Maid for the Mafia by Jaylee

You Were Stalking Me

**ROMANY**

Mickey's eyes search mine nervously before he continues. Almost as if he expects his confession might drive me away. He would be wrong, but I'll wait until he's told me everything first. I want to hear it all. "Go on," I prompt him, edging forward so that my bare legs push against the fabric of his pants and I can feel the warmth of him.

He clears his throat, his gaze waltzing around my face as he speaks, "You walked out of the classroom talking on the phone with someone - I think it may have been your mom - and every other sound, every other person, every other thing - just disappeared. I watched you for the next twenty minutes while you laughed and joked on the phone. Bruno thought I'd gone deaf because he kept trying to talk to me and I wouldn't listen, but then I guess he noticed what I was looking at and shut up. When you set off toward another wing - I don't know - probably to your next class, I started to follow you, but that's when Bruno stopped me. He pulled me back down to earth and reminded me that my feet were on the ground and that I was there to handle some business, not chase college girls, and I let it go.

"After I straightened Jensen out on a few things-"

"Wait a minute!" I interrupt, my mind reeling as I remember that day. The mention of my mom is what does it. One of the last conversations that I had with her before her car accident was in the quad after Matthew's class. I could vaguely remember someone staring at me, but at that time in my life I was used to ignoring such things. Especially if they were exceptionally good looking. It was a defense mechanism. I never felt pretty enough back then. I thought I was too fat for anyone to love properly and if I saw a guy like Mickey, I would have avoided the temptation of him at all costs.

"What is it, doll?"

With a bite of my lip, I study his face. "I think I remember that day."

He nods, his eyes shuttering. "Yeah...I'm sorry about what happened to your mom. I-uh...I was there the day your teacher brought you outside. The day you found out she was...gone."

My eyes narrow and I frown as the familiar sadness washes over me the way it does *every* time I think about that day. "You were there? Why?"

embarrassment. "I was getting

cock an eyebrow at him.

keep my face critical. "Like I said, I had to straighten

no idea." Fuck Matthew, that

away. "You were different and I wanted to know you." He sighs, shying a little when he says his next words. "It started innocently enough I guess. I asked Bruno who you were. Got him to tell me what little about you that he knew. He laughed at me. Said that you were from another world. That you were too good for me. I told him I wasn't interested in you

"My business?" I quip.

I actually had hope. I thought maybe that meant you weren't as 'from

it, but it was an entirely different thing to hear that my cousin had *in fact* been avoiding me. I snorted, "She always claimed that

She was busy, sure. But not *that* busy." At my look of indignance, he laughed. "Anyway...when I learned that

were stalking me," I

shakes his head. "Er-um-no I

"You were stalking me."

then blushes *again.*

You were.

hurt you. I never would have like...abducted you or anything. The Dons - that's what they thought I was gonna do. When they heard

my legs out from under his and fold them up next to me on the seat. Looking in his eyes, I see more vulnerability than I ever thought possible for a man like him to have and it clutches at something in me, telling me that by the end of this story, I won't ever

in outrage. "It would have been