A Mob Boss Christmas: The Pregnancy (11 page)

Reno looked at Trina.
 
“You don’t want the guy?”

“Not really, no.”

“Why not?”

Trina exhaled.
 
As she did, Reno looked down, at her breasts he knew so well, as they
heaved up and then back down.
 
“I just
think Jeff Fingar is vulgar and not at all the kind of act we need to be
booking.”

“But he’s only at midnight, Tree,” Lee pointed out.

“I don’t care if he was broad daylight, Lee,” Reno
said.
 
“He’s not coming here.
 
I’m all the vulgarity the PaLargio needs in
one lifetime.”

Trina smiled.
 
She really did love Reno.
 
Cheri,
however, inwardly fumed.
 
She really did
hate Trina.
 
But outwardly she smiled.

“Then I guess we won’t be booking Jeff,” Cheri said
as if it was no big deal to her anyway, and Lee, too, played it off.

“All right, Tree, ready?” Reno asked.

Trina hesitated.
 
“Ready?
 
Ready
for what?”

“It’s after one o’clock.
 
You’ve been working since early this
morning.”

“So?”

“So, you need your rest.
 
I want you to go upstairs and take a nap.”

“A nap?”
Cheri blurted out
before she realized she was saying anything.
 
The idea of Reno being that solicitous to Trina had evoked a sudden
jealousy within her that made her want to put him back in his place.
 

But she hadn’t intended to say it out loud.
 
Now that she had, she smiled to play it
off.
  
“Oh, Reno, she’s fine,” Cheri
decided to say.
 
“Stop hovering and being
so overbearing.
 
She’s fine.”

Trina had planned to say the exact same thing, but
she wasn’t about to go against her husband in public.
 
Especially when he was only
looking out for her.
 
Especially when Cheri Dallas would love to see dissension in
paradise.

“You’re right, Reno,” Trina said, standing from
behind her desk.
 
“I really do need to
take a break.”

Cheri was angry with herself as Reno hurried to help
Trina stand up, and then walked her from around the desk.
 
She was only three months pregnant by this
time, and was only mildly showing, but you wouldn’t know it by the gentle,
as if she was nine months pregnant
way
that Reno handled her.
 
Cheri knew she
had overstepped her bounds.
 
And when
Reno walked toward her, he let her know it, too.

“Don’t you think for a second, Miss
Dallas, that
your position as my general manager gives you
some right to comment about anything related to my personal interactions with
my wife.
 
It doesn’t.
 
I don’t tolerate it from Lee, who’s an old
friend of mine, so you know I’m not tolerating it from you.
 
What I say to my wife is between me and my
wife.
 
Understand?
 
Don’t fuck with me.”

Cheri’s heart dropped.
 
“I didn’t mean to suggest---”

“Don’t fuck with me, Cheri,” Reno warned her
again.
 
He put up with her little mild
flirtations because she was rather exceptional at what she did, but getting all
up in his business with his wife was taking it too far.
 
And he wanted to make certain she understood
that.

“I apologize for being intrusive,” Cheri said.

“Don’t let it happen again.”

“I won’t, sir.”

Reno gave her a look that made clear he was getting
fed up with her.
 
And then he and Trina left.
 
Cheri’s heart hammered against her chest when
he left.
 
By blurting out the way she
did, she showed her hand just now.
 
She
never meant to show her hand!

Outside, Reno escorted Trina to the elevator.
 
“Don’t let her handle you,” he said as they
walked.
 
“You don’t like some act she’s
booking,
you put your foot down.
 
You’re her boss, not the other way around.”

“I know, and I did
put
 
my
foot down.
 
But Lee overruled me.”

“Well, if you feel strongly about it you come to
me.
 
I don’t get in Lee’s way for the
most part, but if you feel strongly about it that’s different.”

“It’s actually the same, Reno,” Trina said with a
smile, “but I get your point.”

By the time they were on the private elevator heading
up to the penthouse, Trina began to shake her head.
 
“I guess taking a break is a good idea,” she
said, “and then get back to work.
 
My
staff shouldn’t miss me for a few minutes anyway.”

“A few minutes my ass,” Reno said.
 
“It’s nap time for you.”

“Quit playing.
 
You know I’m not about to take any nap this time of day.”

“Who’s playing?” Reno asked as they stepped off of
the elevator.
 
“I read those books Bob
Paxon recommended.
 
And every one of them
talk
about plenty of rest and exercise.
 
You move around enough, you’re getting your
exercise, but you’re not getting enough rest.
 
You need to rest those ankles.”

“Ankles?”

“Yeah, that’s what those books said.
 
At least one of them said that, I think.
 
I don’t know.
 
Those books went on and on.
 
Like
Paxon, they don’t know how to shut up.
 
But the point is the same: you need your rest.”

Trina wanted to argue with him, she sometimes felt as
if she got too much rest, but she didn’t bother.
 
She allowed him to lay her on their bed and
go and get her some milk.
 
She even
smiled at the thought of Reno getting her milk.

But by the time Reno returned at her bedside with the
milk, Trina was fast asleep.

Reno exhaled.
 
This pregnancy was driving him nuts.
 
He drank the milk himself.

Their first Lamaze class was canceled when the
instructor fell ill, which bummed Reno out since he had to move a lot around to
accommodate the class, and had read many brochures on the method.
 
But when the second class was confirmed, he
and Trina were right there.
 
But when
they showed the video, and Reno saw firsthand the actual birth of a baby, and
the messy, bloody process of that birth, he hit the floor like a sack of
potatoes.
 
