The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance)

Staring at the bathroom ceiling as I soak in the tub, feels like heaven on earth. Warm, clean and luxuriating as my aches and pains soothe away in a bath I can actually lay down in. Nothing scratching and poking into my skin under my body and no dirty brown, unhygienic and marginally warm water to contend with.

Soft music from the apartment sound system is playing something classical, floating in the air around me as citrus-scented candles burn in the low light and creates the most relaxing atmosphere I have been in for months. I feel like I am a million miles away from the reality of how life was hitting me just twelve hours ago.

It’s such a contrast to how I have been living and feels like my prayers have been answered. You truly appreciate things like this after struggling for so long.

I’ve missed these rooms, this bathroom and the luxuries that come from being here in this world. I can barely keep my eyes open, fatigue swimming over me from lack of sleep and my lingering bug. I forgot how good this felt, even though it’s such a basic thing and taken for granted until you find yourself poverty-stricken.

I love this tub, it’s large enough to submerge completely, big enough for two if I wanted a companion and the jets for the Jacuzzi are on low, foaming away and giving me a full body massage as I soak in expensive bubbles—courtesy of the housekeeper, who stocks the bathrooms with products even when not in use and I could kiss her. I might die right here of complete satisfaction, purring like a kitten as all of my problems ebb away.

I am one hundred percent on a cloud of delirium, and cannot believe that only this morning I was stressing about where I was going to end up, or how to feed or fend for myself after today.

In one day from practically homeless, unsafe, and broke, to being in five-star accommodation with a bank account destined to be singing a merry song soon enough. This is the life Camilla was born to live, and she has been waiting on a reappearance of it with bated breath.

Money aside, the sense of being protected while being here is incomparable in any way and it’s this that I ached for more than anything in the past weeks. To feel like I could stop running, stop being weighed down and fighting so hard. Bastard or not, Alexi always made me feel as though nothing outside of him would ever harm me and I would never want for material things. I can just exist here, with no real worries other than him.

I have my doubts of course, about being back here in such close proximity to him, but I’m not as worried as I was. The way I see it, he cannot do a damn thing to me if I don’t let him get close enough to damage me again. Alexi is a mental abuser not a physical one and he needs you to be emotionally invested to really get you on that level. I see that now. He needs physical contact like sex to effectively turn the knife, well when it comes to my scars anyway. As long as I keep all of that in the forefront of my mind and don’t ever let myself fall under his spell again, then I will be fine. I can get through this and stand up to him.

We got through months of companionable business before we ever had sex, and it can be like that again if I just remember—sex ruined everything. No sex—No problem.

My mood is definitely brighter and more serene now, and I am really feeling positive about this, even if in my depths, the swirling sense of pride and stubborn is battling with me like an infernal tornado.

I am trying to ignore the warning bells, pangs of fear and push the anxiety aside. I can always leave if this goes pear-shaped, maybe just be better prepared for a life back out there, and have back up plans ready in case I need to go this time. This doesn’t need to be forever and I should look at it as a temporary step to a better place until I see where it is going.

I can always walk out on him if he puts me back in a place where I feel threatened.

I came up here from the club after I did my walk around and found a million things which pissed me off, so I needed to unwind and wipe the grime of the diner out of my pores once and for all. Joanne was enraged at finding me perched on a bar stool waiting for her, and it was my greatest pleasure to throw my orders in her face like a wench. All while dressed as Meghan from Joe’s diner and looking like a street hobo that was far beneath her.

Somehow it made it all the more satisfying and her tantrummy ‘I am going to ask Alexi’ didn’t end well, when she marched up to his office and came back down ten minutes later with her tail between her legs and a pouty lip that was more suited to smacked toddler. Whatever he said to her put her face completely out of joint, did a magnificent job. She was tearful, docile and went off to the ground floor makeshift office to call the clients and staff without argument.

the highlight to my

in all day tomorrow and the next, after thirty minutes on my phone to various places for a full sanitise. Just falling into my old

over the paintwork that needs redoing, in dark grey instead of the

the new ones are being delivered

as they will be back in two days to restock when

yet so I don’t even know if he is even here, or knows

system checked over, seeing as it was the source of a flood and I don’t trust that bitch to have bothered. I am determined to get this baby back to its previous glory and smooth running and I have a day to get myself back to the ‘hostess

bar as a desk to start ‘doing’, which is what I have always been good at. No time like the present

room after one of the men took me for a half hour to get them, and hours of my evening to soak my troubles away and never face that shithole of an apartment, or Joe, ever again. I left my landlord a lovely note, stuck to the front door, telling him to go ram his rent. He used to love swinging by on the due date to try and

longer swollen like it was this morning, and most of the marks can be hidden with a good bag of makeup when I go shopping tomorrow to refill both my cosmetics drawer and my wardrobe. My shopaholic side is ecstatic with that turn of events

signed my existence back over to the devil when I’m surrounded by clean comfortable settings and have a whole day of

for my hair and nails at my preferred salon and Alexi has given me a driver at my beck and call for

club. If I didn’t know better, I would wonder if there is any guilt brewing

from me. He likes to use what he

a new playing field and I won’t bend the rules for anything. Any feelings I once had for him are lying beneath a solid concrete floor because I have buried them so deep I never want them to resurface. I don’t trust him, I don’t put it past him to turn nasty at the drop of a hat, but I’m prepared for it

this all behind, even if I own half the club. I will not let Alexi Carrero screw me up again, and I

going on is a temporary thing until he secures what he wants from me and I

squalor thinking about him. I want to enjoy this luxury and the fully stocked cold fridge

how to keep a girl satisfied; materially anyway. I can’t deny that, and I

missed this more than I missed

plush mattress and sleep under one hundred percent cotton sheets to get over the remainder of this bug. It’s a far cry from the damp mess I woke up in this morning and I don’t

head. I am rosy from my hot soak for an hour and feel amazingly soft and refreshed, if

apartments stocked with food when he is coming and going and this one looks like it was stocked today, everything has long use by dates and nothing has been opened at all, not even the creamer for his coffee. It suggests he intended staying here this week for

and food you can microwave from a gourmet delivery

workouts to make sure I exercise it off. It’s almost like my wake-up ritual when life is going better

sense. I almost drop my plate of acquired goods on my feet as I spin around in alarm. Heart somersaulting with the fright

the world and all I can do is blink back at him, feeling underdressed and heart hammering like a war drum as I try to calm my sudden breathless demeanour. He made