Page 191 of Marcello

“Does that work with other women?” I asked.

“I don’t know – first time I’ve tried it.”

SUCH a lie.

And then he followed it up with an even worse line:

“Let me know at the end of the night if it works.”

The way he smirked was like he expected me to just drop my panties.

But I only had six hours of freedom left, and I wasn’t about to waste it on somebody I was never going to see again. Especially a guy who was so full of himself that he probably spent most of his time checking out his reflection in the mirror.

“I’ll let you know right now,” I replied. “It didn’t.”

And then I walked right past him.

Part of me was like, What are you DOING?! He’s SO HOT!

But a bigger part of me respected myself more.

I wasn’t about to inflate some guy’s ego just because he was good-looking.

“Wait – hold on!” he called out –

And I felt his hand on my shoulder.

All my father’s warnings about the Camorra –

All my fears of what strangers would do to me if they had the chance –

It made me afraid when he grabbed me, and my fear came out as anger.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” I yelled as I jerked away from him.

My entire life, no one had forcibly restrained me like that except for Papa – and the few times my father had done it, he had been enraged to the point where I’d feared for my life.

I was terrified the stranger would become furious and attack me.

But instead he looked apologetic, and raised his hands like I was holding a gun.

“I’m sorry, I just – I thought you were beautiful and I wanted to talk to you.”

Not gonna lie: part of me was like, YOU think I’M beautiful?!

Tee-hee!

And I liked that he wasn’t trying to be Mr. Smooth anymore. He seemed genuine.

But I was still grumpy at being frightened so badly.

“If you wanted to talk to me,” I reprimanded him, “you should have just said ‘hello’ and not used a lame pick-up line.”

“Was it that lame?” he asked with that dazzling smile of his.

I wanted to be cross with him… but it was awful hard. “It was so-so.”

“Well, let me start from the beginning again – please.” He cleared his throat. “Hi! I think you’re amazing and I wanted to meet you.”