Page 70 of Wicked Rivals

When I got there, I stopped short in the doorway and stared, watching Val hand an espresso to Benedetta.

Benedetta glanced at the child, at my child. A sad smile hit her face, like she knew she was missing a vital part of herself but couldn't hold a grudge against another woman who had it.

Her expression and body language revealed no anger at all.

Val rolled out more dough, and just like in my memory, she had powdered sugar on her cheek. She handed the little balls of orange-and-spice goodness to Enzo.

He tossed them into the sugar, then placed them in neat rows on the baking pan.

What other skills did he have? What other bonding moments between mother and son had I missed observing all those years?

If she had told me about him, would Enzo and I have bonded in our own way? Would my son and I have done special things together too?

We might have gone to the shooting range for target practice. I might have taken him to his first football game, or maybe boxing lessons.

Heat rushed through me, burning up my chest, my neck, my fucking face.

Val had stolen that from me.

Seeing her and the boy doing something together as simple as baking made the whole thing look so normal. Not the normal I knew… the normal my younger self had wished for.

Watching them brought back the painful loss of the future I had planned out as a younger man. The dream I’d given up and locked away inside me.

Now it all flooded back to the surface.

Val had kept more from me than my son. She’d taken the life I wanted with her, the late-night candlelit dinners, the arguments that ended in passionate sex, and even the lazy Sunday mornings in bed.

It wasn’t just about the sex but everything that came with it.

The dates, the intimacy, and the companionship. Having someone there to listen after a rough day, to speak up when things had gone too far, to encourage me to push harder and strive for more, to find a better way.

I’d had none of it.

We could have had that.

Benedetta clacked her cup down on the saucer to get my attention. She’d been watching me watch them.

I jerked my gaze away from Val and my son.

“We need to talk,” Benedetta said, void of emotion.

Then she got up and came toward me, everything about her as unreadable as glass.

We didn’t know each other very well, so there wasn’t much to compare to her stony behavior. I didn’t know if seeing Enzo made her rethink not having my children, or if she was just pissed because I had Val staying in my house.

“In private,” she added.

I searched her face, looking for a clue about what was going through her head and what I should expect.

She gave me nothing.

“Let's go up to my study,” I said.

I led the way to what I fully expected to be an unpleasant conversation. We were supposed to be married in less than a day, but if I didn’t have a handle on who was after my son before then, I couldn’t risk it.

A sharp pain hit me in the gut, and I gritted my teeth.

The mere thought of caving to blackmail made me want to destroy everything and everyone. Once I got my hands on the son of a bitch, I could purge some of that rage.

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