Maid for the Mafia

**ROMANY**

Mickey's eyes search mine nervously before he continues. Almost as if he expects his confession might drive me away. He would be wrong, but I'll wait until he's told me everything first. I want to hear it all. "Go on," I prompt him, edging forward so that my bare legs push against the fabric of his pants and I can feel the warmth of him.

He clears his throat, his gaze waltzing around my face as he speaks, "You walked out of the classroom talking on the phone with someone - I think it may have been your mom - and every other sound, every other person, every other thing - just disappeared. I watched you for the next twenty minutes while you laughed and joked on the phone. Bruno thought I'd gone deaf because he kept trying to talk to me and I wouldn't listen, but then I guess he noticed what I was looking at and shut up. When you set off toward another wing - I don't know - probably to your next class, I started to follow you, but that's when Bruno stopped me. He pulled me back down to earth and reminded me that my feet were on the ground and that I was there to handle some business, not chase college girls, and I let it go.

"After I straightened Jensen out on a few things-"

"Wait a minute!" I interrupt, my mind reeling as I remember that day. The mention of my mom is what does it. One of the last conversations that I had with her before her car accident was in the quad after Matthew's class. I could vaguely remember someone staring at me, but at that time in my life I was used to ignoring such things. Especially if they were exceptionally good looking. It was a defense mechanism. I never felt pretty enough back then. I thought I was too fat for anyone to love properly and if I saw a guy like Mickey, I would have avoided the temptation of him at all costs.

"What is it, doll?"

With a bite of my lip, I study his face. "I think I remember that day."

He nods, his eyes shuttering. "Yeah...I'm sorry about what happened to your mom. I-uh...I was there the day your teacher brought you outside. The day you found out she was...gone."

My eyes narrow and I frown as the familiar sadness washes over me the way it does *every* time I think about that day. "You were there? Why?"

His face flushes red with embarrassment. "I was getting to that part."

I cock an eyebrow at him. "Okay...go on."

He blows out a short breath then readjusts in his seat so that he's closer to me and his left leg hooks over my shins and under my calves. I smile inside, but keep my face critical. "Like I said, I had to straighten Jensen out a bit-" he tips his head "-he liked to gamble, but he wasn't any good at it, as I'm sure you probably know."

I shake my head. "Nope. I had no idea." Fuck Matthew, that bastard. Wherever he is.

Mickey snorts, "Okay. Well, he did. He owed me a lot of money at one point. Tried to stiff Bruno thinking he was just dealing with some kid in his class that he could threaten with bad grades. Little did he know, Bruno wasn't there for grades. He was there for business. That entire class was filled with degenerates that padded my pockets. But not you." He looks away. "You were different and I wanted to know you." He sighs, shying a little when he says his next words. "It started innocently enough I guess. I asked Bruno who you were. Got him to tell me what little about you that he knew. He laughed at me. Said that you were from another world. That you were too good for me. I told him I wasn't interested in you that way, but to keep his eye on you and under no circumstances was he ever to sell to you, or take your business."

"My business?" I quip.

He shrugs. "Drugs, bets, illegal boos...they are all hot commodities at the University. Anyway, after I got your name, I had you looked up. That's when I found out that you were Ruby's baby cousin. When I learned that, believe it or not, I actually had hope. I thought maybe that meant you weren't as 'from another world' as Bruno claimed and that maybe I would be introduced to you one day, but a few carefully crafted questions for Ruby later, I learned that she kept away from you for a reason."

"Is that right?" I growl, crossing my arms over my chest in anger. I mean, I already knew that, I suspected it, but it was an entirely different thing to hear that my cousin had *in fact* been avoiding me. I snorted, "She always claimed that she was too busy."

Mickey chuckled, "Nah. She was busy, sure. But not *that* busy." At my look of indignance, he laughed. "Anyway...when I learned that meeting you was not on the table, I tried to shake it off, but...I just couldn't. So...I started to...follow you a little."

"You were stalking me," I say plainly.

He shakes his head. "Er-um-no I was-I-"

"You were stalking me."

He shrugs, then blushes *again.* "Okay. Yeah...maybe."

"No. You were. Not maybe. Definitely."

He sighs, burying his face in his hands. "Fine. Yes. I was stalking you." His head jerks up. "But I never wanted to hurt you. I never would have like...abducted you or anything. The Dons - that's what they thought I was gonna do. When they heard I had an unhealthy interest in a college girl, they made me drop the college and pulled Bruno out of school. But I never would have done that to you, doll. I swear. That would have been-"

"That would have been...hmmm...well it depends..." I say, interrupting him, then trailing off as I slip my legs out from under his and fold them up next to me on the seat. Looking in his eyes, I see more vulnerability than I ever thought possible for a man like him to have and it clutches at something in me, telling me that by the end of this story, I won't ever want to let him go. And...I do not plan to. "Would it have been you that grabbed me? Or would you have had one of your guys do it?"

His eyebrows draw together in outrage. "It would have been me."

"I thought you said you'd never do it."

He hisses, then chuckles humorlessly. "I wouldn't."

A slow smile spreads across my face at that admission and he glowers. "Then tell me this...when did you *stop* stalking me? And why* did you stop?"

He stiffens, leaning back in his seat and then gazing out of the opposite window. "I wasn't stalking you."

"You were."

"Not everyday."

"Mmkay...then like...every week."

He looks at the floor. "A little more than that."

I grin, leaning forward to ask him again, "When and why did you stop?"

His body slackens as he turns his head to stare at some spot beneath my chin. "I stopped when you came here and I stopped because...you are here."