Page 65 of Bossy Ex's Brother

He leaned back, watching me as one hand went to my stomach. “Nuestra bambino,” he whispered, and the softness went straight to my heart. Oh, God, my damn hormones were going to make me cry all over the place.

“Can we try this?” he asked. “I want to date you. I want to give you the world and take care of you. I want to be your man, and you’ll be my woman. I’m probably butchering all this up because my brain seems to have short-circuited ever since you walked into my club. But do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded as a single teardrop rolled down my cheek.

“So,” he murmured as he wiped it off with his thumb. He smiled weakly. “What do you say?”

I didn’t know. My mind was a mess. There was still so much I didn’t know about Luca, but what I did know was that he’d shown me a surprising lot in the past few months. Sure, he was annoying sometimes and crude, but he was also gentle, caring, and loving. A protector. He took care of his employees, loaning them money whenever they needed it. He’d also taken care of me when I was sick and defended me when I needed it.

Plus, he set my blood on fire with a single look.

So what reason did I have for not dating him? Because I was scared to end up like my mom.

But I wasn’t my mother. This situation proved it. No matter what happened with Luca, I would always be in my child’s life and take care of him or her, not run away with the next man. I was different.

Plus, didn’t I at least owe it to my child to attempt to give them a two-parent home?

But falling in love with Luca would be dangerous. So so dangerous.

Yet I nodded. “Yes. Let’s give it a try.”

I heardthem talking even before I got to the kitchen. Luca had been coming over pretty much every day lately and getting closer to my family. Emmett loved him because Luca had gotten him a whole bunch of games from the store and gotten Angel some middle-grade books, too, much to her excitement. I felt guilty because I was supposed to get them for her weeks ago, and it slipped my mind, so Luca said it was a gift from both of us. He even got Bethany a nice designer bag and Felix a new cell phone.

I accused Luca of trying to buy my siblings’ affection, and he shamelessly admitted he did.

“Yeah,” he said. “And it’s working, isn’t it?”

It was. Even Felix was warming up to him despite initially claiming he didn’t want the present.

But all that still didn’t prepare me for walking up to the kitchen to hear him and Bethany talking about…boy problems?

“So, he was just being really annoying,” Bethany was saying. “And paying attention to this other girl, which I think he did just to get me mad. And whatever, it wasn’t like she was that pretty anyway. When I told him that I needed to go home, he got mad. I told him since he was talking to another girl, why don’t I leave? And then he apologized and begged me and told me that I’m the only one he loves. Right in front of her!” Beth gave an exasperated huff. “So now I dunno. I don’t get boys. Like,obviously, I know he likes me, but why did he have to make me guess and play these stupid games?”

“Easy. Because you’re for his ego, not his heart.”

“What does that mean?”

Luca sighed. “There are two ways a man can like a woman. Either with his ego or with his heart. If he values you with his ego, he’s more interested in showing you off and seeing how other people respond to you. He’ll want to get you jealous all the time to establish superiority, and he will try to have you second-guess yourself so you’re easier to manipulate. And so when you’re all about him, his ego is riding high because he thinks, ‘I can do whatever shit I want to this girl, and she keeps coming back.’ He doesn’t care about her as a human being, only as an extension of himself.”

There was the sound of metal being dropped in the sink, and I assumed he was doing dishes. “But when a man loves a woman with his heart, he goes all in and loves her. He’s terrified because he knows she can leave him, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if she does. He acknowledges that she’s a person who has her own free will. Still, he wants to hide her from the world, so they don’t see his gem. He doesn’t even want other men to see her, but at the same time, he wants to show her off. So it’s a little more complicated.

Bethany was quiet for a little while. “Have you ever loved a girl with your ego?”

“Of course,” he says. “Plenty. I didn’t handle it like that douchebag boyfriend of yours, but I can’t say I didn’t play my fair share of games. When I was younger, I would sometimes get a girl just out of boredom or loneliness or to prove I could. All those are for the ego.”

“What about loving someone with your heart?”

“Yes,” he says after a moment of charged silence.

“And that’s my sister?” Bethany continued.

Oh God, I can’t hear the answer to this. I have to leave. I’m not ready for him to answer either way.

But just as I was about to leave, I thought I heard something there, soft and steady through the wind. Something that sounded suspiciously like a yes.

TWENTY-SIX

LUCA

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