Divorcing Her Mafia Family
Chapter 37

There was no sign of Miklos as she left the private community walls of the rental unit and got into her taxi. She had half expected him to pop his head out to comment on the dress he’d purchased for her but if he were around, she didn’t notice him, and he was a hard man not to notice.

As the car pulled away from the curb, she had a text message from Trip.

“On your way?”

“Yes. Be there in twenty minutes.”

“Can’t wait.”

She smiled at the words. It felt good to be courted somewhat. She had run an internet search on Trip and confirmed he was who he said he was right down to the fact he was a millionaire several times over. He hadn’t reached the same level of wealth as Miklos, but he did very well for himself. She grinned suddenly as she considered she had more money in her accounts than Trip. It felt good to be this financially independent.

As the car drove down the streets in the direction of the resort where Trip was staying, she looked out the window and watched the people she was passing by. As the car stopped at a red light just a block from the resort, she found herself looking towards a patio and saw two men sitting there and immediately recognized the one facing the street and the one with his back to her seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place him from the back of his head and shoulders. She pulled her phone out and snapped the photo and sent it to Miklos.

“Any idea why this guy is here?”

The car pulled away from the lights and about a minute later he responded.

“No. Where is this?”

“Patio a block from the resort I’m headed to. Are they tailing you or me?”

“Me, most likely. I traveled on my actual passport and not an alias. Nobody knows you’re here. Forget you saw anything and just enjoy your evening.”

She considered there was likely truth to his words and deleted the photo from her phone and the text exchange and tried to figure out why Agent Frye of the FBI was in Puerto Vallarta. He’d never been assigned to Miklos but perhaps he’d been reassigned. Since he hadn’t been able to convince her to join his team, perhaps they were going to put pressure on Miklos. She exhaled and told herself he had big shoulders, and he could handle it.

The taxi pulled up the entrance of the swanky hotel and resort and she paid her driver and got out of the car. She smiled when she noted the good-looking man scrolling through his phone a few feet away. His hair was mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and he was very focused on his phone to the point he very clearly hadn’t heard the car pull up or her door close.

She walked right up to him, and he still hadn’t looked up. he was dressed in khaki shorts and a button-down shirt and as she drew closer the scent, she’d noted on the plane wafted towards her. He had cleaned up. “Trip?”

He looked up in surprise. “Holy! I didn’t even hear you come up.” He held his phone up for inspection, “had an email from my offices back home and of course things always hit the fan when you’re not there in person. I would strangle my VP if I were there but I’m here.”

She felt a twinge of disappointment at his response, partly because he hadn’t been anxiously awaiting her and how she’d been wrong in thinking the pulled hair was a bit of nerves. “Did you need to take time to deal with whatever it is you have going on? I can go for a little walk and come back or –”

“No, no,” he waved it off and shoved his phone into his pocket, but it was clear he was distracted. He looked her up and down, “very pretty. I like your dress. Are they hibiscus flowers on your dress?”

She looked down to the red floral pattern Miklos had picked out for her and nodded, “yes.”

“Lovely,” he held out his arm. “Shall we?”

“Sure,” she tucked her hand into his elbow and smiled brightly pushing her misgivings away. Perhaps she was feeling on edge from seeing the FBI agent. She thought he would lead her towards one of the two restaurants she could see from the hotel lobby, but he led her through the lobby in the direction of the beach. “Where are we going?”

“I arranged a private dinner on the beach for us,” he smiled down at her with a broad grin. He nodded his head down the beach a ways and she noted a small cabana in the distance with gauzy white curtains blowing in the gentle breeze. An intimate table for two people was set with candles and a large bouquet of flowers. He was showing off a bit, she guessed.

“Oh wow,” she blinked at the scene in front of her. “Trip, did you do this for me?”

He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles as he helped her up the two steps to the little cabana. “I did. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I was expecting semi-warm meat and rice with peas. This is extravagant.” She teased.

“I mean, if you want the buffet,” he teased her back, “I can take you inside, however I’ve asked for a special menu.”

