Monk Paletti: Commanding Love Read online

  Jenay saw it too. “You’re right,” she said, looking out of the window. “They look like bodyguards to me.” Then she turned and looked at Charles. They had enough gangsters in the family for her to know one when she saw one. But Monk wasn’t their concern. Ashley was.

  “And why does he always wear that hat?” Donald asked as he made his way over to the front door as Monk rang the bell.

  “Just open the door, boy,” Jenay said as she went and sat back beside Charles.

  “Nita, I think you’d better go on upstairs until we sit for dinner,” Jenay said to their daughter.

  “Ah, Ma!” Bonita bemoaned.

  “Don’t you ah, Ma her,” Charles said, agreeing with Jenay’s assessment. “Go!”

  Bonita hated to be excluded from family discussions like she was still some baby, but she knew there was no backtalking Big Daddy. She got up and left.

  And then Donald opened the door and Monk Paletti walked in.

  He removed his hat as he walked further into the house and as everybody stood up and shook his hand. They were all polite the way they always were whenever Teddy used to bring him around the family, but even Monk could feel the tension in the room. And then, as they all began sitting down again, Donald offered Monk his seat. Donald sat beside Jenay, with he and Charles sandwiching her in.

  “How long are you in town for?” Jenay asked Monk.

  “Just overnight,” Monk said. He sat on the edge of the chair, twirling his hat. “I’ve got some business to attend to in the morning.”

  “I see.” Jenay nodded her head. She had always summed up Monk as a decent, honest sort, for a gangster, but there was something more intense underneath his calm exterior that also gave her pause. Something, in her view, that made her feel as if he was as temperamental as Mick could be – when pushed. She once asked Charles had he ever sensed that same hidden intensity about Monk. He said he had.

  “So,” Monk asked, looking around, “where’s Ashley?” They all had to know she was the reason he had come.

  “You haven’t been in touch with her?” Donald asked.

  “No,” responded Monk. “I was handling some business on the plane. I assumed she was here, waiting.”

  Donald smiled. “Ashley waiting around? Yeah, right!”

  “I believe she went out for drinks,” Tony said.

  Monk looked at Tony. Monk always liked Tony. Here was a guy who once studied to be a priest. A guy who was in seminary school. Although he would later go on to get his PhD, in Monk’s book, who admired men of the cloth, how could you not like a guy like that? Tony gave it to you straight, forget the chaser. But what he had just said surprised Monk. “She went out for drinks?” he asked Tony, unable to conceal his shock.

  “Yup,” Tony said, nodding. “At least that’s what I think she told me.”

  “That’s what she said, yeah,” said Donald. Donald was the closest to Ashley. Monk knew he was the expert on all things Ashley.

  But Monk didn’t know what to say. She knew he was coming. What she needed to go out for? And who did she go out with? A guy? He wanted to ask the family, but that wasn’t for them to answer. That was for Ashley to answer. It was tough enough why he had to come. Big Daddy had already voiced his disapproval of their relationship. It was horrible enough that he knew he had to call the whole thing off. And she wasn’t even home? The least her ass could have done was to be home!

  Monk kept his cool and kept twirling his hat, but Charles was experienced enough with mobsters in the family to see that electric undercurrent in his big eyes. Charles already felt Monk’s relationship with Ashley was moving too fast. Too aggressively. Now seeing Monk’s reaction to her just going out for drinks, he was convinced of it.

  “Monk?”

  Monk looked at Charles, who had remained pretty quiet for him. “Sir?”

  “What’s with the bodyguards at my house?”

  Monk couldn’t tell him the truth. He couldn’t tell him that he was about to be installed as the head of the Bonaducci family and Don Bonaducci himself had insisted on extra layers of security for him. When he officially became boss, Monk would decide his own level of security. But until that day, Bonaducci made the call.

  “It’s temporary,” he said.

  “No heat around it?” Charles asked.

  “I wouldn’t bring heat to your house, no, sir,” Monk said. “It’s temporary.”

