Page 44 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don

I take a moment to stare down at her, admiring the sight of so much wanton abandon and sated pleasure, before I slowly withdraw from her tight little hole.

“Shower time, dirty girl,” I say to her gently, tugging her to her feet.

She smirks and follows me into the bathroom holding my hand. I turn on the shower.

“You’re a naughty boy,” she quips playfully as she squeezes my hand. “And I love it.”

I cradle her against me as the water heats up, then press her ahead of me into the warm water. We rinse off in companionable silence, the balance of power between us changed forever.

“I think I am supposed to leave now,” I say regretfully as we step out of the shower.

She shakes her head. “Fuck them,” she says dismissively. “I want you to meet Mateo in the morning. They claim that you won’t play ball with them until you meet your son, so be it. I want you to meet him, but he’s already in bed for the night.”

My heart leaps in my chest at the promise that I will get to meet Mateo. What will I say to him? Does he even know that I exist?

I turn to Kate to ask her all the questions that I haven’t allowed myself to consider yet, but she presses a finger to my lips.

“Not now,” she says. “I’m tired.”

I allow her to draw me over to the bed, and I climb in behind her. She snuggles back against me, and I wrap an arm around her.

We lay in the dark silently, and I hear her breathing even out as she falls asleep. Feeling her body against mine is utterly surreal. I ponder how things could have been so different between us if I had just thought of her as a real person who cared about me. For so many years I had been a selfish fool and I had paid a steep price.

My mind turns to the deal that the Baldinis will expect me to offer them in exchange for Kate and Mateo’s freedom.

They will know that the tide has turned in their favor as soon as I meet my son. It’s up to me to come up with a way to convince them to accept something other than the ridiculous deal that they have stated they want in return for my betrothed and my son.

In the past, I would have just gone home, gathered my men, and come back here to destroy everything that the Baldinis hold dear. I might not even have cared if something happened to the people whom I was trying to set free with my actions.

My reputation as a terrible, calculated, terrifying killer is based on my ability to wreak havoc and ask questions later.

I look down at Kate’s sleeping form. Her face is soft and lush in sleep. She has always been too good for me and I realize now that I might have been pushing her away because of that fact.

I am not sure that anything I do now will keep her safe and I am even more afraid for Mateo, who is an innocent pawn caught in this mess.

They both deserve better, but I have to admit that I am not sure how to get them out of this situation without giving in to the demands that Luca and Enzo have laid before me.

I realize that I don’t know how to solve problems without violence. Is there any way to make business deals without at least the threat of causing harm to the other parties involved if they don’t comply with my demands?

I have never gotten involved with Enzo and Luca in the past, because I knew just how unlikely it would be that they would be willing to make concessions to me. It turns out that my instincts about them were right, but now I find myself in a position where I have to work with them even if I don’t want to.

I sigh and scrub a hand over my face. I have asked myself again and again why I just let Kate go when she told me that her child was Marco’s.

Why didn’t I ask more questions? Why didn’t I try and convince her to stay anyway? Marco was the kind of man who would have been reasonable about the situation. After all, he had let me pummel him multiple times already on Kate’s behalf.

I suppose that the real difficulty is that no one ever taught me how to love anyone properly. Lord knows that my mother tried, but I was always with my father, learning to be tough, and dangerous, being shown how to be a soldier.

Gabriel spent a lot more time with my mother learning to be a husband and partner. I hated to admit how much the difference between us showed, especially now that we were adults.

If I could navigate a way out of this mess for Kate and Mateo, did I want a family? Was I the kind of man who could raise a child? Was I the kind of man who could offer a wife a happy and safe home?

I just wasn’t sure, and the fact that I wasn’t sure broke my heart.

I know I should lay awake scheming and coming up with a solution, but sleep tugs at me.

I allow myself to be dragged into oblivion, lulled by the scent of Kate’s hair and the softness of her body pressed against mine.

Chapter Eighteen

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