She stood under the breezy tent and looked around in awe. Nobody had ever done such a thing for her in the past. It was soft and romantic with gentle music playing in the background. “This is incredible.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek surprising him. “Thank you. I had a weird day, and this makes up for it in so many ways.”

“How weird was your day?” he pulled her seat out and edged her into the table.

“It started with a call from my mother and an unwanted discussion on my parent’s s*x life.”

He looked at her in horror as he paused halfway to sitting down. “No.”

She nodded at him with the same look of horror on her face. “It got weirder from there.”

“Weirder than your mother telling you about her s*x life?”

She fudged the truth, “There’s a company who really wants to hire me back home and to poach me from my family’s business. I mean I quit the business so it’s not really poaching but this other company has been a bit ruthless, and I’m not interested at all. I’m fairly sure I saw the recruiter here in Puerto Vallarta.”

“You don’t think he followed you here? What kind of business does your family run?” He made a face of confusion.

“They own a couple of restaurants,” she thought of the restaurant where she’d had dinner with Miklos and her parents. “This other guy doesn’t like my dad and knew I was unhappy working for him so long story short, he’s been trying to get under dad’s skin by asking me to work for him. I want to think it’s coincidence, but it seems a tad creepy and weird.”

“It is weird,” he agreed.

She changed the topic, “How was your day? What did you do all day? You look like you’ve already gotten a good amount of sun.” She noted his nose was a bit burnt.

“We went fishing. The guys got wasted but I limited my alcohol intake so I wouldn’t pass out before having dinner with a beautiful woman. It was a gorgeous day out on the water.”

“Are your friends all passed out now?”

He chuckled as he poured them each a glass of red wine. “Half are. Half are in the bar.” His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out of his pocket, shook his head and then completely shut the phone off. “There, no more distractions. I pay them enough to deal with s**t while I’m gone, and you deserve my undivided attention.”

His words made her blush, and she sipped her wine. “Thank you.”

He held his glass up in a toast to her, “to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met on a plane. I hope this is the first of many dates.”

She clinked her glass to his and took another sip. “You are flirting again.”

“I am. I like your hair down like this,” he reached out and lifted a silky tendril and rested it over her shoulder. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks,” she remembered it was Miklos who had suggested she wear it down for her date.

A server approached with two dishes and set them in front of them. Trip grinned at her as she looked at the jumbo shrimp arranged prettily on a bed of lettuce with a dipping sauce. “I thought maybe since you fed yours last night to the seagulls you may be wanting them today.”

She giggled at his words. “I went for a swim this morning and there was one roosting on the balcony.”

“You’re a prankster.” He grinned at her as he put the pink fleshy meat into his mouth in one bite.

She noted again the dimple on his cheek at his smile. He was clean shaven, and she noted at his buttoned-down shirt, he didn’t appear to have much, if any chest hair. She wondered if either shaved it or if it just didn’t grow. He was completely the opposite to Miklos in so many ways, body hair included.

“Like what you see?” he winked at her perusal.

She chuckled, “most guys on vacation don’t shave yet you’ve shaved. I feel special.”

“I did shave. One of the guys I’m with by the end of this week will have grown a beard which would make a lumberjack jealous. I could have left it but,” he leaned forward, “the hair on my head is brown but my beard comes in red and in patches. It never fills in right. It’s easier just to keep it off. Besides, I am hoping to get a goodnight k**s tonight and wouldn’t want to scratch your delicate skin.”

“A k**s huh?” she leaned back in her seat starting to relax as the wine warmed her b***d.

“At least one. Maybe on our next date, I can get a k**s and a grope in.”

She sputtered on her wine, and he threw his head back and laughed at her reaction. She set her wine glass down and took one of the shrimp and bit it. “You are naughty.”

“I can be very naughty, depending on the mood. I have a feeling Elektra; you like a bit of naughty in the men you associate with.” As she looked to him curiously, he tilted his head, “am I wrong?”

“I’m refusing to answer your question on the grounds it could get me in trouble, and this is a first date. I feel the question is more of a second or third date question.”