  Charles nodded, but even Jenay could see he wasn’t convinced.

  “Would you care for something to drink?” Jenay asked him.

  “No, ma’am, I’m good. Thank you.”

  “Can I ask you a question, Monk?” Donald asked him. “Or is it Frankie now?”

  “Either one,” said Monk. “Doesn’t matter. What’s your question?”

  “What do you see in Ashley?” Donald asked point blank. And everybody looked at Monk.

  Monk was offended. Her family, in his view, never gave her the kind of credit he believed she deserved. Hell yeah, she made mistakes. Plenty of them. But she was young and that was what young people did. What was Donnie’s problem? “What do I see in her?” Monk asked.

  “What do you see in her?” Donald asked again. “I mean, she’s my sister and I love her to death. Don’t get me wrong.” Then he smiled. “But Ashley’s, well, Ashley is Ashley! She’s known to lose interest. She’s known to zip from bad man to bad man. She’s known to . . .”

  “To what?” Jenay asked Donald.

  “She’s known to love’em and leave’em,” Tony said for Donald. “At least that’s the perception.”

  But Monk wasn’t buying that perception. That was her image around Jericho, and maybe even around most of her family. But he knew that vulnerable other side of Ashley that she kept concealed even from her own family. He saw it on her the moment he laid eyes on her. She wasn’t going around leaving anybody. She loved men. It was the men who left her. Heart break after heart break, she endured. The kind of heart break that kept her unwilling to show her true feelings. Now he was in town to add to the pile.

  But it was better she hurt now than if she was married to a joker like him when shit hit the fan. And it inevitably would. Especially as he moved up that ladder, an ascension he didn’t even want. But either he took over his father’s reign, or somebody else would. He wasn’t working under anybody else.

  “What do you see in her?” Donald asked again.

  “I don’t see what you’re suggesting is in her,” Monk replied dryly. Then he looked Donald in the eyes. “That’s for damn sure.”

  Donald stared back at Monk. Tony and Charles and Jenay did too. He had a passion for Ashley. That was for certain. They all saw that. But would it last? Would Ashley get bored? Would he get bored? Why would he want a flighty girl like Ashley, who was subject to change her mind at the drop of a hat, when a man like him could have a sophisticated woman who was far more grounded than Ash would ever be? That was the question the family was trying to reconcile. What, they wondered, was Monk’s angle?

  But Monk didn’t share his thoughts that easily. Ashley was his business. His personal business. He didn’t have an angle, except that he loved her, but trying to convince them that he was well-intentioned was like trying to prove a negative. Besides, he thought sadly, he’d be out of their lives soon enough.

  “Where did she say she was going to have these drinks?” Monk asked Tony.

  “She didn’t say,” said Tony. “At least she didn’t say it to me.”

  Monk looked at Donald. “Me either,” he said.

  Monk exhaled, and they could all hear the frustration in that exhale. He was exhausted. Charles saw that right off too. And Ashley, at least how Charles viewed Monk’s demeanor, wasn’t cooperating. Everybody saw Ashley as easy. But Charles would beg to differ. Ashley was no easy girl. She was the kind of girl that would have Monk working harder to keep her than he’d ever worked in his life. But would he put in that day to day, agonizing work, Charles wondered, or just try to ram their love through like the bulldog he was known for? Would he rush it through before they even really knew each other well enough? Would it end as quickly as it began? Until he answered those questions Charles would remain convinced that their relationship was more lust than love.

  But time would tell.

  And then a car was heard driving up. Donald went to see and confirmed that it was Ashley. Charles immediately looked at Monk. He could see his jaw tighten. He could see that stormy look in his big eyes. He could feel the man’s anger ready to explode.

  His sweet, kind, happy-go-lucky daughter, Charles thought with much trepidation, was way over her head.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Her tears were long gone by the time Ashley walked into her parents’ home. And when she saw Monk sitting in their living room, she dropped her phone and keys on the foyer table and ran to him. What man did Jane and Dee have that would drop everything, hop his own private jet, and come and see about her? What man did any of those bitches have that treated them like Monk treated her? And she was the one feeling bad? She was the tramp? Ashley wasn’t thinking about those heifers as she ran to her man. Monk was there. That was all that mattered to her.

