Page 31 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don

Kate is infuriating with her demands for some kind of emotional intimacy that she thinks is necessary before she allows me to meet my son.

I’m still not willing to make any kind of deal with the Baldini boys without getting to see Mateo and she knows it. Why is she working so hard to assure herself that I feel something deeper for her?

And the hell of it, is that I do care about her.

I’m just not capable of the kind of love that she clearly wants. The part of me that loved other people died the day I shot Gianni. I’m not capable of the kind of loving, trusting relationship she wants to demand from me.

“What the fuck does she think life is, anyway?” I scoff, taking a corner too fast and correcting sharply. “Does she think that any of the other men in my line of work are spending all day sharing their problems, thoughts, and business deals with their wives?”

I growl in annoyance and slam my hand against the steering wheel of my Porsche. Fucking women. The adage that you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them has never seemed more true.

As I slow down to join traffic on the freeway, my phone starts ringing. I check my caller ID and see that my mother is calling me.

I smile in spite of myself. If there is any woman on earth that I love, it’s my mother. When my dad died a couple of years ago, she decided to take over his share of the work, and has been a brilliant administrative partner to myself and Gabriel.

Esther La Rosa was a woman of many talents. She ran a nonprofit in my father’s name, she helped my brother and I run the business, and she also helped take care of my brother’s herd of children.

She spoke multiple languages, had a head for numbers, and always told you the truth. She was also loving and gentle, and the best mother that anyone could have asked for. I didn’t deserve her, and I knew it.

“Mom,” I say warmly to her as I pick up her call.

“Elio, where are you?” she asks me. She sounds a little perturbed.

I change lanes and flip off the guy next to me after he honks at me for crowding him. “Coming back from taking care of some business,” I answer her.

She sighs. “You forgot,” she states, matter-of-factly.

I frown a little. Was I supposed to be somewhere? “Forgot what?” I ask.

She sighs again. “Family dinner,” she says. “It’s Wednesday, Elio.”

“Oh shit,” I mutter, looking at my watch to check the date.

“Language,” she chides me gently. “I can hold dinner for another twenty minutes. Start heading this way so that you can join us.”

“Yes ma’am,” I say, changing lanes again and getting honked at by the same asshole driver that I cut off before.

I flip him off again and start weaving through rush-hour traffic to take the exit that will lead me to my mom’s house.

Family dinner night has been a tradition in my family since I was a teenager. As myself and my brothers started to get busy with sports and dating, my mother decided that all of us needed the chance to reconnect at least once a week.

At first, we all whined about having to make time to eat a meal together, but over time, we all came to love having the chance to talk, eat one of my mother’s home-cooked meals, and just be a normal family.

As I take a secondary highway and head toward my mother’s house, I ponder what they will all think if I show up to family dinner with Kate.

I wasn’t willing to talk to anyone about what happened to her seven years ago, and my family knew me well enough to stop asking. I assured them that we were still engaged, but that we needed some time apart.

I had believed at first that I would find her within a few months and bring her home with some excuse about a quarrel. When it started to become clear that I might not find her again, I had simply stopped mentioning her.

Occasionally, my mother would invite a family friend’s daughter or someone she met at the nonprofit over for dinner. I was always polite but disinterested in these women.

Over the course of the past year, my mother had stopped throwing pretty women in my direction and had resigned herself to enjoying one set of grandchildren.

It would light up her life if I could get Kate out of the Baldini house and bring Mateo to meet his grandmother.

I wondered why I trusted Kate that the child was mine. I had mentioned the paternity test to gauge her reaction, sure, but I believed her already that he was mine.

Marco might be many things, but I knew that he would never let his child be raised in secrecy. He would also never let his child be taken to the States as leverage for a business deal.

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