Page 38 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

When orange light finally breaks across the sky, Nico and I stand finished, gasping against each other’s bodies and holding each other up. My feet tingle, my knees wobbling. When it’s clear my legs aren’t going to hold me much longer, Nico gathers his strength first and puts me on the bed.

He doesn’t come to cuddle this time. He sits down on the end of the bed and gives me space. I feel his absence as sharply as I usually feel his presence.

“Don’t marry him,” Nico says in the sudden, cold silence between us. With sunlight creeping across the floor, the mood has shifted. He sits on the edge of the bed, staring out at the city. “I don’t care what the fuck they promised you. Don’t marry him.It’s not worth it. Tell me what you want. Whatever it is they said you’d get. I’ll make it happen.”

I can’t say it. It feels silly now, like I’m a kid asking to sit with the adults at the dinner table.

“My time’s up,” I say softly. “I don’t have to answer you.”

He glances over at me. If I squint, I can almost see a shadow of disappointment on his face. It makes me feel guilty enough to confess.

“I wanted a job,” I finally say. “Something within the family. Something real.”

“Like what?”

I shrug pathetically.

“That’swhy you’re getting married?” he asks. “So that Sal and Marcel can boss you around worse than they already do now? So they can make up some fake little role to fill your time and keep you complacent, just like they’re trying to do with me?”

“I’m getting married becauseyoudecided to threaten my brother, thank you very much. Now I just happen to benefit from it. At least I’d have a purpose,” I shoot back, temper spiking, as he pretends to understand anything about my choices.

“Yourpurposeis going to be pushing out that bastard’s babies,” Nico says lowly.

“And what should I do with my life instead, Nico? Push out yours?” I ask, finding just enough strength to get in his face.

“Back up,” he warns me darkly, “before I violate my own fucking agreement.”

I didn’t expect that to set him off so much.

I didn’t expect it to setmeoff that much, either, as my body revolts when he stands suddenly and disappears into the bathroom instead of taking me by the hair and making me apologize with his cock. I hear the shower start.

It finally sinks in that I’m free to go. My time is up. I have every right to walk out of here now and go home. I don’t. I glare at the bathroom door, my head spinning.

Is that what he really wants? Did I accidentally speak the truth?

Even exhausted and raw, my belly tries to feel something over that, clenching hard with the insistence I could gojust one more time. Just for him. I glare at the closed shower door, ignoring the second wave of heat burning through my belly for him.

All at once, I realize Nico did everything he promised he was going to do to me.

Every last thing, until I am so twisted up inside, it hurts to feel.

I don’t remember falling asleep, or Nico joining me, but I wake up just long enough to hear him on the phone with the front desk, telling them to fuck off and charge him for a second day. If anyone had any objections about that, it’s cut off by Nico slamming the phone down.

I sleep like the dead.

It’s well into the day when I finally wake up and take in the disaster, like the sun rising over a storm-ravaged town. My body is stiff, my dress in tatters on the hotel floor. I limp through the hotel room in a haze. I wander through every room, dazed and looking for Nico. He’s gone.

I get my phone, where I have a single text waiting from him:

Stay.

Being commanded like a dog really shouldn’t make me smile.

I wonder at the odds of Nico just leaving me here to find my own way home with nothing but a hotel bathrobe.

Feeling bold, I flip to the camera on my phone. The marks Nico left on me have darkened overnight, turned an array of dark, shimmering colors, like oil in the sunlight. I open up the front of the robe, angling the camera as I snap a picture of my naked body. My thumb hovers, but finally, I send it to him and immediately toss the phone away from me.

He’s back in fifteen minutes, a little out of breath. He’s seemingly recovered, all that strong physique not just for show, while I’m still working on not whimpering when I walk. Annoying.

---