It isn’t until I’ve crossed the room and settled back into my leather seat that Miko speaks, “Ho una domanda.”
I have a question.
Instead of following the statement with whatever is on his mind, he simply remains silent.
“Well,” I move the file so that it’s in front of me, although I keep my stare on him. “What is it?”
“Why…if they’re arriving…are you sitting back at the very desk I worked so fucking hard to pull you away from instead of grabbing a drink and allowing me to escort you downstairs to properly greet them?” Miko folds his arms firmly across his chest. “Is this some sort of power play? Introduction to what it will be like to be married to you? Work before them at all times? Have them get used to feeling beneath you and knowing their place?”
His line of questioning leaves a sour taste to linger on my tongue.
That was how my father behaved.
His father.
His father’s father.
And I have no doubt the pattern stretches back to the very beginning of days when we first bought and built this town to be the impervious kingdom that it’s undeniably become.
I honestly never saw myself living differently.
Wasn’t even a possibility on the chopping block.
At least not before Miss Brooks literally barged into my life.
“Beni…” Miko’s voice insufficiently hides his anxiety and his amusement, “why do I get the feeling that that’s what you should be doing, but it’s not?”
I choose once more not to answer.
“Beni-”
“Her first name, Miko.” My attention falls to the paperwork waiting to be scrutinized. “You don’t have it, and I still need it.”
“Bisogno?”
“Want,” I swiftly correct and send a stern stare to him. “I meant want. I still want it.”
Miko’s lips press together in an attempt to poorly hide the humor being restrained.
“Get it. Questo è un ordine.”
He rolls his eyes, although I’m not sure if it’s from me using the phrase of giving him an order – something I rarely do – or how childish I sound constantly demanding to have the unknown information.
“I will not be calling her Miss Brooks during our time together tomorrow night. That’s unacceptable. It’s a date not an interview.”
Miko grunts a laugh. “Sono la stessa cosa con te.”
“They’re not one in the same.”
His head tilts sarcastically at me.
“Fuck, fine. They’re not always one in the same.”
“Dates are always interviews. Fucks are always fun.” He gives me a casual shrug. “It’s protocol.”
Yet it never seemed so fucking moronic until just now.
“Beni-”
“For fucks sake, Miko, all I’m asking for is her goddamn first name, so that our date can go a little more smoothly than our first meeting did. Capisci?”
You understand?
His nodding is a little too energetic for my liking.
The action has me heavily sighing, “Che cosa? What is it you’re not saying that you clearly want to say?”
Humor hops back into his expression, and its return is unsettling. “I’m just…personally confused about this date you keep referencing.”
“And why is that fucking confusing for you?”
“Because it doesn’t exist.”
“Wh-”
“You didn’t ask, and she didn’t accept.” He grows a grin so smug that it instills an urge to slap it away. “Therefore, there is no date in which you should be alluding to, making the desperation to have her name-”
“Non sono disperato.”
“-an intriguing addition to the contradictions of contemplations you have created.”
“I thought I was ‘philosofucker’, not you.”
“Oh, you certainly fucking are. I’m just the simple idiot laughing at a situation I never imagined seeing you in.” The corners of his lips curl up higher as he begins to back up slowly. “I’m gonna step outside to execute the order given and alert your guests that they will be mingling without their beloved, Benicio ‘the Baby-faced Butcher’ a bit longer.” Another chortle escapes prior to him proclaiming. “And to get a drink. I suddenly feel I need one…” He hits me with an unnecessary wink. “Oops. I meant want.”
There’s no stopping the quietly grumbled phrase, “Vaffanculo.”
Fuck you.
My comeback receives one last laugh upon his exit.
What does he know?
He’s never been in my shoes.
Physically, yes.
Metaphorically?
Nothing anywhere close.
He’s never had to run an organization with roots as old as those with known royal linage.
He may be aware of the pressures and obligations I am set on course to face, but he has no idea how difficult it is to exist under such stress and scrutiny. How just wanting something that wasn’t pre-planned or pre-approved for you to want could have those under you challenge your authority, your reach, your actual power over them more than they already do.
Wanting anything is dangerous enough.
To make the mistake of suddenly needing something?
Unfortunately, that could be deadly for us both.
Chapter 2
“What the hell do you mean you got a new nurse, Dad?!” I snap as I flop down in the chair at his bedside, purse propped between my feet. “You didn’t need a new nurse.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did.”
“You-”
“Ruth was a hundred and eleven, Scribbles. Much too old to be in charge of stabbing me with needles and shit.”
“Dad-”
“No one likes watching someone with a shaky hand and a pointy object come straight at them.”
“Dad-”
“I was basically having flashbacks from my time in Japan every time she took out her little black bag.”
My eyes can’t roll hard enough. “She wasn’t even Japanese!”
“Wrong.” He adjusts his ass on his king size mattress before grabbing a pillow to tuck behind his head. “Her father was from Japan and her mother was from Montana. He gave up his native tongue to appease her as well as her parents, which made his transition into her very small, narrow-minded community easier.”