Page 8 of Mafia King's Secret Baby

She is the youngest of the De Lucas. She’s been painfully sheltered by her three older brothers to the point where her innocence is so obvious on her face that it’s almost palpable.

After Marco and I graduated from business school, I moved back to Italy. An American education through young adulthood was plenty for my family, but the promise of a business degree had been mine.

The last time I saw Caterina prior to our engagement party, she was fourteen. She was all legs and glasses and frizzy, wild curls. Remembering Gia at that age, I had been polite but indifferent. I had kept a wide berth from her, because she was a child.

When I saw her again at our engagement party, I had been expecting that child.

But instead, a woman had shown up.

I think Marco may have pinched me a little too hard when his sister, on the arms of Sal, the brother closest to her in age, walked into the room.

I breathe in the citrus blossoms again. Dio santo, I remember everything about that night.

Her dress. A lilac color that made her look like some kind of fairy tale princess.

The way her skin glowed in the candlelight.

The way her lips had rounded on my name, shaping it into syllables that I knew, but hearing them from her made me feel reborn.

The way her eyes glittered when we danced.

My jaw works as I try to stop myself from remembering more.

Because there is so much more to remember.

The sweet surprise of her lips as I parted them with my tongue. The little noises she made when I pushed the gown off of her shoulders, releasing her pert breasts to the cool night air.

The way she gasped my name, first as she came around my fingers, next as she came…

Stop.

The command is final. I drag myself, kicking and screaming, from the memory of Caterina that floods my senses. She’s a feast for my imagination, and my mind wants nothing more than to stay and gorge as I think about every small detail of that night.

However, that way is madness.

I know.

Because I’ve been fighting it ever since we separated that night.

I have long stopped feeling affection for Caterina. Once, I may have done just that. She had no guile in her, or so I had thought, that night under the stars.

But like everything about her, it was a lie.

One carefully crafted to disguise the real intentions of the dinner party that night.

To cover a murder.

There is no doubt in my mind that the De Lucas did not intend to honor their business deal. They clearly dangled a willing Caterina in front of me as bait, to distract my siblings and I from their real angle.

My throat gulps back the bitter feeling in my stomach.

I don’t know anything about Caterina De Luca, despite the fact that I thought I might have once.

I thought I knew all of them.

I bark out a bitter laugh before I can stop myself.

I doubt she was even a virgin. I’m sure she had some trick to explain why she was so tight, or where the blood came from that night.

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