Page 69 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

“Why? Why did you do it?”

I swallow, hard. The time for truth has come.

“I couldn’t…”

He frowns. “Couldn’t marry that fucker? I told you I’d take care of it.”

My heart breaks as I look at the earnestness on his face. “There’d be a war, Leo.”

“The war came and went anyway.”

“At what cost, though?”

“Every cost would’ve been one I’d pay to have you.”

I shake my head, lose threading through me. “I wasn’t ready. Not for you to die.”

He frowns. “What are you saying?”

“They would’ve killed you, then forced me to marry him anyway. I can’t live in a world where you don’t exist anymore, where the man I love is dead because of me, because I dared to choose him and choose love.”

Silence meets my outburst, until suddenly, Leo starts to laugh.I can’t believe this. He is shaking with laughter, and in my frustration, I slap him on the shoulder and try to wiggle out of his arms.

He won’t let me, though, and he pulls me in even tighter against him.

“Why are you laughing, you boar?”

After another laugh, he catches his breath. “You could’ve just told me you loved me, Bianca. There are easier ways than running God knows where and letting everyone, including me, believe you were dead.”

I gulp softly. He won’t understand my real reasons. Not unless he comes to know about my pregnancy, about his son. And I can’t tell him that. Not yet. We’ve already opened a can of worms between us. There’s too much emotion here, and the air is volatile, charged. Everything can explode all too quickly. I can’t take this chance right now, not when it might have dire repercussions for Enzo.

“Bianca?”

“Hmm?” I tune back to him, peering into his face.

“Where did you go?”

I owe him answers, I know this. But every answer I’ll give him will bring me closer to the revelation that we have a child I’ve kept hidden ever since I found out I was pregnant.

“Does it matter?” I ask.

He stares at me for long seconds. His body is solid against mine, his arms strong around my back. I revel in this sensation ofbeing close to him even though a little voice in my head is telling me this is all I might have from him. These secrets between us, they bide nothing good. How will I ever fill this gap between us, one I ultimately dug myself? Can I even build a bridge we can cross?

“It doesn’t,” he finally says. “But Bianca, don’t disappear on me again.”

There’s no menace in the words, no threat, and I don’t feel anything like this. Still, trepidation joins the wild dance my heart starts when I hear these words.

“You won’t let me go?” I voice the thought out, eager to see his reaction.

His arms tighten around me, and though it feels possessive, it’s not alarming. It just feels…safe, I’d say, and a part of me goes liquid as I melt into his embrace even more, placing my head in the hollow where his shoulder meets his pecs.

“Never.”

That one word reverberates against my ear as much as I hear it inside my head.

“I always knew you were still out there,” he says.

I’m not sure I’ve heard him right or if I’ve imagined this. I pull away to peer into his face. The sincerity there comforts me I heard him right, just as much as it makes pain echo in every part of my being. Leo would’ve fought for me had I stayed.

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