Shame on Me

Ted sighs and shakes his head at me. “Fine. Give me his name.”


I lift up my knife and fork and begin cutting up my salad. “His name is Vinnie and he might be some sort of Mob boss.”

Ted doesn’t answer me and I stop my cutting to look up at him. He’s staring at me with his mouth open. “What?”

“Tell me you aren’t talking about Vinnie DeMarco.”

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. Am I talking about Vinnie DeMarco? I only got his first name.”

“Paige, whatever you’re doing—stop. You do not want to go fishing around in Vinnie DeMarco’s life, trust me. He is bad news,” Ted warns me.

“How bad are we talking? The Godfather bad or The Sopranos bad?” I ask.

“Is there a fucking difference? They all do whatever the hell they want and don’t care about who they hurt in the process. We’ve been trying to nail this guy for years, but he’s slippery. He hires people to do everything for him so he never gets his hands dirty. And the people he hires are extremely devoted. They’ll do life in prison before they give him up. And if they even think about ratting him out, no one ever hears from them again.”

I take a minute to process this information. If this is the Vinnie that Melanie is seeing, it’s even worse than I thought. Matt isn’t going to be able to just snap a photo of them and threaten her with it. He’ll get himself killed. I need to be smart about this.

“Have you heard anything about this Vinnie guy having a girlfriend?” I ask next.

“He’s got a hundred different girlfriends all over the US. Who knows who his flavor of the week is nowadays,” Ted informs me, picking up his burger and taking a huge bite.

I should probably tell him that I might know who his latest conquest is. It might help them bring this guy down, but for right now, I’m keeping this information to myself. I need to make sure Melanie isn’t a threat to Matt before I do anything. If she’s called in and questioned, it could just piss her off and make her even more vindictive.

“I’m serious, Paige. You stay as far away from Vinnie DeMarco as possible. And if you hear anything, and I mean anything, you tell me right away,” Ted warns.

I smile brightly at him and dig into my salad. “Cross my heart.”

Shame on me for making a promise on a heart that barely functions anymore.





CHAPTER 10




He was a really great guy. He was nice and pretty and . . . nice . . .” I trail off as I stare into my wineglass.

“You already said ‘nice.’”

I look up at the bartender and scowl. “Aren’t bartenders supposed to be friendly and helpful? Stop judging me and bring me more wine.”

The bartender walks away and I put my elbow on top of the bar, resting my head on my hand. Sliding my phone across the bar closer to myself, I stare at the blank screen. I double-check the 3G icon at the top to make sure my phone is still working. I feel like I’m in high school again, bringing the receiver of our house phone up to my ear every ten minutes to make sure there was still a dial tone.

It’s been five days since I last saw Matt and four days since I sent him a pathetic text apologizing for lying to him.

And four days since he never replied to my stupid text.

The bartender sets another glass of Moscato in front of me and scurries away, probably afraid I’m going to start crying again. I don’t blame him. I’m pitiful. Since when did I become the type of woman who sits around for days on end waiting for a text from a guy and then imbibes way too much wine to make the pain go away?

I’ll tell you when—when Matt Russo walked into my life.

Okay, fine. I did it with Asshole Andy, but I thought I’d learned my lesson since then. I’d been fine all these months being alone. I was perfectly okay with the fact that I was finally becoming the strong, independent woman I wanted to be. Now I’m sitting at a bar alone downing drinks and staring at my phone, willing it to send me a text from him.

I tried to keep myself busy since I sent him that text. I deleted the incriminating photos of the two of us kissing off of Lorelei’s camera when she was in court so Kennedy would never see them. Looking through those pictures and seeing his lips on me, remembering how they felt, just depressed me even more.