At first Trina was
embarrassed.
 
None of the other men
passed out.
 
But then she couldn’t help
but laugh.
 

“Reno, Reno, Reno,” she said later when they were
driving home.
 
“You’re the only one who
passed out.”

“I didn’t pass out,” he insisted.
 
“I just got kind of sleepy.”

“And so you just decided to drop to the floor and
take a nap.
 
Is that what you’re telling
me, Reno?”

Even Reno had to smile at that.
 
“Something
like
that, yeah.”

“Yeah, okay,” Trina said and then she looked at him
again.

“So,” he said.
 
“I was the only one to
pass,
I mean, get sleepy
like that, hun?”

Trina smiled.
 
“The only one.”

“Damn,” Reno said.
 
“The only one.”

“Yeah, but as you were sliding from your chair and
dropping to the floor, I thought you never looked more attractive.”

Reno looked at her, smiling.
 
“Really?”

“Really.
 
You look adorable, Reno.
 
You looked just like a girl the way you fell
to that floor.”
 
Trina said this and
laughed.

Reno’s smile disappeared.
 
“Very funny,” he said as he hit the gas and
flew his Porsche through another green light.

Later that night, however, Trina found herself
throwing up violently in the toilet bowl.
 
Reno was by her side, seated on the floor holding her as she couldn’t
stop regurgitating.
 
Then she leaned back
against his heart chest, and he held her even tighter, praying that the nausea
would stop.
 
And it did momentarily.
 
But then the heaving would resume and she’d
be over the toilet bowl once again.
 
Reno
tried not to feel guilty on nights like this. He tried not to blame himself for
impregnating her in the first place.
 
But
more often than not he couldn’t pull it off.
 
Especially when Trina started crying.
 
Guilt, on those nights, was all that he could
manage to feel.

CHAPTER FIVE

But as the weeks came and went and Trina’s “morning”
sickness began to dissipate, a sense of calm acceptance began to overtake
Reno.
 
Especially as the dread of
Autumn
began to fade and his favorite time of the year,
Christmastime, slowly built up steam.
 
All up and down the Vegas strip were bright lights and miniature
Christmas trees.
 
There was Santa Claus
imitators and Salvation Army bell ringers.
 
There were carolers singing
Joy to
the World
and street performers singing
Stomp
.
 
The sights and sounds of Christmas were
everywhere.
 
And so were Reno and Tree.

He took her shopping.
 
From Nordstrom’s to Bloomingdale’s to department store chains inside the
PaLargio, Reno spared no expense.
 
They
purchased so many gifts, for family, friends and
associates,
that
it bordered on outrageousness.
 
But this Christmas was different for them.
 
Trina was pregnant, Reno was no longer a
nervous wreck, Jimmy Mack was turning out to be their right-hand man, and they
felt grateful.
 

Trina also felt a need to oversee the decorating of
the massive Christmas tree that dominated the PaLargio’s main lobby.
 
Normally she left it to her staff, but not
this year.
 
She wanted to put her stamp
on everything that pleased Reno.
 
And
Christmas, she was discovering, pleased him mightily.
 
Jimmy Mack even assisted her.
 
He had an eye for design that Trina
appreciated.
  

Reno, too, stayed busy.
 
Anticipating heavier-than-normal holiday
bookings, he gladly approved the hiring of nearly a hundred seasonal workers
and extended the overtime hours of many of his regular people.
 
It was an all-around good time, a festive
time, at the PaLargio.

Cheri Dallas, however, wasn’t feeling the love.
 
Reno was still all but ignoring her and Trina
was still questioning every major decision she made as if she had no executive
authority.
 
And whenever she took up her
concerns with Reno, he would tell her to do whatever Queen T told her to do.
 
It annoyed the hell out of Cheri and began to
turn her against Reno too.
 

And to make matters worse, Cheri’s mother came to
town.
 
Just to spend a night with her
daughter before heading to Malta for her own Christmas celebration.
 
And for that one night she was willing to
give to her daughter, she was looking for a good time in return.

“It’s Christmas time,” Thelma Dallas proclaimed.
 
“Let’s get out there and have some fun!”
 
She was a mother who was only sixteen years
Cheri’s senior, a woman who was once a supermodel and still drop-dead gorgeous,
and Cheri could hardly stand the sight of her.

But she took her to dinner at Monitov, a luxurious
restaurant inside the PaLargio where Cheri, as GM, had a table reserved for her
exclusive use.
 
It was a purely vain
selection on Cheri’s part.
 
All of her
life she had tried and tried to impress her mother, all to no avail.
 
Even when she was assistant manager at
Caesar’s Palace, the only job she ever had that she did not sleep with somebody
to achieve, and her mother never even congratulated her.
 
Now, as GM at the famed PaLargio Hotel and
Casino she was once again seeking out her mother’s approval.
 
An approval, she quickly realized, that wasn’t
going to happen either.

Cheri was given the royal treatment by the Monitov
staff, as the restaurant’s manager himself escorted her and her mother to their
table.
 
To Cheri’s surprise, Reno was in
the building.
 
She looked over at the
raised booth reserved for Reno’s exclusive use, as she always did when she
entered any of the restaurants and lounges inside of the PaLargio, but on this
night, two weeks before Christmas, there he was.
 
Having dinner.
 
His wife and son were having dinner with him,
but seeing him again still gave Cheri a thrill.
 
Especially because she knew, as she swayed her hips a little more and
slung her long, blonde hair with more animation, that Reno’s location made it
impossible for him not to see her.