Page 75 of Mafia Don's Secret Baby

Callum had been put in his bed the moment we returned home. He stirred minimally and asked for his favorite stuffed animal, but he quickly fell asleep.

I considered lying beside him, not fully prepared for the conversation I was about to have. Instead, I closed the door and moved down the hallway to Matteo’s bedroom, knocking twice before entering.

He sat at the end of his bed in only a pair of joggers. The muscular expanse of his chest revealed itself, and I trailed my gaze over it. Then, I flicked my eyes to the bowed shoulders and the way he fixed his gaze entirely on the ground between us. His shoulders rose and fell with each breath as his hair danced across them. It surrounded his face like a cocoon, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen him appear so vulnerable.

We stood in silence long enough that his deep voice made me flinch slightly.

“I have a son, and I didn’t know it for over two years,” he said. His gaze didn’t so much as flick up to mine, but his eyes danced around the rug in thought. “That betrayal destroyed me in a way you can’t understand, and I want to hate you for it. I want to turn my back on you the way you turned your back on me.”

“I—”

“I’m not done.” I pressed my lips together tightly. “I know why you did it, and I think you made the best call for him. There’s always a threat in this business, but with the Russians on the rise, it wasn’t safe. I’m sure Silas told you all about the rising tensions, and it only solidified your decision. I will always appreciate your dedication to keeping my boy safe.”

My boy.

The words melted a part of the cold wall around my heart. I shouldn’t have been worried about Matteo accepting him. That shouldn’t have even been a question in my mind.

“Even now,” he continued, “you tried taking him away again because you didn’t think he was safe. You were willing to sacrifice your revenge to keep him safe, and that’s admirable.”

“I wasn’t sacrificing anything,” I cut him off. “I knew you’d take care of it, especially now that you have enough people backing you.”

“Regardless of the semantics, you put him first, and that’s the way it should be.” He exhaled and met my eyes for the first time. “But I’m selfish, Lilianna. I’ve never been a father, and I need to learn how to make that kind of sacrifice. The line between love and hate is thinner than you’d think. For anyone else, I would have been unfazed and doled out the appropriate consequences. It only bothered me so much because I love you, Lilianna. A man in my position shouldn’t love anyone. It’s a weakness. But for you, I’d do anything. For you, I’d tear apart the fucking world.”

His steely eyes didn’t flicker away from mine as he spoke. Every word came across as emotionless, as if he’d been thinking about saying them for hours. As if the weight they carried wasn’t something he’d allow himself to feel right now.

What did I say after a declaration like that?

I knew how I felt, and the realization sent chills through me.

His anger shouldn’t have affected me so irrationally. I should have never considered leaving. By all logic and reason, I should have held out and stayed until I reached my goal, but I’d convinced myself of untrue things. I’d rationalized emotions that should have been felt. I should have known that Matteo would never withhold protection from me and Callum. That should have never been a question, but the hurt that had run through me had been so potent. So blinding.

Leaving shouldn’t have been an option.

I wasn’t an emotional, blubbering idiot, and I should have never acted like one.

The only reason I had was because I felt the same way as he had. He’d shut me out because he loved me, and I had tried to do the same.

“You’re not going to say anything?” he asked, restraint cooling his tone.

“You forgive me?”

“For now,” he replied. “But if you ever leave me again because you’re pissed off or hurt—”

“I won’t,” I assured him. “I only left because I love you, Matteo. I love you, and I don’t know if I want to love you. I don’t know what I’ll do if this shit doesn’t work out in our favor.” I pulled my lip between my teeth in thought. “And I won’t let you treat Callum poorly because of a decision I made. It doesn’t matter how I feel about you. He comes first.”

Matteo was up and across the room in less than a second, lifting me into his arms effortlessly. I wrapped both arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. The contact with his bare skin sent sparks of need through me and straight into my core as I wound my hands in his thick hair.

“If you thought for even a second that I’d treat Callum poorly, you would have never come back.”

He was right.

“We’re going to do this together, right?” I asked breathlessly as he backed me toward the bed. “No more stonewalling? We’re in this until the end.”

His hands gripped the bottom of both my thighs, his expression nearly indecipherable as he pressed his lips into mine hard. Everything about the kiss was electric. A brutal, unrestrained claiming in all the right ways. I took in every single ounce of his warm lips over mine, his tongue sweeping into my mouth.

Jolts of fire-hot need spasmed in my core as I tightened my legs around him. The shifting of my weight revealed his hardened length between my thighs, and I moaned lightly.

“My favorite fucking sound,” he groaned, tossing my body on the bed and easing his way on top of it. We couldn’t fit a sheet of paper between us, and I parted my lips as his hair cascaded around his face. “Don’t do this to me again, Lilianna.”

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