  “Frankie!” she cried as she ran to him. You would have thought they hadn’t seen each other in months the way she ran to him. Monk stood up when he saw her, and felt that surge of happiness too. He gladly took the impact of her body slam as she ran into his arms.

  And just like that, his heart melted for Ashley all over again.

  They held onto each other in a passionate embrace. Monk was getting a hard-on as he held her. Ashley was getting wet as she held him. They wanted to kiss as passionately as they were holding each other. They wanted to get away at that very moment and make love to each other. But she wasn’t in place when he a
rrived. He wasn’t the kind of man who could sweep that little fact under a rug. He couldn’t get that little fact out of his head.

  He pulled back from her. “Hey,” he said to her. He was careful to keep her close enough to shield his erection from her family’s prying eyes. “Where have you been?”

  She was hoping he’d kiss her. Nobody kissed like Monk! But she already knew the drill. Even in front of her family he aimed to keep his private life private. She was now a part of his private life. How big a part remained to be seen with Ashley. She could never really tell with Monk. Her proof? She wanted a kiss. He wanted an explanation.

  “I had some drinks with some friends,” Ashley said. Then she moved her mouth to his ear and whispered: “Did you tell them?”

  Although Monk was trying to smile, he wasn’t very good at it, Charles and Jenay both thought. They could see that tenseness was still all over him. “No,” he said. “What friends?” he asked her.

  “Friends,” Ashley said. “Just some friends.”

  Monk nodded. It was obvious to everybody in the room that Monk wanted to ask if they were male or female friends, but he didn’t ask it. And although it was obvious to Ashley, too, she didn’t volunteer it. Whom she choose to have drinks with, be they male or female, was her business. But she could tell Monk was pissed. But that was his problem.

  Although she loved him in a way she’d never loved anybody before, she was going to remain stubborn about her independence. Her mother and her aunt Roz taught her that. Stand your ground, they both told her, or a man like Monk would stand on it himself until she had no ground to stand on. She’d forever be on his turf. She’d forever be in his shadow. That was why Roz continued her acting career after she married Uncle Mick. That was why Jenay continued to run Big Daddy’s hotel after they married too. That was why Ashley was going to remain true to herself despite Monk’s dominance in her life.

  That was also why Monk began heading toward the back exit, she realized, so that he could privately assert his dominance. “Let’s go out back,” he said to her. And he didn’t wait for her to say yea or nay, her family noticed. He was already heading out back.

  Ashley lifted her eyebrows at Donald, as if the say what did she do wrong now, but she didn’t object. She followed Monk out back.

  When they had gone, Tony smiled. “Our little Ashley has no clue what she’s getting herself into with that guy,” he said.

  Charles and Jenay both looked at Tony. He was a sharp psychologist. He studied human behavior for a living. They respected his opinion. “You saw it too?” Jenay asked him.

  Tony nodded. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I definitely saw it too.”

  Charles leaned forward, his face unable to shield his concern. “She’s over her head,” he said. “Just as I thought.”

  “Ashley can handle herself,” Donald said, and everybody looked at him. “That’s what y’all don’t realize. She’s got this.”

  Donald was always Ashley’s biggest cheerleader, as she was his. But in the family, they were always considered two train wrecks colliding. Two black sheep thrown together by their reckless tendencies. For Donald, it was a little of everything, from women to drugs to everything in between. For Ashley, it was always picking the absolute wrong man.

  Like this time, Charles feared.

  But once Monk and Ashley were outside, walking around Big Daddy’s expansive backyard, Ashley didn’t see it the way her family saw it. Monk was a different cup of tea, that was for certain, and the little things tended to bother him more than the big things. But at the end of the day, Ashley was convinced Monk had her best interest at heart. He saved her life before. No man outside of her family had ever shown that level of commitment to her. That was why when Monk talked, Ashley listened.

