Page 85 of Princess of the Mafia

A hand plunged in my hair. It trailed softly, like he was weaving through silk. His heart beat thundered in between us. Awareness sparked that I had his on a string. I couldn’t bear the burden of it.

“What did he say?” vibrated on his chest.

He was supposed to be a made man. Like every other made man I knew. Why was he coloring outside the damn lines? “He said you love me,” I mumbled into his chest.

“What about it?”

“You love me?” It sounded ridiculous when it spilled out of my mouth.

“I don’t do that shit, Principessa.” Thank God. “But I’ll give you my life. If that’s what you want.”

My heart jerked. It pulsed, and it hitched like it had gone mad. Like there was nothing solid to hold on to. “I—”

He cocked my head up, and his palm wrapped around my mouth. “I know you’re trying. Just as I said. One day at a time, sì?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

DARIA

He loves me. He loves me not.

If I had played that game a month or even a week ago, I would have ended up with the latter. It turned out I was wrong. The Don of New York loved me. Even if he said he didn’t do that shit. Even if I would have preferred he didn’t do that shit.

It was so much easier to push him, test him, goad him, as a made man than it was a man who loved me. Me. Daria. A silly girl in Cosa Nostra. I wasn’t smart, and I didn’t have a talent I could count on unless there was a competition for the messiest room or something. I wasn’t rich when it was all Papà’s money, anyway. Earned in morally gray ways that my guilt-ridden heart couldn’t acknowledge. I was pretty. I think. But I was sure my constant nagging for attention and waking up close to noon outshone it. So what the hell did he love me for?

I wanted him to fit into the Cosa Nostra mold. But every time I tried to make him fit, he spilled over the edges like hot wax in a fireplace.

The sun was warm and bright on my skin as I sat on the green wooden bench on the college grounds. But my mind was in chaos. Frustrated and downright angry. Why couldn’t he be like all the other men I knew? I didn’t know how to handle him. I didn’t know how to protect myself. Because he was coming for my protective walls. They wobbled dangerously at the edges of my heart. There was no will I could find to stand against his persistence.

My sandwich lay uneaten beside me with red pesto that was too soggy to tempt me. Served me right for avoiding my new friends like the plague and finding solace on a lonely bench.

It was a beautiful day. It would have been better if my mind wasn’t troubled, but still, the quiet in the park and the uneven path in front of me almost reminded me of Corleone under the warm sun. My eyes caught on a lone figure coming down the path, and my heart thudded when the familiarity touched my gaze.

What the hell is she doing here?

When she headed straight toward me, there was no doubt in my mind that she was there for me.

“Fancy finding you here.”

I squinted in the sun at her figure looming in front of me and wondered if ignoring her calls hadn’t given her the message that I didn’t want her near me. I guessed not.

She plonked down next to me on the bench, my sandwich in between us. I shifted my body subtly away.

I blamed my upbringing. I should have told her to piss off. She would have gotten the message then. Instead, I was stuck looking at a face fucked by my husband.

“Why are you here?” I asked her quietly.

She frowned like it was the strangest question she had ever heard. “I thought we were friends?”

She thought we were friends? Because we had lunch once and went shopping? Or because we had fucked the same man?

“We aren’t,” I mumbled.

A heartbeat of silence. “Did he tell you?”

I wanted to be anywhere but there. In my peripheral view, I caught one of Lorenzo’s men moving. Silently, I willed him to come closer because suddenly the sun wasn’t bright nor warm on my skin, and my defences were low and soggy like the sandwich next to me.

“I told him we shouldn’t do it.”

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