Page 55 of Broken Princess

I’ve been watching her in the rearview. She’s been flicking her eyes between Nico and me. I can see her brain working—trying to figure us and our relationship out. She thinks she’s being subtle, but I see the blushes flushing her cheeks and the way she keeps squeezing her thighs together. When she does, she has the same look on her face from when we spotted her watching us in the hallway.

I could tell from her expression then, and the hungry gaze she’s trying to hide now that she saw me on my knees for him.

Fuck, to have her on her knees next to me. Or for us… I smile and bite my lip but nod to Nico, giving him permission to speak for me.

“Well actually, we first met at your wedding,” Nico says.

I see her eyes widen. It’s like a punch to the gut and makes me wish one of the happiest days of my life wasn’t the beginning of a four-year prison sentence for her.

“I saw this sexy asshole at the reception, hiding in the corner like some kind of dark cloud.”

“I told you to fuck off three times that night. I still don’t understand why you kept asking,” he says, his voice gruff but tempered with a wry smile.

“Because you were hot as fuck,” I reply and Nico smiles. He’s still hot as fuck. Six foot four inches of brooding muscle, with dark, sapphire blue eyes, I could swear were black at times. Throw in the dirty blonde hair and facial scruff that scrapes my jaw when he kisses me and he’s a walking wet dream.

“You were fucking hard to say no to.”

I can see Rory smiling in the back, and I say, “We should thank you. If it weren’t for your wedding and those shots you served at cocktail hour, I’d never have had the guts to ask him out.”

Her smile widens. “It’s nice that something good came out of my wedding.”

“We went out on our first date the following week and we’ve been together ever since,” I say.

“Where did you guys go on your first date?”

Nico takes this one. “Well, he suggested a coffee date… and I laughed in his face. So, we compromised, and I took him to a firing range that had an axe throwing gallery.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure it did much to quash my first date nerves when you showed off how lethal you were with an axe.”

“Bullshit, it turned you on.”

“Of course it turned me on, but it was also my first date with a guy, so yeah, I was nervous as all hell.” I hear a little chuckle from the back seat.

“That’s sweet. You bonded over sharp edges.”

“Yeah, and I got to see a side of Nico few people have. No one except me and the guys, and now you. Oh, I hear I have you to thank for his sudden interest in bingeing comedy shows. I’ve been trying to get him to watch Parks and Recreation for years.”

This easy conversation takes me by surprise and for the rest of the journey we sink into anecdotes about our early days dating. Rory tells him embarrassing stories from when we were kids. It’s nice, but it eventually turns when she asks about my brother and sister, Luc and Etta. I answer her questions about them, what they’re up to, who they’re dating, but then when she talks about my parents, I can’t help but go quiet. My mother disowned me the day my father did.

“I’m sorry we have to go after your dad, Benny. We have to do it, but I’m sorry if anything we’re about to do ends up hurting you.”

The words that come to me flow without a second thought. “Marco Romano will pay for his betrayal. There isn’t a cell in my body that will mourn him. He stopped being my father the moment he tried to kill me.”

I try not to glance in the rearview, but it’s automatic when I hear her shocked gasp.

“What did you say?”

“It always makes me laugh when people say that cunt disowned me.”

Nico reaches over and rests his hand on my thigh as if to bolster me as I say the next part.

“What he actually did was shoot me. My sister heard and called Nico, who went all knight in shining armour on me.”

“Can you not joke about this?” Nico hates it when I’m flippant about it. He thought I was dead. He walked into my father’s house, picked up what he thought was my body, and only realised I was alive when we got outside. Took me to the hospital, called Mateo, and wouldn’t leave my side until I was fit to leave. By the time I’d healed, Mateo had agreed with my father that I was no longer a Romano, and just another Bianchi Bastard.

As I explain her father’s role in my life, Rory nods along.

“Sounds like Dad. He may not have been able to sanction Marco for his actions, but he did what he could to protect you.” She catches my gaze in the tiny mirror again. “I’ve been selfish not acknowledging how much he meant to you all. I’m sorry for your loss, Benny.”

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