Page 65 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

“I never said no because I never wanted to.”

I huff out a sigh and push my hair back where it’s starting to droop in my eyes.

“You always were like a rabbit.”

She laughs in surprise. That familiar sound, rich and offended.

“Excuse me? You always made the first move. Always.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s absolutely true!”

“Not how I remember it.”

Her foot bumps my leg under the bed, the weight on the mattress shifting. She looms in closer, hovers almost over me, light dancing her eyes.

“You have averyselective memory, Ren Caruso.”

Her sickle-shaped smile curves so pretty and sharp, you could cut yourself on it.

“My memory is perfect.”

I swap our positions. Flip her under me suddenly, pinning her down again with the breath knocked out of her lungs.

“You always had me just like this,” I tease. “I was lucky if I could get out of bed when we were together. And then, you’d…”

I lean in and kiss her. I taste her mouth in the aftermath, with all the heat and passion and pain finally in the background. I kiss her slowly. Simple and unhurried, and I like it. The way I startedto like the pain medication after a while. When it wasn’t just for taking the edge off anymore.

We kiss, drawing it out, knowing that it leads to nothing.

Salt stings against my tongue. I pull back and find Nadia’s cheeks wet, big silent tears streaming down her face. Guilt dries up my mouth. I pull away from her, realizing I’ve gone too far.

“Stop it,” I order her, wiping the tears away with my thumbs.

“Sorry,” she croaks. “You can keep going—”

As if I would when the act of kissing her makes her break down in tears. I can fuck Nadia good enough that it’s just sex, and it feels good. Pleasure for pleasure’s sake. She might not mind that. But kissing her like that—I should have known it would be a step too far. There’s a reason even prostitutes have a rule against it, and it’s not just the threat of bad breath.

“Ren,” she begs again, when I don’t come back. I shrug out of her grip.

“No. We should stop. Before it turns into a disaster.”

Nadia flops back into the pillow bitterly and stares at the ceiling. She laughs again, and this time, it isn’t that warm sound I miss so much.

“What’s one more disaster between enemies, Ren?” she asks.

I smile back at her, the two of us sharing a bittersweet look.

“It all went pretty wrong tonight, didn’t it?”

“Elijah has been dealing with me longer than you have, Nadia. He understands. He won’t take it personally. You’ll see. Tomorrow, it’ll be like it never happened.”

“I’m not talking about Elijah.”

“Mori?” I ask.

“The whole dinner. It was so important and I…I couldn’t hold it together for an hour and a half without something—everything—going wrong. Harper wasn’t raised like you and I were. The most formal dinner she’s ever been to was some five-year-old’s birthday party. Then you seemed distracted the whole time. I’m sure that’s not how you wanted it to go…”

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