Page 28 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

She shakes her head, refusing to believe me, her baby teeth grin bright and infectious.

“Uh-uh. You can’t be a bad guy or Applesauce would beat you up.”

“Applesauce has already beaten me up a few times this morning,” I remind her, and she immediately jumps off the couch again and goes running around the office, giggling and yelling something about how Applesauce isalsoa superherowho can fly and beat up bad guys, her feet pounding on the floor, her voice pitched and breathy as she shows me.

Olivia chooses this moment to come angrily sweeping in with a tray, eyebrows furrowed in bewildered outrage at the chaos. Her question is half out of her lips at the same moment Harper zips across the doorway and gets tangled up under her feet. Olivia stumbles, spilling the contents of the tray everywhere across the carpet in a shattering crash.

“What the hell?” she snaps.

Food and drink go flying. Broken glass glistens under the light.

Harper stands frozen, wide-eyed under her.

“Why are you in here?” Olivia demands, reaching down to take Harper by the wrist.

“Don’t touch that girl.”

My voice snaps and freezes her in place. She has one hand around Harper’s arm, staring at me like I’ve gone mad.

“Mr. Caruso, if she’s bothering you, you should let me—”

“You’rebothering me,” I say. “Get out of my office and don’t make the mistake of touching her again.”

Olivia makes a motion to the coffee seeping into the carpet, “Well, do you want me to at least—”

“I said out!” I bellow, getting to my feet.

Olivia goes without another word, sweeping out and leaving a tense silence behind.

Harper stands frozen, staring at the stain seeping toward her feet, the giraffe clutched to her chest. She’s on the verge of tears. “I didn’t mean to—”

“She wasn’t looking where she was going.”

Harper moves to try and pick some of the mess up, but I sweep her up onto the couch, away from the shards of glass.

“Sit,” I order her, and this time, my tone makes her curl her stuffie to her chest and stay put.

Footsteps come bounding up the stairs two at a time and Nadia appears in the doorway.

“What happened? I thought she was in her bedroom—”

“Olivia’s clumsy and needs to watch where she’s going.”

Harper’s guilty silence doesn’t back up my story, but it doesn’t matter. If I say something happened a certain way, then that’s how it happened. In this house, I decide what is and what isn’t.

Nadia drops down across from me, helping pile pieces of glass and scattered food onto the tray. Our hands brush and we both pretend they didn’t.

“How long has she been up here?”

“As long as I have.”

Nadia shakes her head with a wince. “She left the TV on, so I thought—I mean, she’salwaysglued to the TV when I let her, so I didn’t think she’d go anywhere. She’s never had anywhere to wander off to before.”

“She didn’t do anything.”

Nadia must have heard something because I can see that she doesn’t believe me. But she doesn’t press it.

“Really, she should be in school,” she sighs, “Unless she isn’t going to school anymore.” She searches my face, as if that’s somehow my concern.

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