Back to Reality

When Elle had thought of ways in which she would no longer be getting up on stage and dancing every night, all of them had involved her leaving club M permanently. Never in her life had she thought that once she left the stage, she would still be coming into club M every night.

But life was funny that way. 

She had not expected a wedding gift, and if she were to get one, she had expected it to be something along the lines of new new jewellery, or even a car. But instead Gio had surprised her with something else, papers handing over ownership of the club to her.

"Gio, I can't," She had tried to refuse, but he had simply shaken his head.

"You have worked there long enough, you know how everything works, plus with your degree I will no longer be wasting money on accountants…take it, please," He had given Elle 'the look', his eyes all round and glistening and Elle had found herself nodding along.

He had beamed, but before he could get too excited Elle has elaborated.

"I'll sign these, but only under the condition that I take six months as a trial period to see how things work. If the business starts tanking under my leadership, then I'm not worthy of it, and you can take it back," He had given her a look like she was talking about something impossible.

And now just a short while into her new role, Elle had to admit his faith in her abilities had not been misplaced.

She was good at running the club, scarily so. She already knew everyone at the club by name, she got along well with the majority of them. When it came to the suppliers, she had been around Gio long enough to know who to trust and who to kick to the curb. Her naturally frugal nature made it easy for her to spot swindlers and her degree made going through the books and arranging them a breeze. Props to Gio though, he had kept things impeccable, if it had not been for the fact that they were already married, Elle would have married him for his pie charts and graphs alone.

Making her transition even easier, the fact that she was now a Romano made it easier for the others to accept her new status as their boss. There were still a few odd looks, but for the most part everyone had accepted the status quo.

Elle was eternally grateful for that, it would have stung horribly if the people she had gotten so used to working well with suddenly turned against her.

But the one thing that Elle did not like about the new arrangement was how little od Gio she got to see now. Their schedules were now vastly different. Gio's hunt for their attacker was being conducted with a single minded focus that left little room for anything else, and Elle understood.

She very much loved breathing air and having a heartbeat. Things which were in immediate danger the longer the person responsible for the hit stayed free, so Elle understood why Gio was so focused on the task at hand.

But it still did not make things any easier. They barely saw each other, and sometimes when they did, one of them was not awake. Sometimes he came in after Elle had gone to sleep and sometimes Elle came in to find him passed out on the bed and she would curl up against him. Letting the warm comfort of his body lull her to sleep. He was usually gone by the time she woke up, his side of the bed having long gone cold. 

Rather than dwell on that and let her loneliness fester, Elle buried herself in the club. She made sure that it was running as smoothly as possible. Even if she could not be of much help in Gio's current predicament, she could at least make sure that the club was the least of his worries.