Twisted Paradise

Chapter 8

Blaise called her the next day.

Lily didn't even try to suppress her smug and delighted smile. He was certainly enchanted, whether he liked it or not.

"Someone couldn't wait to hear my voice," she teased quite as soon as she picked up.

"Can you blame me? You have a voice that's passed down in legends," he said lightly, his own velvet voice worthy of being passed down.

"Why did you call? You could just come over like yesterday."

"I... did not want to creep you out." He sounded embarrassed.

After he already arrived yesterday? This man's logic was too twisted.

So she decided to embarrass him further. "Too late for that. I'm already super creeped out."

"You had my number but didn't call. I did not know what else to do."

His, equal parts embarrassed and defensive, tone made the corners of her lips turn up.

"Are you, maybe, trying to justify your creepiness? That's bad."

That clearly hit a strand of morality. "That isn't what I was doing. I know I am wrong so I did not want to further indulge in it."

Alright, she had enough fun at his expense.

"Chill, I'm kidding." She chuckled. "If I was creeped out even a bit, I would have made it very clear to you yesterday. Preferably by shoving you down the balcony."

"Violent." Yet, he sounded relieved. "But that's good to hear. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

There he went again with the added mile of trying to make her feel at ease. Inexplicably.

"Why does the Boss of the Italian mafia care about my feelings so much?" Though her manner of asking seemed teasing, she was genuinely curious.

He seemed to pause for a moment, not sure of what he should say. His voice was soothing when he asked, "Why do you think?"

Through the glass window, Lily looked up into the cerulean sky, sifting through the fluffy strings of clouds as an almost overwhelmingly heavy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach - a feeling that had no business being there.

What she couldn't understand was his extra effort to ensure her comfort. But that he was bewitched and enraptured. That she was a sultry sight of untamed beauty - a fiery display of wilderness. That much she knew and understood.

It was nothing new.

Then a thought crept in, shaking her momentum. If that was the case, why did she see no speck of desire in his eyes at that moment? Why was he so infuriatingly unaffected?

The silence must have crackled on the other line for too long for he said, "The reason I called was to ask you about your next tiny adventure."

Brought out of her bubble of thought, she asked, "What do you want to know?"

"Can I join?"

"No."

"... You agreed to it last time."

"Did I? I remember saying: If you were worthy."

"Please?" His voice was gentle in a way that made Lily sure that this man was designed with the sole purpose of making her go muddleheaded.

A laugh escaped her; some parts helpless, some parts amused.

"Why on earth do you want to join? Don't you have money to make? People to kill? Besides, you don't even know what I'm going to do."