Read Online Mick Sinatra: For Once In My Life by Mallory Monroe - Free Book Online Page B

and dice me and eat me for
dinner.”
    Mick
laughed.   Deuce looked horrified.
    “You might
boil me like a lobster tail and have your way with me.”
    Mick laughed
even harder.
    “You might
chop me up into tiny pieces and make a pot of stew out of me.”
    Mick’s
laughter eased.   “Alright.”
    “You might
grind me down to flour and feed me to your pet pigs.”
    Deuce
couldn’t believe what he was hearing.   Mick, suddenly realizing that this girl could be serious, was beginning
to lose his humor too.   “Okay.”
    “You might
saw me in half---”
    “Alright
already,” Mick said, unable to bear it any longer.   “I get it.   I get your point.   I’m a murderous
psychopath and you’ll do well to steer clear of me.   Got cha.   So I’ll steer clear of you.   Have
a nice life, Miss Graham.”
    Deuce
utilized the umbrella and escorted Mick as he made his way to the limousine.   When Mick got inside, he said something to
Deuce, and then Deuce made his way back across the sidewalk to Roz.   He reached the umbrella out to her.   “Mr. Sinatra said for me to give this to
you.”
    Roz looked
at the umbrella, as if she wasn’t sure if she should accept even that little
gesture.   She seemed overwhelmed to
Deuce, like a woman so tired of letdowns that she didn’t know good fortune when
she saw it.   He considered her.   She was young, she was pretty, but she
probably never met a man like Mick in her entire life.   Something inside of him felt for her.   Something inside of him felt for her the way
he would feel for his own daughter.   “Get
in the car and let me take you home, child,” he said.   “That man don’t wanna eat you.   And I for damn sure don’t want to
either.   You’re too salty for me.”
    Roz couldn’t
help but smile.   She looked at
Deuce.   “I’m being pretty ridiculous,
hun?”
    “With a
capital R,” he said.
    Roz didn’t
have to be told twice.   An umbrella in this
kind of rain would probably be useless after one block.   And the facts were still the facts: she
couldn’t stand here all night.   She
therefore walked across the sidewalk and got into the limo.   Deuce opened the door and held up the
umbrella as she sat her small body across from Mick’s big frame.   When Deuce closed the door, and she saw the
beauty of his limousine, down to the gold-encrusted doorknobs, and she suddenly
realized the level of man she was dealing with, she felt a little bit
intimidated.   But she sat tall and
ignored the trappings.   It was only a
ride home.
    Mick smiled
when she first got in.   “No longer
concerned about being my meal for the evening?” he asked her.
    She smiled
too.   “Sorry about that.”
    But Mick
shook his head.   “Don’t be.   I’m pleased you’re cautious.   There are real assholes out here.”
    “But you
aren’t one.”
    Mick was
quick to correct her.   “Yes, I am.   Maybe not Jeffrey Dahmer as you suggest,” he
said with a smile, “but an asshole nonetheless.”
    Roz didn’t
know how to take his bluntness.   Maya
Angelou said when people show you who they are, believe them.   But although his tongue spoke harsh and
uncaringly, his actions were different.   He showed her nothing but kindness.   “Thank you for the lift anyway,” she said.
    Mick gave
her a very slight nod of the head.   “You’re quite welcome,” he responded.
    “Where to,
boss?” Deuce, sitting behind the wheel, asked over the intercom.
    Mick looked
at Roz.
    “Brooklyn,”
she said, and gave her address.
    Mick pressed
the intercom button and conveyed that information to Deuce.
    Roz looked
at Mick.   She was having trouble figuring
him out.   But he had already turned his
attention away from her, and to the rain outside.
    But as the
limo began to move, Roz began to feel a combination of excitement and dread.   Hope and discouragement.   Happiness and sadness.   And she had the oddest sense.   She had a sense that her life was going to
change