted floor beneath his expensive Italian loafers.

He appeared to shake his head for a moment before he pulled himself up and began to make his way across the room towards the door.

He spoke over his shoulder as he moved along, coolly, confidently with each of his long strides.

“Feel free to freshen up in the guest ensuite. Take a shower, whatever you like. There are fresh sets of clothing located in the walk-in robe, use anything you choose. Breakfast will be served downstairs in about half an hour.”

Before she was able to open her mouth and ask him any sort of question, one of many running through her head right now, Dante disappeared through the door, closing it behind him.

Alexa was beyond confused.

This was unlike any other job she had ever had to do.

With everything that had happened recently she hadn’t even been able to find the time to get her own work as an assistant done.

She still had countless emails of her own to go through and needed to take another look at his schedule now that they were in a different city.

Dante’s life appeared to change on an hourly basis, something that would make it quite difficult for her to remain in control and on top of things for him, as she would have preferred.

Alexa thrived with being organised.

That’s what made her so good at what she did.

And there was no doubt in her mind that her boss’ schedule had once again changed since she checked it yesterday.

Deciding to do as he had suggested and wanting to make sure she looked professional enough for whatever her boss had planned for them today, Alexa stood herself up and made her way toward the ensuite to get herself ready.

-

After having herself a nice, relaxing warm shower and finding something suitable to wear in the walk-in-robe as Dante had suggested, Alexa got herself dressed, did her hair and made her way out of the bedroom.

She walked down the long hallway and eventually found a curved set of stairs leading down to the main lobby of the house. This place was massive, though she had only been in a small part of it.

Descending the staircase, she thought she heard voices coming from a room through the corridor.

Following her keen senses, the assistant stepped into the large, open plan kitchen and dining area, where several people were gathered and chatting away happily.

She immediately identified several of them to be Cecilio, Luca, Lanzo and Dante’s brother Roberto. The others she hadn’t yet had the privilege of meeting.

And as for Dante, it appeared that there was still no sign of the capo.

Maybe he had slept in?

The boys noticed Alexa as soon as she had appeared in the open doorway.

“Ah, Miss Myers, there you are!” Roberto announced with a warm smile.

“And might I add, you look rather radiant this morning. I see you’ve managed to recover after our little game yesterday afternoon.”

Her cheeks reddened as she came to stand beside the kitchen counter with the others.

“Thanks, I guess… and please, call me Alexa.” she replied before lowering her eyes.

“I guess I’m not as skilled at handling my liquor as I thought. Not like you and your brothers are I mean, Mr. Romano.”

He frowned.

“Please Alexa, just call me Roberto. Mr. Romano is far too formal for my taste. I may hold a third’s share in the company, but remember, I’m not the CEO, or your boss.”

She nodded her head with a smile.

“Speaking of our capo, anyone seen him this morning?” Luca asked, looking around the room as the others appeared to shrug their responses.

“He’s usually up and about by this hour.”

Alexa decided to put their minds at ease as she went to explain.

“He’s awake, I saw him earlier on up in my room.”

“Did you now?” Roberto smirked.

She narrowed her eyes at him and spoke to defend herself from his assumptions.

“Not like that! He came in to check how I was doing, that’s all.”

“Sure he did.” Lanzo taunted before taking a drink of fresh orange juice.

The boys all wore matching smirks now as they stood around the counter staring at her.

Dante wouldn’t waste his time coming to check in on his new assistant unless there was a deeper reason for him to do so. He was a very busy man, after all.

“And when the boss came to check on you…”

Luca’s brows rose when he said the word ‘check’ and he cheekily continued, “…did the two of you have yourselves some fun?”

Placing her hands onto both her hips and letting out a sigh, she suddenly realised just what Luca had been insinuating about her and their boss. That she had slept with him.

“For your information Luca, I don’t make the mistake of sleeping with the people I work with. Especially my bosses!”

Several of them fought to hide their smiles as she spoke again, rather defensively.

“Besides, I don’t date rich men.”

Roberto frowned, his thick, dark brows narrowing inwards.

“What? Why the hell not?” he asked, looking her up and down.

She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as she replied.

“I just don’t. Well, not anymore…”

She paused and pulled out one of the bar stools, sitting herself down onto it as she went on to explain herself a little more.

“You see, I’ve learnt from unfortunate past experiences. The more money a man has, the higher the temptation is for him to cheat, and the lesser the chance of loyalty from him in a relationship. Having money only creates problems in my opinion…”

Lowering her chocolate brown eyes to look at the counter, the others quickly noticed her solemn expression as it appeared.

Had someone hurt her in the past?

Someone wealthy perhaps, who had also made the mistake of being unfaithful to her?

“Well, I’m happy to inform you that not all of us are scumbags, Alexa.” Roberto insisted, his head tilted off to the side as he gave her a soft and comforting smile.

“Maybe, with time, you’ll come to change your mind about us rich men.”

Although she smiled back at him, internally she highly doubted what he had said to her just now.

Rich men were scoundrels. Unfaithful and full of secrets… just like her ex was.

And no one would convince her otherwise.