“Fair enough,” he commented with a wide smile.

They finished their appetizers and no sooner had they, then the server reappeared with help to clear the dishes away and another dish to be set in front of them.

She looked to him in surprise, “enchiladas?”

“They make the best enchiladas in the universe. I swear the only reason I come back to this resort every year is for the enchiladas. I could have ordered steak, fish, or lobster even but none of it will be as good as the enchiladas. I promise. Trust me.”

She eyed the dish cautiously and had a moment of hesitation as she considered the agony, she had inflicted on Miklos earlier in the week with the laxatives.“I’m trusting you.”

“Good girl,” he grinned at her as he took a big bite of his food and then leaned back in his chair sighing happily.

She took a bite and was pleasantly surprised at how good the food was. Had anyone ever told her a man would set up a very romantic dinner at a luxury resort catering to the rich and famous, only to feed her red wine and enchiladas she would have thought them crazy, but the food was good. If she were honest, the company was even better.

Trip was flirty and funny and kept cracking jokes to make her giggle at his silly sense of humour, just as he had on the plane the afternoon before. When the dishes were cleared away with the promise of dessert to come, he held his hand out to her.

“Dance with me.”

“Dance with you?” she put her hand in his reluctantly as she listened to the sultry music playing.

“The dress you are wearing is meant to dance in,” he pulled her into his arms and danced her in a slow waltz beside the table. “The slit in the leg of this dress tells me you need to move around and show off your legs. Therefore, dancing.

Candles flickering as the evening grew long and she noted for the first time the sun was setting. She rested her cheek against his chest and let him dance her around, his head resting on the top of her head. His comment had her thinking of Miklos telling her she couldn’t dance in flip flops, and she was grateful he’d insisted on the shoes. She grimaced to herself as she realized he was in her head far too much tonight while she was on a date with another man. It dawned on her dressing in the clothes he picked out might have been his plan all along to keep her focus on him.

“Are you okay? You went very quiet,” Trip said as he kept her close to him, still dancing quietly, keeping her in a respectable hold.

“Yes. Just relaxed. Thank you for this. It’s been so lovely.” She was also stupidly focused on her husband and not the man she was with. Even the way Trip held her when he danced compared little to the vibrant and seductive spell of Miklos. She needed him out of her head.

“Maybe after dessert we could go for a nice walk on the beach and maybe have a drink on the patio of the restaurant? I’m really not ready for dinner to be over. I’m enjoying my time with you Elektra.”

She smiled up at him, “It sounds really nice. I’m having a really great time.” She tried convincing both of them. A romantic walk on the beach would hopefully help.

“Good,” he smiled down at her.

Dimitra considered for a half-second he might try to k**s her but then the footsteps of the server’s bringing dessert interrupted. She giggled at his frustrated grunt and knew he had been planning the k**s. It felt good to be wanted.

She let him help her back to her seat and her giggles turned into laughter. “Churros?”

“With ice cream!” he protested her mocking laugh.

She lifted a churro with her fingers and held it up and then blew on it, “it’s hot.”

He took a large bite of the pastry and then shrugged and shoved the entire thing into his mouth, closing his eyes as if in ecstasy. “So good,” he m****d.

“Did you just shove an entire churro into your mouth?” she was laughing loudly now. “Very classy!”

“I’ll have you know, I attended private boarding school for thirteen years. I learned nothing on manners. Nothing.” He took a second bite of another churro off his dish and then suddenly grabbed at his chest and throat.

She immediately stood up at the pallor on his face, “Trip, what’s wrong.”

“Cumin,” he whispered, “I think they used cumin in the spice on the churro.” He clawed at his throat as if he were struggling to breathe. “Deathly…”

“You’re allergic,” it hit her as he fell off the chair to his knees. “Help!” she screamed in the direction of where the staff had disappeared, torn between staying with him and running for help. “Help!” she yelled again at the top of her lungs as he gripped at her. “Trip, do you have an EpiPen?”

“Room,” he was gasping for breath now.

“Help!” she screeched and suddenly she saw two men looking in her direction. “Help please!”

