Page 232 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

“I—I can’t,” I reply as I swallow a sob. I need to get away from here. I can’t cry in front of this man. Even if he’s Vince’s grandson, he’s a total stranger to me.

“I want to learn about the Vince you knew. I want to learn why he came here to eat with you every week. Will you stay and tell me?” he asks, his voice so much softer than before yet strong as if he’s used to getting his way. I don’t know what to make of this man. Part of me wants to run out of Antonio’s restaurant and never come back. Another part of me is intrigued by the man in front of me. I raise an eyebrow. Now that I’m inspecting him up close, he looks like a player. He’s too gorgeous of a man not to be one. He’s probably got women on every block in this city.

My stomach rumbles.

“My treat, in honor of Vince,” he offers as he motions to my seat.

I cock my head to one side. “Why do I feel like you always get what you want?” I ask him as I slide back into my chair, trying to wrap my head around the shocking news of Vince’s death.

He leans down with his hand on the back of my chair and holds his mouth just centimeters from my ear. “Because I do always get what I want, tesoruccia,” he whispers, his hot breath caressing my skin.

Holy fucking shit! This man exudes sexual energy like some kind of sex battery that’s fully charged.

I shiver and he smirks as he walks around to his seat. I sort of hate him already, but I could use a free meal. Vince always insisted on paying. I bite my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. I already miss Vince. I wonder what he would want me to do. I decide that I’ll eat with this man and then I’m leaving and never coming back here.

Two

ROCCO

I stare at the young woman in front of me. She looks to be about ten years younger than I am, mid-twenties if I had to guess.

She’s gorgeous. Her strawberry-blonde hair cascades down her shoulders in loose curls. Her big aquamarine eyes watch me cautiously from beneath thick lashes. Where oh where has Grandfather been keeping this one? She radiates innocence in a way I’ve never known. Women in my world know enough to be smart and savvy. But this woman doesn’t seem to have a clue about who my grandfather was.

I glance at Antonio who is hovering by the door. He gives me a small shrug. When my cousin Joe mentioned that our grandfather still goes to this restaurant every Thursday, I thought that was odd. I thought that maybe it had to do with business, but this breath of fresh air is definitely not business.

Her pink sweater shifts as she reaches again for her glass of wine. I watch the glass as it presses to her rosy lips. Fuck, she’s a walking wet dream. Was my grandfather fucking her? No. There’s no way.

“How long have you known Vince?” I ask, wanting to get to the bottom of this situation. I shouldn’t be around her any longer than necessary. Someone like me isn’t meant to be with someone like her. I already feel like my presence here is tainting her.

She sets the glass down as Antonio brings out a plate. “Your usual, Miss Lena?” he asks, giving her a warm smile.

“Thanks, Antonio,” she whispers.

“I’ll have the same,” I state as I take in her chicken parmesan. She likes meat. I fight a smirk.

“How did he…pass?” Lena asks.

I tilt my head to one side as I study her. Unlike many men in our family, Vince went peacefully in his sleep from a heart attack.

“Heart attack,” I state as Antonio sets down my favorite red wine.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she says as her eyes glaze over again. If she knew nothing about my grandfather, why the tears?

“So you knew Vince well?” I ask, trying to gauge the situation. I can see my bodyguards at the only other occupied table in here. They came right after me and sat down at their usual spot. Antonio is family, so we’re more laid back here than in other places. Strangely, I haven’t seen her before in here. I eat here a few times a month, but I guess never on a Thursday.

She shrugs as she cuts a piece of chicken. “I felt like I did,” she says quietly.

I lean forward, my elbows on the table and she looks over at me. “What did you two talk about?”

A faint smile ghosts her lips and I’m again taken aback by how gorgeous she is.

“At first, I spoke about my parents.” She pauses and looks down at her plate. “They passed in a car accident.” She takes a deep breath. I’m stunned and something inside me stirs. I want to protect this woman. I have no idea where this feeling is coming from because I know nothing about the beauty sitting across from me other than my grandfather clearly had an affection for her. “Then he shared about his wife’s death. And after that, we agreed to not talk about our families because that was too difficult. We wanted to keep it fun. So we talked about things we always wanted to do. We’d talk about the weather. He loved baseball and so do I, so we’d talk about our teams. Sometimes, he’d teach me something in Italian and I’d teach him something in French. But we had a favorite game…” She trails off and blushes.

I raise an eyebrow. No way was my grandfather tapping that ass.

“No, not like that,” she says, her blush growing darker pink. My body responds and I adjust myself discreetly beneath the table. She lets out a nervous giggle. “We used to, like, come up with stories about people at the restaurant. There were these guys we assumed were a gay couple that also always came in at six o’clock. I liked telling stories about them. Sort of like those guys,” she says, frowning a little as she motions to where my bodyguards sit at a nearby table by the door. Fuck, she really has no idea.

This innocent beauty doesn’t know she just spent years having meals with the head of one of the city’s most prominent mafia families. I begin to wonder if Vince had her tailed, or protected. Shit. I don’t need this on top of everything else right now. She really is a little treasure; one that Vince Lucci kept all to himself. I immediately know that his guard, Francesco, knows more about this than he’s told me. But why? Francesco only said that Vince had wanted me to go here on Thursday if something happened to him. Is Lena my grandfather’s parting gift?

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