Page 16 of Protected By the Mafia

He rumbled, and she thought he drew a breath to answer, but then he tensed. “Damn. Probably.” He swung them around, stood, and strode to the opposite side of the bed. Only then did she hear the sound of a vibrating phone on tile. Cristiano set her gently on the bed before scooping the device up off the floor, and he met her gaze.

She gave him a tired smile, guessing at the question in his eyes. “I don’t even think I could scream right now.”

His lips twitched and he put the phone to his ear. “What can I do for you?” Then he surprised her by sitting down at her side and pulling her up against him. There wasn’t anything sexual in the embrace, he didn’t try to cop a feel or even start rubbing suggestive messages into her skin. He simply held her, not unlike the way he’d held her in his lap while they’d talked earlier.

Felicity leaned into him, accepting the moment of stillness. Until she heard the female tone coming out of Cristiano’s phone.

Her chest constricted. How could she have been such a complete, lust-stricken fool? Had she just made herself the other woman? She hadn’t even thought to ask about that, she’d just taken his blatant desire for her at face-value. I can’t believe I did something so stupid!

Cristiano’s arm tightened around her, as if he could sense her building outrage. “Of course,” he said into the phone. “I can head that way shortly. I’ll meet you there.”

Fresh tears stung her eyes, and these had nothing to do with intense pleasure. She should have screamed. She should have pushed past her raw throat and the threat of his arm around her and made whatever noise she could, but it was already too late. His call was over. And she’d heard enough to know he was leaving her side to go rejoin the woman on the other end. Whether that was the woman who should be his lover, or just another he kept on the side.

She would not be a side piece. She should never have let him touch her. All the effort she’d put into not letting her virginity go to one bastard who didn’t have the right to it, and she’d gone and thrown it at another. What was wrong with her?

“Felicity.”

She blinked, bringing her vision into focus, and found Cristiano turned toward her. The arm he’d wound around her had loosened again. So she did the only reasonable thing. She smacked his unfairly handsome asshole face, and took as much solace as she could in the fact that she appeared to have caught him off-guard. “You lying, cheating, two-timing piece—”

He clamped a hand over her mouth, cutting her off, and held her glare as he very deliberately wiped away a traitorous tear that had escaped. When she tried to rear back, he caught her by the hair and held her in place. “I never lied to you, Felicity. I won’t say I’ve never cheated on anything, but I’m not unfaithful. Which means I won’t be unfaithful to you.”

She tried to call him out on that, but his hand was still firmly clamped over her mouth.

He had the gall to look amused. “That was Iris. Dante’s fiancée. I promise I’m not sleeping with her. But she’s asking me for a favor, and considering everything else, I can’t afford to say no. So, yes, I have to get going.” Without breaking eye-contact, he eased and then removed his grip of her hair. Then he released her mouth.

Felicity dragged in a breath. She supposed it was possible his words were true, but … now she felt uncertain. She felt like she’d been an idiot.

Cristiano reached out to the side and picked up his phone, unlocked it, and turned it around. With her watching, he pulled up the phone app, which immediately displayed recent calls, and there it was.

Iris Jayne. Time stamped not two minutes prior.

Beneath that, she skimmed the names Mikey, Mother El, and Ryoma. As he pulled the phone away, she caught the name Lucia near the bottom of the displayed list.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, Felicity asked, “Who’s Lucia? And … Rioma?” She probably butchered the pronunciation of the second name, but if he wanted her trust on this, she had a right to ask.

He tossed the phone toward the foot of the bed and said, “Ree-oou-mah, it’s Japanese,” he said, pronouncing the name carefully for her. “He’s the closest thing I have to a best friend. I’ll tell you that story someday. Lucy is Romeo’s daughter. She’s seven.”

A different kind of guilt gnawed in Felicity’s chest. She wasn’t the jealous type. She didn’t want to be. She’d certainly never imagined being jealous over a seven-year-old. She dropped her gaze to her lap and her insecurities flared. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She really was an idiot, and now all she could see were the rolls in her body fat while she sat there, still naked but no longer sweaty and feeling good. Now she felt grimy and the insides of her thighs were sticky.

Cristiano stood, turned toward the bathroom, and she heard water turn on. Seconds passed before he came out and crouched in front of her again. He tipped her head up with a finger curled under her chin, then pointed to his cheek, where she’d smacked him. “Kiss it better for me, and I’ll forgive you.”

She stared at him.

He stared back.

A stupid, awkward laugh barked out of her, and Felicity felt herself smile. “Okay.” She leaned forward, caught his jaw in her hands, and kissed his cheek.

He pulled her to her feet, aimed her at the bathroom, and swatted her butt. “I started the tub for you. Soak, you’ll feel better. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

six

Learning to Trust

Part of Cristiano had regretted answering Iris’s call the moment he’d felt Felicity tense at his side. He came to wholly regret it when he laid eyes on the brightly colored, overly feminine flower shop his soon-to-be surrogate sister-in-law stood in front of. She’d said she needed help with something, that it was a personal favor, and she’d given him the location of where to meet. But he had no goddamn clue what she could need from him at a place like this.

Still, he dutifully stepped up and listened while Iris explained what she wanted. He even managed not to glare at her or turn and stride away at what he heard. He’d known she was planning to open a new flower boutique on a piece of land Dante had recently acquired for her, just as he knew construction had begun the week prior. It was going to be her personal business, though Dante would be a silent investor to help get it off the ground and help her learn how to run a business, and undoubtedly most of the family’s women would wind up shopping there. The men, too, when they had the need. It would be expected.

What Cristiano had not expected was to get roped into touring some other random flower shop, so Iris could pick his brain on superfluous things. She said she wanted to get a man’s perspective, so she planned to drag Mikey and Romeo out over the next few days for the same torture, too. She wanted to know which sorts of displays caught their eyes, which kinds of flowers appealed the most or the least, and if there was any thought process behind the answers.

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