Page 17 of Untouchable

“Aiden,” my father says with a polite head nod.

“Hello Mr. Mariano,” Aiden says, dipping his head respectfully.

“How has work been?” My father asks him.

“Good. Not enough hours in the day.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Bethany chimes in with a laugh.

Aiden pulls out my chair for me and pushes it in before taking the seat next to me. “How have you been Mrs. Mariano?”

“Doing good, sweetie. Thank you.,” she smiles as she looks at Aiden and then me.

As soon as we are all settled, Marisol, our maid, quickly brings out our dinner. We are having sirloin steak with roasted baby potatoes and a spring salad. I personally stick with a larger portion of salad and a few bites of steak. Having a great body comes with sacrifices, like carbs.

Aiden’s hand reaches over to rest on my knee under the table. I look at him and smile softly before he leans over and gives me a very family dinner appropriate peck. Just before he pulls away, the doors to the dining room bang open.

I pull back quickly to see Alessandro swagger inside without giving so much as a passing glance to anyone. He simply walks around the table, kissing Aunt Tasha and his two little sisters on the top of their heads before taking a seat next to them. Uncle Gio and Aunt Tasha are glaring daggers at him while everyone else seems to be hyper focused on their dinner.

“Get lost?” Uncle Gio asks seemingly unimpressed with his son’s dramatic entrance.

“Nope,” Alessandro pops off casually.

The two make eye contact for a few heavy seconds before Gio shakes his head and focuses back on his dinner. Marisol quickly hustles out of the kitchen and produces an extra place setting and dinner in front of Alessandro as if him blowing in like a tornado is completely normal, because it is.

Without even realizing it, I find that I have been staring at him since he came in. My eyes trace over him and I frown from what I see. Over the last two years he seems to have aged almost 10. Even though I see him practically every day, it is rare that I ever see him this close for longer than a few seconds.

I notice that his eyes hold shadows underneath that weren’t there before. Instead of being clean shaven, I see him more often than not with unkept scruff like tonight. His thick black hair is cropped short, officially ridding him of any resemblance of the boy I once loved.

Don’t get me wrong, he is still sexy as sin and any woman in the world would happily fall into his bed, but there is something about him now, that is different. I don’t know how to explain it, he is just…different.

“So, Seraphina,” Bethany says, quickly shaking me from my Alessandro focused trance. “Are you excited for our trip?”

I smile and nod. “Very. We took a trip to Maui when I was 7 and I loved it. It will be great to go back!

“Yes, it should be a trip to remember,” Nicholas smirks as he sends a heavy look to his son before looking to my mother and father.

When I look around, I see that near every adult has a dopey conspiratorial grin on their face while Aiden is wearing an embarrassed one, his cheeks pinking up as he keeps his eyes on his plate. Do they honestly think that they are being subtle?

I have suspected for a little while now that Aiden has been wanting to ask me to marry him. It started out with the random question here and there about where I would want to get married, what kind of ring I would like and things like that. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but the longer Aiden and I have been together, the more he talks about our future.

Obviously, we haven’t seriously talked about getting married, it has been all nothing more than hypotheticals. For a while now I have just sort of assumed that we would end up together. Now that I know the time is coming, I am finding that I am a lot more nervous than I thought I would be. I am sure I am just experiencing the typical cold feet jitters that everyone gets before they take that next step with someone.

Aiden is amazing. He is everything that any woman could ever dream of and out of everyone, he chose me. He is my best friend, my biggest fan and my rock. I am sure as soon as he proposes, and we are officially engaged everything will settle and the nerves I feel will melt away. It’s just got to be the anticipation of it all, yeah, that’s it.

My inner ramblings are cut off by a rough scoff erupting from Alessandro. Everyone’s eyes flick to him as he tips his amber colored drink down his throat.

“Something to say?” Aiden asks.

His tone is perfectly cordial, but the way his eyes flare tells me that he does not appreciate Alessandro’s disrespect. Aiden is the nicest guy in the world and gets along with every person that he meets, except for Alessandro. Based on the few words that have been traded between them over the years, I would guess that the feeling is mutual.

Alessandro lazily pulls his gaze from his glass over to Aiden, somehow looking past me despite Aiden being on the other side of me. His face transforms from bored to cocky in an instant.

“Plenty,” Alessandro says simply.

I feel Aiden’s hand ball into a fist on my lap and I cover it with my own, doing my best to loosen his fingers, but it is no use. Aiden opens his mouth to respond but doesn’t get the chance.

“Enough,” Uncle Gio snaps sharply.

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