Page 48 of Savage Vow (Mafia Marriages 3)

“Do you like pancakes?” I ask Ashton.

Karina lifts him to sit on the stool at the counter, and she hovers behind him.

I can’t tell if she’s a helicopter parent or just keeping him close because she doesn’t trust me. Not that I blame her.

It’s not like we know each other. We’re strangers, except that we had sex.

Once.

And everything I do to try to put her out of my mind, I find it damn near impossible. The woman practically glows, especially around Ashton.

Is that what real love is like?

“Can I have French Toast?” he quips.

I already have the mixing bowl out and started with the ingredients to make pancakes.

“Ashton,” Karina scolds him. “You like pancakes.”

“I like pancakes the way you make them,” he says. “But Ivy made mushy pancakes for breakfast yesterday, and she made me eat them.”

Ashton scrunches his nose in disgust. “Those aren’t the box kind.”

“No, they’re not. I promise mine aren’t mushy,” I say. I’m a connoisseur around the kitchen.

“Fine,” Ashton says.

The kid probably won’t even try my pancakes, and hell, if they don’t turn out perfectly, I’ll never get in this kid’s good graces.

Why do I even try?

I grab the mixing bowl and head to the trash can, hitting the foot pedal and opening the lid. I dump the half-mixed contents into the garbage.

“What are you doing?” Karina asks.

“Making the kid French Toast.” I drop the contents of the dirty bowls into the sink and grab a loaf of bread from the bread box.

Karina glances from Ashton to me before opening the fridge and retrieving the carton of eggs.

“It’s fine.” I grab the cinnamon and sugar mixture from the pantry and butter from the fridge and start preparing the ingredients into a fresh bowl.

Karina comes up beside me, standing next to me as I prepare the mixture. “Thank you,” she whispers.

“Don’t mention it.”

I’m not trying to be grumpy. It’s not like I’m around kids, ever. My younger brother, Giovan, isn’t married and doesn’t have a family. Even Nico who got married six years ago, still doesn’t have kids.

It’s not like being in the mafia is conducive to raising a kid and having a family.

We make a lot of enemies, and I don’t want my family to find their life put on the line. It’s why I swore that I’d never marry.

Of course, I didn’t expect to find myself ordered to killhereither.

Maybe I should have gone through with it.

But the truth is, she stirred a raw, primal feeling inside of me.

I’ve slept with dozens of women, but she’s the only one that I wanted to see again, probably because I didn’t have her phone number or know where she lived.

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