When he comes back out of the bathroom with blue flannel pajama pants hanging from his narrow hips, I ask, “Is there some reason you’re getting ready for bed in my room?”
He hikes up a golden eyebrow and halts by the bed. “This is my room. They put you in my room. I hate to be the one to tell you this, princess, but you don’t own everything you touch. Sometimes you’re just a guest in someone else’s space.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m the one who lives here, not you.”
“Before all the loyalty leaked out of you, maybe. Now you don’t have a home. Rats are relegated to crawling around in the sewer, scavenging off everyone else.”
I want to punch him in the face. I can see from the gleam of amusement in his eyes he’s just performing for the cameras, but I still want to hit him. He’s such an asshole. “So, you’re going to sleep in this bed? With me? Am I understanding that right?”
“Sure are,” he answers. “I’m not really a ‘sleep on the couch’ kind of guy.”
“This is annoying,” I inform him. “This is not at all how I want to spend my first night back in a bed. I bet you radiate heat, too, don’t you?”
He walks around to his side of the bed, shaking his head. “That’s a weird thing to say.”
“It’s a man thing. You all radiate heat. It’s nice in the winter, but right now? Ugh.”
“Well, I’m not going to cuddle with you, so I think you’ll be just fine,” he tells me.
“Oh. Well, yeah, of course. Ew. I didn’t mean we would cuddle.”
He plugs his phone into the charger and pulls back the blankets, shooting me a skeptically amused look. “Ew? Really? The thought of cuddling with me warrants an ‘ew’?”
I usually have more game than this. I want to crawl out of my skin. God, they couldn’t just let me have one night of peace?
Apparently not, because Vegas Morelli slides right into bed beside me.
“So, I don’t know if I just don’t listen to Mia when she talks or she edited this part out of the story. Since you’re so possessive of the mattress you sleep on each night, does that mean you slept in bed with her when she spent the night at your house?”
“I did. She may not know that, though. She passed out when I was showering and I was out of bed before she woke up the next morning. I plied her with a lot of alcohol that night.”
“A consummate gentleman,” I remark, dryly. “Did you date rape her after that? Hey, maybe the baby’s yours and not Vince’s.”
“That’s not funny,” he says, sparing me a look of annoyance. “You trying to get me killed?”
“I don’t know, he really hates Vince; Mateo might actually be relieved.”
“That I raped his wife? I’m guessing no. I didn’t, obviously,” he adds, addressing the invisible spy in the room. “That definitely did not happen, and I fully support the murder of Meg.”
“You’re mean,” I tell him.
“You’re trying to get me murdered for no reason.”
I smirk, somewhat pleased with myself. “He’s going to steal your DNA while you’re here now, I hope you realize that. I also hope you’re telling the truth, ‘cause he’ll get that shit tested. If you’re lying, shave your head and don’t drink anything else while you’re here. No more jerking off. If you’ve done it today, take the trash out yourself and burn it. Maybe walk around in a hazmat suit to avoid dropping any DNA fibers.”
Rafe sighs, covering his face with his hands. “This place is fucking crazy. It’s like staying at an insane asylum without any doctors.”
“Doctors are for people who want to get better,” I tell him. “Welcome to Morelli mansion.”
I’m pretty proud of myself on all fronts as I consider the mayhem I’ve just triggered. Mateo’s a suspicious bastard and Mia has crack nipples. He already told me (before he hated me, when we talked about Mia’s predicament) that he wasn’t confident Rafe hadn’t fucked her. He insisted he didn’t think she was lying to him, but he still couldn’t cross off the possibility. That was weird. How could he think both? But he didn’t explain, just continued to stew about it.
I figured he must have satisfied his suspicions when Rafe was invited to the wedding and put in charge of guarding Mia, but who knows with Mateo? It doesn’t matter. It’s easy to arouse his suspicions, even if he had let it go before. If he didn’t get concrete evidence of Rafe’s innocence, just hearing me ask the question will reawaken them. He’s going to make poor Maria steal Rafe’s juice glass or root through his trash can, I just know it.
My amusement dies a swift death when I realize this whole interaction, while amusing, is bullshit. Rafe is performing. Mateo isn’t going to get to test his DNA when Rafe leaves, because Rafe and Dante are in league to take him down. No more of Mateo’s whacky hijinks. No more confiding in me over midnight ice cream. I guess he wouldn’t do that anymore anyway, even if this didn’t happen. I lost his trust. That, I regret.