Page 41 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don

I feel a flare of rage at his words. “Elio, how on earth should I have reacted? You were planning to dump me in Mexico and forget about me after I was pregnant with your heir. I was already pregnant, so the clock had run out for me. How on earth should I have felt?”

Elio makes a choked sound that I can’t connect to any particular emotion, driving a hand into his dark hair. “You stupid, stupid woman,” he says, but his tone is sad, not accusatory. “I didn’t mean any of those words. I was never going to leave you behind.”

I make a dismissive sound. “Could have fooled me,” I retort.

He meets my gaze again and I freeze at the intensity of the emotion raging in his dark eyes. “You were my lifeline, Kate,” he says fiercely. “I was barely keeping all the pieces of myself together back then. I would never have left you, not for anything.”

I believed him, despite what happened in the past, but it makes no sense to me. “Then why did you say that?” I whisper. I hate how weak I sound and how much pain the memory still causes me.

He abruptly swings his legs over the edge of the bed, and comes to sit directly beside me. I flinch as he sits down; I can’t help it. He sees my fear and he frowns a little before reaching out with gentle hands to clasp my shoulders.

“Kate, I…” he sighs, weighing his words. “I was on the phone with my father. It is no secret that he was a very bad man and not someone that you trifled with. He wanted us to be married, but he also was afraid that I would forget about my responsibilities to the business.”

I shake my head, trying to pull away from him. “That doesn’t explain anything,” I hiss at him. I feel sick to my stomach that I have let all of this go so far. I haven’t done anything but given him the upper hand again.

“No, Kate, wait,” he pleads. I stop struggling but I don’t look at him again. I train my gaze to the floor.

He sighs again, but he doesn’t speak for a long moment. I finally risk a glance at him. He’s looking down at his hand on my arm, clearly lost in his memories.

There’s a note of fear in his expression that makes me pause, my heart in my throat.

“Kate, my father was…worse than you could ever imagine,” he grinds out. “I never wanted him to know what you meant to me. It would have been dangerous for you to become a threat to his control over me. I was trying to protect you, not push you away.”

My mind races as I try to decide if he’s telling the truth about this. I remember his father being a casually cruel man and I always felt a certain thrill of terror when his eyes would land on me, but I never considered what Elio thought about him.

I suddenly remembered the desperate and depraved way that Elio would fuck me when he came home from “training” with his father. Suddenly, it all makes sense to me and I feel a sense of wonder at the thought that Elio never meant to send me away at all, but instead was trying to keep me safe.

I look at the beautiful, dangerous, damaged man sitting on the bed beside me, his eyes closed as he wrestles with some kind of internal battle.

I gently reach out and push his tousled, dark hair back off his forehead. “Elio, look at me,” I say softly.

For a moment, I think that he won’t do as I have asked, but then he reluctantly opens his eyes and meets mine.

“Prove to me that you never meant to leave me,” I say to him, knowing that what happens next will define everything about our relationship from this moment forward.

Chapter Seventeen

Elio

“Prove to me that you never meant to leave me,” she says to me, and my heart shatters in my chest at the pain in her words.

I know I should say something. That I should try and explain the terrible things that I was asked to do to make my father proud, but the words lodge in my throat.

And then I realize that she doesn’t mean for me to explain anything to her. She doesn’t expect me to speak at all.

My body is on hers before I even have time to realize that I’m going to kiss her. The broken boy who could barely keep his mind in order clamors for the succor of her body, the oblivion of her desire for me and I give in with abandon.

I distantly hear the clatter of plastic game pieces hitting the floor as I drag her against me, my lips and teeth marking her skin, her gasping breaths like music to my ears.

“I thought I would die when you left,” I say to her, my voice hoarse as I fumble to remove her bra. She reaches back to help me and flings it across the room.

“I thought my world was going to unravel,” I admit, sucking her nipple into my mouth. Her head falls back and I reach down to touch her, finding that she is soaking wet for me.

She arches and makes a soft little cry that tugs at something inside of me that still hurts, still hungers for safety and love. I wonder a little how I am able to feel anything so gentle anymore for a moment, before she reaches out and starts tugging at my boxer briefs.

“I wanted to kill Marco,” I say harshly as I rise and allow her to help me remove my underwear.

My erection springs free, painful, and desperate for release. Her eyes are trained on it, but then she looks up at me hungrily and slithers back onto the bed in clear invitation.

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