Page 70 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

“Are you dating one of his dancers?” I ask.

“No,” he says instantly. Too fast. His knuckles on the wheel are white, his jaw tense. “Look, can we just pretend that this conversation never happened—”

“Sure, once we finish it. Who are we talking about?” I demand.

He grits his teeth like he has to chew the name down before he can speak it.

“Her name’s Cali.”

I would have started guessing random stripper names before I would have guessed Cali of all girls. Elijah has grown up, and he can fill out a suit and beard now, but he is permanently imprinted in my brain as a textbook “nice young man.” The way most teenagers are when you don’t really know them at all except in passing. I knew Elijah as a kid, and I barely have any idea who he is as a man.

“And you and her are…”

“I’m just a client,” he tells me sharply.

I glance out the window, checking my own face to make sure my expression is neutral and unassuming.

“…and what, you don’t want your favorite stripper out of a job? Or you want her to be something else?”

Elijah sighs.

“Nadia, I got in this car so I could talk to you aboutyourrelationship. The one that matters here. Whatever I have going on, that’s not important.”

“It is important. Because the way I see it, you could get a girl like Cali out of my uncle’s club in a second flat. So what’s stopping you?”

He stares ahead.

“I don’t know if I want to bring her into all this. Around Ren. Not until he’s…better. It’s one thing if he pulls a knife on me. It’s something else if…”

If he threatens someone Elijah actually cares about.

I sigh under my breath. “You know my pussy isn’t a therapist, Elijah.”

We almost swerve off the road. “Jesus Christ, Nadia—”

“I’m just saying! You’re asking an awful lot of the resident fuck toy.”

“That’s not what you are to him.”

“How would you know?”

“How do you not?” Elijah demands. “He went insane looking for you. I watched it happen.”

“Because of a vendetta, not because of feelings—”

“No,” he cuts me off, “My brother started losing it the night you blocked his number and wouldn’t talk to him daysbefore anything happened to our family. Sure, everything that happened after—that made it worse. Just…so much fucking worse. But you blocking him and cutting him off out of the blue? That’s what cracked the foundation. Everything after that was just the earthquake that brought it down.”

My stomach flips nervously.

That can’t be right.

Nadia’s a good time, but she’s not wife material.

Ren Caruso was not torn up over me. He wouldn’t be. I heard him say those words as clear as day. Hell, I heard him say themto Elijah.I can still picture them standing shoulder to shoulder, watching the gala. The way he almost laughed about it, like it was just a funny little anecdote about how he was going to break my heart. I have spent every day after hearing that, trying to prove that I am good enough. A good enough mother. A good enough friend. A good enough—

My brain skips over the word wife, refusing to acknowledge it. The fact that I still want to be that for him is pathetic.

“Whatever happens with Ren, that’s going to take time. I have to get my friend out of that strip clubtonight, Elijah. And you’re going to help me do it.”

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