Her Sicilian Arrangement Read Free

issue.
    “Come on, Meg,” he said and chuckled. Meg? No one called her
‘Meg’. “We’re friends. You can tell me anything… anything !”
    She
sighed loudly and then faced him again, placing the glass down on
the counter. “I—I kind of thought that…you were…gay?” she said,
turning her statement into a question, trying to lessen the
possible effect of her words. To her surprise, he raised an eyebrow
at her and shook his head, laughing as if he had just heard a
hilarious joke.
    “ Are
you serious? I mean, look at me,” he laughed, spinning a whole 360
degrees before her. “How the hell could I be gay?”
    A
chuckle escaped her lips and she covered her mouth quickly. “I’m
sorry—I didn’t know. It’s just that—how you dress and you always
look so…perfectly coordinated. And I’ve never heard you speak of a
woman.”
    “ Perfectly coordinated?” he laughed. “I would have preferred
‘fashionably inclined’. I’m a designer, Meg. I have to look the
part. Anyways, enough about me. What time are you
leaving?”
    “ Five o’clock…I have to leave on the earliest flight so that I
can get enough rest to not fall asleep at that conference the
following day.”
    “ Hmmm,” he muttered and nodded. “I remember when you were going
crazy about this case and now you finally got it. Marco Mussolini
is always a fashionably attired man—I’ve seen him in a couple
magazines—maybe you can yell out a few, you know, tips about
me!”
    Meagan could not help but succumb to his amusing personality
and she smiled. “That’s if I even get close enough to
him.”
    “ Are
you kidding?” he smirked at her. “Look at you…if Marco Mussolini
doesn’t fall dead in his track when he sees you, there’d be only
one explanation for that.”
    “ What?”
    Ryan
turned both ways, dramatically, as if he was in a crowded scene and
put one hand beside his mouth. He then whispered to her in a
childish voice, “ Gay. ”
    “ Oh,
for God’s sake!” she chuckled and put the remaining bottle of
champagne back in the fridge. “You are something else.”
    “ Well, am I lying?” he questioned, prolonging the conversation
on purpose.
    “ About what?” she said, moving into the living room and then
took off her heels, grabbing them up in her hands at the same time.
Ryan trotted behind her slowly.
    “ About you having a kick-ass body…”
    “ I’d
rather not talk about that right now, Ryan…” And she moved into a
hallway leading to her bedroom and then stepped inside. She then
stopped at the door and held both hands up to block his entry. “Now
that I’ve found out that you aren’t gay…I certainly don’t want to
talk to you about stuff like that.”
    “Wussy !” he
flung at her, teasingly.
    “ What did you call me?” she snapped as if she was an angry cop
interrogating a stubborn criminal.
    “You
heard me. I called you a wussy,” he said, with an annoyingly
mocking expression on her face. He then taunted her repeatedly.
“Wussy…wussy…wussy… wus—ssy !”
    She
then rolled her eyes at him. “Ha ha…funny!” And she closed the door
to his face as she heard the cackling of his laughter descending
back into the living room, followed by the clicking on of the
television. She had climbed into the shower only a few minutes
later, giving herself a cold shower, and with every intention of
packing her luggage as soon as she was finished. Was she overly
excited to go to Sicily? Yes! Was she a workaholic? Yes! But did
she deserve it? Hell, yes! “I
more than deserve it…,” she murmured as she squeezed some shampoo
into her palm and then massaged it into her dark brown brunette
hair.
    She
just hoped that everything happened according to plan and that
nothing went wrong. She could not afford any mishaps…and she
wouldn’t. All she wanted was to go there, do her job and return
feeling fulfilled and satisfied with herself. And if everything
went just like that…what else could she ask for? A