She recognized them as men she’d seen him with at the airport. “He’s having some kind of allergic reaction. Help. Please help!”

One of the men took off in the direction of the hotel and the other raced towards her.

“What happened?” He ripped Trip from her arms and began examining him.

“He ate a churro, took a bite of another, and started gasping for breath. He said something about cumin.” She was staring incredulously as Trip slipped unconscious and the friend started doing chest compressions on him.

“He’s had the churros here thousands of times and he’s never had a reaction.” The man glared at her, “did you do this?”

“Why the hell would I make him sick?” she was stunned by the question as the man was pushing on Trip’s chest and yelling at him, begging him to wake up.

“Women pull weird s**t all the time to get his attention. Maybe you thought you could play nurse?”

“Are you f*****g kidding me?” she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You think I poisoned your friend so I could bring him back to life? Are you always this much of an a*****e or just under pressure?” She turned back to see several more of his friends tearing into their direction.

She got shoved out of the way as they all surrounded him, calling his name.

“What the f**k happened?” the tallest one asked.

“Ask her,” the guy who had accused her of poisoning Trip muttered, “she said he ate a f*****g churro and collapsed. She probably poisoned him.”

“I didn’t poison him!” she screamed at him, falling on her knees in the corner of the cabana in disbelief at the scene in front of her. Trip was now blue around the lips and one guy started blowing into his mouth between compressions.

“Don’t be stupid, Trev,” one of the guys said.

She noticed nobody else came to her defence though. The guy who had run into the hotel came back jumping over the fence and without hesitation jammed an EpiPen into Trip’s leg.

Hotel staff were now on site and one of Trip’s friends were questioning whether or not there was cumin in the churros. One of the staff raced back to the kitchen to replace out.

“You should leave,” Trev scowled at her. “We’re going to take him to the hospital to make sure you didn’t slip him something.”

Trip was responding to the EpiPen, and one guy commented he’d flexed his fingers. They were all begging him to open his eyes but nobody other than Trev even looked in her direction. His glare told her he still believed she’d poisoned his buddy.

“Hey buddy, we’re going to get you out of here. Don’t try to talk.” The big guy lifted him right up as if he weren’t a six-foot-tall man and carried him away.

They all left her standing there and she looked around in confusion, unsure of what she was supposed to do.

The server raced back to her, “there was cumin. A new sous-chef-” he started to explain

She cut him off and pointed to the men running through the sand, “go tell them. They need to know for the hospital.”

“Of course, of course,” the man ran as fast as he could after the group of six men.

She lifted herself off the floor and took a deep breath and made her way in the direction the men had gone. Back through the hotel lobby she took slow measured steps as if unsure of how to move. She approached the reception desk, noting the group were already outside and bundling into waiting vehicles. She felt perhaps she was in shock, not sure whether to laugh or cry at what had just happened.

“Can I get you to call a taxi in for me?”

The lady behind reception nodded, “of course.”

She looked around and rubbed her forehead wishing she hadn’t felt so helpless in the moment. She hadn’t known what to do as he’d lain there dying at her feet. She moved to wait outside for the cab and paced with unsettled emotions. She sniffed away a tear and found herself wishing yet again for the hundredth time in two days she was back home with her friends.

Her cab arrived quickly, and she got into the back seat and gave him the address for her rental unit. She wiped wayward tears away as she looked out the window. When she passed the patio, she had seen Agent Frye at earlier she noted he was not there any longer and neither was the man with whom he’d been sitting. She found herself thinking of him again, trying to figure out who it was. She’d intuitively known she knew who it was but without his face, wasn’t able to place him.

She forced herself to try. She needed the distraction from almost watching her date die on her. It was no use though because every time she closed her eyes to try to picture the man at the patio, she had a vision of Trip, turning blue, clawing at his throat as if wanting to rip it open and the helplessness he felt. By the time she reached her place, she was crying, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Her driver was embarrassed for her and waved off the charge for the ride.

She made her way into her rooms, locked the door behind her and crawled onto her bed and gave way to loud sobs.