Page 37 of Under His Embrace

“But this is important,” Tessa said. “A miscarriage is a big deal, even if you have accepted it and moved on from it.”

Not as big of a deal as hiding his son from him…

“And if you’re going to be staying with Franco and…” Nina cleared her throat. “Reuniting…”

I shook my head. “No. That’s not… I can’t even begin to think of how I’ll stay and just hop into his life like this.” It was already so hard seeing him the way I did, out of the blue and at the moment I needed him to save me the most, but thinking about staying here for good was a torturous tease.

I didn’t know what I was doing with him, sleeping in his bed and having sex. It was natural. We were still crazy for each other and drawn to each other with such a fierce instinct. But…

“I’m only here to be protected until whoever ordered that deli to be shot up is caught.” I licked my lips, hating the sound of this fate. “The only reason I’m here is because I witnessed that attack and they want to investigate.”

“Well, sure,” Nina said. “That’s part of it.”

“That’s all of it. I’m not going to stay here for long.” I hated saying such a thing. Now that I’d found Franco again, I felt drawn to keep him forever this time around. If he were to kill Wes this minute, I would still have obstacles in my way. I would still be stuck with the lie of having his son and not telling him about it.

“Do you want to stay with him?” Tessa asked. She raised her hands. “I don’t know all the details and all, but even I can see how different he seems.”

“Franco is a different man,” Eva confirmed. “You meant so much to him when you were both younger and so in love. He has never gotten over you. Even with how your parents tried to tear you apart.”

God, if you only know the whole truth about that.

“I’m not sure that you’re right when you claim that you can’t stay here for long.” Eva narrowed her eyes. “Do you want to?”

I swallowed hard. Having a real future with Franco sounded too good to be true. I would love to be included in this family,with these women and enjoying their companionship. I would be thrilled to come clean about being a mother and be here for Nina to give her the support I wished I had in a sister or friend in the childbirth stage. I would be so thrilled to bring Caleb here and know he’d be accepted and safe.

Deep down, though, I struggled to convince myself that I’d ever fit in. No matter how much I might wish for this happily-ever-after I destroyed ten years ago to actually have a successful retake now.

Despite everything that lured me to want to stay for good, to tell Franco that I loved him and I always would, I couldn’t shake this nagging little warning that it wouldn’t work, that I was too different from this closeknit group. That I was an outsider looking in.

I’d spent too much time being forced to stay on the other side of the fence—on the “good” side, the legal side. I was taught to always keep the Mafia thugs out of my life.

After a lifetime of being discouraged from associating with Franco and the people he called family—all very protective and generous people I wanted to get to know better—I struggled to overcome the sense of going for the forbidden, going for what I wanted and saying to hell with the rest of the world.

If my parents could go so far as to send a man to bring me home once, what would they do if they tried to extricate me from the Constellas now?

Fear for my life—and Caleb’s—mounted all over again. I was under the illusion of safety here. I was behind locked doors and kept secure by patrolling guards. Franco would defend me.

But my parents would never give up their hatred of the people they called criminals and thugs.

How far would they go if they learned I was defying them by staying with Franco and the Constellas?

I wasn’t sure I could risk their wrath and find out.

17

FRANCO

Romeo and I stayed out after our run-in with the Devil’s Brothers. Another call came in about issues with a Giovanni spy lurking around another one of our properties, and we went there to check it out.

After the shooting at the A&J Deli, we had to relocate and shift around some parts of our drug packaging and distribution efforts. With so many properties throughout the city, we had options to count on. It still required patience and planning, and in the process of moving things around, we had to consider the increased security needed in setting up the packaging area.

We met up with Liam and another soldier, and before I realized it, it was late at night by the time we decided to head back to the houses.

Dante texted me earlier, letting me know that the women invited Chloe to stay in a guest room in the big mansion instead of the other accessory house where she was first taken. He wasn’t asking for permission to move her. He was the boss, after all. But I appreciated the heads up so that I would know where to find her.

Once I arrived, I checked in on her and saw that she was sleeping well. As tempting as it was to wake her and bring herto the brink of coming with me again, I resisted. She needed her rest. Danicia had a good point—she might suffer for a while longer from the emotional hits of trauma from the shooting at the deli. I imagined she was running ragged fromyearsof being on the run from Wes and hiding from her stalker.

I stood there for a long while, wondering if I had all her truths now. She’d been holding back from telling me about her stalker ex, but now that I knew about Wes Morrison, I wanted to assume she wasn’t keeping anything else from me.

---