Page 29 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

Chapter 8

Bianca

I don’t know how I found the strength in me to tear myself from Leo’s arms and threw myself into the elevator, stumbling out into the bar on the first floor and then onto the street where I flagged a cab and stuffed myself in, giving the driver the address of my father’s house in Lenox Hill.

I close my eyes and will my breath to return to a semblance of normal, sure its rapid pace would lead me into hypoxia soon if I didn’t get a grip on myself.

“You okay there?” the turbaned driver asks as he throws me a glance in the rearview mirror.

My breath staggers as I try to respond. Finally, I nod—he’s still watching me, so he’ll see the nonverbal answer.

“You sure? You look like…someone tried to hurt you,kudi.”

I smile and shake my head. “I’m okay,Paaji.”

These Punjabi older men, they’re very protective of young girls. From the first time I walked into a shop in Queens owned by Punjabi Sikhs, I was addressed as ‘kudi,’ which means ‘girl’ and sounds likekurialoud. I was always told to respect my elders, so I enquired how to address the mom-and-pop duo. I was told ‘Paaji’for a man, ‘Baaji’for a woman.

It’s come in handy quite a few times in New York cabs.

“Sure,na?” he enquires.

“Yes.”

He returns his focus to driving, leaving me to contemplate the state I’m in. My dress is all askew, the tie loose around my waist, and the skirt is crumpled. I smooth it out with my hands. Thank goodness it’s a hardy synthetic and not fragile silk; I can make myself presentable pretty soon.

Not so much can be said about the state of me inside, though. Leo all but tossed me into a storm and made mush of me with his impassioned words and declarations. Then the way he pushed me into that wall, was about to have his way with me…

God, how I’d wanted that. I would’ve given anything to have him fuck me again, fill me with his cock, take from my mouth and body and pussy, plunder and ravish, pleasure and torment until he pulled orgasm after orgasm from me. His hands on me, his mouth on mine, his finger in my sex—I have to inhale sharply to clear the fog of desire wrapping itself around me again.

Marry me.

My hearts caves in on itself. There’s nothing more I want in the world. I know Leo wants my body. He can’t want my heart, not yet; we don’t know each other enough for that, for love. But even so, I know no other man will ever be able to elicit such desire in me, such carnality, such completion. My soul knows this, so yes, I would totally agree to marry him today itself…if I could.

I can’t, and that’s the kicker. I’m promised to another.

All of this had run into my head despite the heat of his bodyseeping into mine, lighting my blood on fire as he kissed me like his life depended on it. As much as I wanted this, craved it, needed it even, I couldn’t go along with what we were doing. It would just throw oil on an already raging fire, and we’d light an inferno that’d burn not just us but our families and everyone in our entourage.

So I’d had to do the rational thing, the right thing. I’d had to tear myself from him, walk away before anyone got hurt even further in this dangerous game we were playing.

The words that’d fallen from my lips as I was running away, though? Hadn’t planned on them.

And if I have my way, they’re the last words I’ll ever speak to Leo Pellegrini aside from a simple greeting here and there.

The car stops. I can’t believe we’re already in Lenox Hill, in front of my father’s house. I’d thought it’d take longer to get here from Tribeca. Vince’s, where Leo had told me to meet him, is a bustling French bistro. I was looking for him at a table when Vince himself, the owner, approached and gave me the code for the elevator at the back. It took me to the third floor, to the loft where Leo was waiting for me.

Is that one of his haunts? I never got to ask him, because the doors opened and there he was slamming his fist into a wall. I ran to him, and then everything else melted to the wayside as I just knew I had to take care of him, that he was a man at the end of his tether. The raw look of pain in his eyes had felled me.

The driver announces the fare, and I shake out of my thoughts. I extend the money then slither out of the car.

“Thank you,Paaji.Sastria kal,” I say, greeting him goodbye inhis language. For a moment, he made me feel cherished, seen, and I want to return the favor to him.

My steps are leaden as I trudge to the front door and let myself in. It’s dark inside. A sliver of hope my father isn’t home carves itself in me.

It’s extinguished mere seconds later when the lights come on, almost blindingly so.

“Where were you?” he asks. He’s standing on the threshold of his study, a glass of cognac in hand.

I gulp. It’s hours past my dinner date with my fiancé. Can I fib?

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