  But he didn’t say anything for several minutes as they walked quietly around the beautiful gardens and waterfalls and grounds. It was a well-lit backyard that sparkled against the moonlight.

  Just like Ashley’s eyes, Monk thought as he glanced at her as they walked. He had his hat back on his head and his hands in the pockets of his pants, and he realized their conversation was going to be even harder than he had thought it would be. Even the scene was tough, as two of his bodyguards had already made their way to the back of the house just in case he was to go back there. It was already different. Even Ashley saw that.

  “Do all of these bodyguards mean that it’s official now?” she finally asked Monk. “You’re the boss now?”

  “Not yet,” said Monk. “The Don hasn’t called the meeting yet, but he called the hounds on me. I’ll correct the situation once I’m installed.”

  “But it’s still certain?” Ashley asked. “I mean, Bonaducci isn’t changing his mind, is he?”

  Monk exhaled. “You never know,” he said. “But no, I don’t think so.”

  “Then why the delay?”

  “The official word is that he’s under the weather, or that he’s buying time. Depends on who you ask.”

  “And the unofficial word?” Ashley asked.

  “He’s weighing all options. But when it’s all said and done, I believe I’m still favorite to win. Or lose, depending on your perspective.”

  Ashley smiled and slinked her arm around Monk’s, although he kept his hands in his pockets. “It’ll be a win,” she said. “You’ll be great as boss. You’re certainly bossy enough,” she added with a bigger smile.

  Monk smiled briefly, but she could tell he had bigger things on his mind. “What is it?” she asked him when he still wouldn’t speak up.

  Monk decided to go small first. The weightier matter, that decision that was crushing his soul, would have to come later. “Where were you tonight?” he asked her.

  Ashley thought that was an odd question. “I told you where I was,” she said. “I had drinks with some friends of mine.”

  “Guys?” Monk asked and then looked at her.

  Ashley smiled. “What difference does that make?”

  Monk stopped walking and turned to her. “Guys?” he asked her again.

  “What difference does that make?” she asked him again.

  “It makes a hell of a difference, what are you stupid?” His Jersey accent was coming out in force now. “Who were they? Did they try to hit on you? What the fuck are you hanging out with guys for when I just asked your ass to marry me?”

  Ashley couldn’t believe he had gone so far down that road even though she hadn’t answered his question. “Just hold on, alright? Geez. What’s wrong with you? No. There were no guys. They were all girls. But again, what difference does it make, Monk? I have guy friends. They could have been there if they had shown up. So what?”

  “I expected you to be home when I got here,” Monk said. “That’s what! I didn’t expect my woman to be cavorting around town like some . . .”

  Ashley frowned. “Like some what?” Was he going to call her a tramp too? “And who was cavorting around town, whatever that means? I was with my friends.”

  His cell phone began ringing. He lifted a finger for her to hold on as he pulled it out and looked at the Caller ID. When he saw who was calling, he answered it. “Yeah?” Then he glanced at Ashley and began moving slightly away from her. “When did this shit happen?” he asked into the phone as he moved away.

  Ash folded her arms in the cool night air as he talked on the phone. And she, too, was troubled. She knew Monk was a dominant man. No woman of his was wearing the pants in his household. She understood that. She even liked the fact that he was that kind of take-charge man who would protect her and take care of her. He was a dominant individual.

  But would his dominance become domineering? Was he going to cross that already super-thin line? She didn’t think she could live like that, if he did.

  She wasn’t going to lose the essence of who she was. Not even for Frankie.

  Monk ended the call and walked back over to Ash. “What were you saying?” he asked her as he pinched the bridge of his nose. That call, apparently, had not been good news.

  Ashley could see it, too, and she wanted to reach out to him. He looked as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. But she knew she had to stand her ground. “What I was saying,” Ashley continued, “was that all I did was have a few drinks with my friends. I didn’t even drink because I knew you wouldn’t like it. I thought I was being considerate. But you make it seem like I did something wrong.”