Read Online Fools Paradise by Jennifer Stevenson - Free Book Online

on purpose.
    Didn’t help.
    â€œDo I really come first with you?” she said. Will you tell my cousins to stop pinching me and talking trash to me?
    â€œYou’re the light of my life,” he said simply. “Does this Morton boy say that to you?” He put his hand over hers. “Once you marry, you’re his responsibility. I lose the right to take care of you.” His voice broke, and she saw tears in his eyes.
    She choked up. “Oh, Goomba,” she tried to say over the noise of suits drinking their lunch at the next table. Tears welled in her own eyes. Guilt was crushing her. Lie hard, or he’ll guess. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to marry him. I’m starting at the Opera House tomorrow. After I’m married I’ll—I probably—I won’t be able to keep house for you.”
    At the thought of housekeeping, she felt less guilty.
    He honked into his napkin and wadded it into his shirt pocket. “I need more coffee. You sit, I’ll get it,” he added, patting her on the shoulder, as if she had been about to jump up and fetch the pot.
    He blundered away emotionally between the crowded tables, and Daisy sat back and heaved a huge hot sigh.
    She was trapped. Goomba wasn’t giving an inch on this feud. She would have to find a way to cool it off before she dared to break her engagement to Bobbyjay. And she had to make sure Bobbyjay wouldn’t back out until their families were safe.
    The rowdy suits from the next table got up, leaving their trays behind, the slobs. She didn’t think anything of it until she realized they hadn’t left.
    â€œHey there, hot thing.”
    She looked up. The four of them were standing around her table, looking down at her.

Chapter Nine
    Bobbyjay came out of the cafeteria restroom just as Marty Dit bolted past, leaving Daisy sitting looking hunted. She hadn’t yet noticed Bobbyjay. Here in the Opera House cafeteria she looked incredibly young, with all that kiddie makeup and the filmy top and a face like a little girl in a corner with no choices. Bobbyjay’s insides gave a twist. He wanted to go sit in Marty Dit’s chair and tell her not to worry. But what would be the point? They both had plenty of worrying to do.
    If she couldn’t handle her family, he sure couldn’t. He had his hands full, keeping his Dad from perpetrating more atrocities on the Ditorellis, and managing the titanic ego of the patriarch, Bobby Morton Senior.
    While he watched, a bunch of boozy stockbrokers got up and stood over Daisy’s chair, looking down her shirt and tossing remarks at her.
    Bobbyjay started forward. Then he noticed Marty Dit reappear at his elbow. While they watched, the stockbrokers talked to Daisy and she blushed, her head twisting, trying to answer them all at once. She didn’t seem to be having fun.
    The shitheads. Marty Dit will settle their hash, Bobbyjay thought.
    But he didn’t. The old man stood next to him, watching his granddaughter field stockbroker remarks like he was watching a tennis match.
    The tallest stockbroker obviously thought he was irresistible to women. He grabbed Daisy’s hand and tried to shove his card into it.
    Bobbyjay started forward again.
    â€œWait, kid.” He felt the old man’s hand on his elbow. “Think you’re so smart, getting my girl a job at the Opera House? This is what she’ll have to face.”
    Bobbyjay turned a scowl on him. “You just gonna stand here?”
    â€œBetter she should learn she can’t handle it now, with me watching,” the old man said, looking serene and evil.
    Daisy slapped the guy’s card away. Bobbyjay gave up on self control. He slipped between the crammed tables like a quarterback sneaking through a defense line, and stepped hard on the stockbroker’s foot.
    She looked up, saw him, then looked past him. Her face changed slowly, like a two-mile-an-hour fender bender.
    â€œHey,