Chapter 33 – The Mafia Nanny (Davina & Gabriel) Novel Free

“Mr. Angelini.”

I turned and watched as the young woman I’d spotted with my mother ran towards him.

He stopped but his eyes were on me, and only when she reached him did he turn to her.

She flushed, and almost couldn’t say a word.

Oh yes, I understood exactly what had come over her. I grabbed another drink, but it felt like shards going into my system as the liquid went down. I wanted to rise, to leave, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t take my eyes off Gabriel and the woman. She was laughing up at him. The table I was sitting at began to fill up. I received polite nods from the guests as they took their seats and I prayed that no one would ask me who I was.

The prayer wasn’t answered.

I soon realized both the Mayor and the Deputy Prime Minister respectively were just a few seats from me. I drained the glass and wondered who the hell had seated me here.

“Hello, are you here with Gabriel?” the mayor’s wife asked me.

Yes, that’s right I’m a nobody. My only worth is I’m sleeping with Gabriel Angelini, I wanted to say but instead I rose to my feet. “I need to use the Ladies. Please excuse me.”

I was out of there and it took everything I had not to run across the room. I kept my chin up and finally got my escape. When I got to the restrooms, there were too many people at the mirror, so I found an empty stall, sat on it, and called Charlotte.

She didn’t pick up, and I wanted to flush the phone down the toilet. I wanted her to tell me not to be cowardly, or to talk some sense into me to realize my place and to get out of here. I had no clue of what to do.

Eventually, when the bathroom quieted down, I got out of the stall and stood in front of the gigantic mirror to kill more time by reapplying my lipstick.

Ask him about Michele, I reminded myself. If she’s not here then it means he tricked you. You can then leave.

A woman came up to the mirror. I tucked my hair behind my ears. Our eyes met in the mirror and I froze.

Davina

It was my mother… and she was smiling at me. My chin trembled, but somehow I was able to stretch my lips into a thin smile.

Her smile widened as she extracted a gold lipstick case from her purse.

I stared at her in amazement.

Her eyes were bright and her short hair was a beautiful dark blonde. She looked nothing at all like me, but damn she was beautiful.

“You’re sitting beside Gabriel Angelini,” she noted.

I nodded politely in response.

“Are you two…” She raised her brow suggestively.

The smile left my face. The disappointment I felt was so great I was sure she would never be able to comprehend it. I couldn’t hold back. “It’s none of your business,” I said tightly.

The smile left her face also.

I pretended to adjust my hair until she moved a step closer to me. I turned and looked at her.

“I don’t know who you are,” she said, “but you look, quite out of place here. Just because you wear a designer dress, doesn’t mean you can fit into a strata of society you don’t belong to. So I’m here to give you a piece of advice. Take it in the vein it is given. I’m being cruel to be kind. You are wasting your time with Gabriel Angelini. He will play with you and then he will leave you for someone from his social circle.” She smiled then and turned to take her leave.

“Don’t you recognize me, mother?” I asked when she had already flounced away and shut the door behind her.

The tears fell from my eyes before I could stop them. “Ah, fuck,” I cursed, and quickly wiped them off my face. I wouldn’t let myself cry. I turned towards the mirror. My eyes were bright with unshed tears. Not here. Not among these cruel people who understood only money, power and social class.

I thought of my mother. How she had climbed the ladder herself and yet, she had tried to stop another who she recognized as a social climber. It was heartbreaking, but I understood exactly what had happened. My own mother saw me as the interloper. She was saving Gabriel for that elegant young woman she had come with.

I watched myself in the mirror. What was it about me that gave me away? My hairstyle? My lack of social graces? I’m not covered in pearls and diamonds? Or something else intangible only they understood.

I straightened my shoulders. Well, they were welcome to their stupid world. I wanted nothing to do with it. I was done with this party. I would just call a taxi and go back to my own little apartment. And Gabriel? He can go fuck himself.

I was walking out of the Ladies when my phone rang. It was Charlotte, so I picked up immediately. There was noise all around her.

“I’m really busy right now, are you okay?” she asked.

Just hearing her voice suddenly loosened the knot in my chest, and suddenly I couldn’t hold the tears in anymore. They came rushing down my face. “Where are you?” I blubbered.

“I took a waitressing gig just for one night. It’ll help pay some bills.”

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized, “I have no idea what the hell is wrong with me.”

“I’m going towards the bathroom,” she said “Tell me everything.”

“No.” I shook my head. “You might get in trouble.”

“I’m in a corner now,” she said to me. “You have five minutes, start talking.”

With a sigh, I turned away from the main room and headed towards a quiet corridor which ended with a fire escape door. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Charlotte.” I sniffed. “You know I don’t normally care what people… you know, I don’t let people move me. You know this, right? But I’m here. I don’t have jewelry, and my…my mom’s here—”

“What?” she bellowed in my ear.

“Yeah, she’s here. She didn’t recognize me and I didn’t tell her who I was. She’s with a man and a young woman. The woman knows Gabriel. I think she’s kind of—um… oh, God—I think she wants him, Charlotte.” A sob escaped my mouth. “Oh, God, I feel so insane right now.”

“Hey, calm down. You’re not insane and they’re not just people,” she said quietly, “One is a man you just might have fallen in love with, and the other is a mom that didn’t even bother to at least know what you look like. I would be thrashing out that entire gala by now if I were you. And you know me, I’m a basket case. I’m not kidding.”

I almost laughed as I wiped the tears from my face with back of my hand. “I know.”

“You’re actually sobbing,” she said in wonder. “The last time was when Bambi’s mother died.”

I took deep breaths. “Actually, I’ve cried a lot since I met that bastard.”

“Whoa. How is this his fault?”

“I don’t know. He just left me there.”

“Give him a break. He just got back from wherever he went to.”

“He was flirting with that woman.”

“I thought you said she was flirting with him.”

“Yeah, she looked like she wanted him to fuck her right there in front of everybody,” I cried, jealousy burning in my stomach.

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