Page 23 of Mafia Shade's Reluctant Bride
CHAPTER FIVE
LORENZO
Maria stood before me, and suddenly, everything made sense. The boy—Matteo—looked about five. Five years since she left me at the altar. Five years of silence. Five years of trying to erase her from my system like a poison I couldn’t quite expel. And now, here she was, standing in front of me with a child—a child that meant she had another man in her life.
Or maybe not. Maybe she had someone else. Maybe she ran straight into another man’s bed after she fled. I clenched my jaw, pushing the thought aside. It didn’t matter. She had made it clear when she told Luca that she didn’t know the father. It was a fling, then. Just some meaningless encounter that had left her with a child. So why did that thought sting like an open wound?
I shouldn’t care. I wouldn’t care. This was business. I was doing this for my mum, who, by what the doctors consider to be a miracle, was still alive after battling cancer for five years. She is the one who wants me to get married—not because I care.
Then why the hell couldn’t I stop staring at her?
Her hair was longer now, with waves past her shoulders, and her body had filled out in ways that made my hands twitch at my sides. She glowed in a way that wasn’t just beauty—it was resilience and strength. And I dislike that I noticed it immediately when she stepped into the house. I hated that, even now, after all this time, she still had the power to make my blood run hot and my thoughts go dark with want. She takes my breath away.
Matteo. The name hit me in the chest. Maria’s father’s name. Her son had her father’s name. He was named after the man who had hated Shade even till his last breath.
The boy stared up at me with wide, unguarded eyes—curious and hesitant. I knew I had no right to feel this strange pull toward him, but I did.
Something in my throat tightened. I could feel Maria’s eyes on me.
Matteo grinned, and my stomach dropped because it was my grin—the same damn smirk I had seen in the mirror a thousand times.
But I swallowed the thought before it could fully form because it wasn’t possible.
Five years ago, the only woman I had been with was Rose.
The memory hit me in flashes: dark red lipstick smudged on the rim of a whiskey glass, her nails dragging down my arm as she pulled me closer, the scent of expensive perfume—too sweet, too strong, clinging to my clothes long after she was gone.
Rose.
So no.
Matteo couldn’t be mine even if that damn smirk clawed.
I clenched my jaw, forcing my thoughts back into order and logic.
Anything else was impossible. He belonged to her.
Maria.
The name alone had haunted me for years. I had spent too many nights wondering where she had gone, if she was safe, and if she ever thought about me the way I thought about her.
She had cut me off completely. No calls. No message. Nothing. The only reason I even knew she was alive was Luca. He never said much, but every now and then, he’d let something slip—a mention of an email or a vague update. I lived off scraps of information, pretending I didn’t care when, in reality, it was the only thing that kept me sane.
And now, after all these years, she was here, back in my world, looking just as stubborn, just as frustratingly beautiful as the day she left.
She stopped exhaling like she had been hoping to avoid this conversation. Smart girl.
I nodded toward the backyard.
She hesitated. I could see the war in her eyes, the calculation. But then, she squared her shoulders and walked ahead, back straight, head high. Stubborn as ever.
Now that I was standing just a few feet from her, daring to take that leap and kiss her, just as I had done in my dreams, just as I had longed for, Luca interrupted.
Maria jerked back like I had burned her, her eyes darting to her brother, who informed us of her uncle requesting our presence.
I clenched my jaw, inhaling through my nose. Maria nodded quickly, brushing past me like the moment between us had never happened.
But it had.
