Page 36 of Texas-Sized Scandal

It was odd to her because Slade wasn’t normally a nervous, fidgety person, but this story wasn’t something easy for him to tell and it was over twenty years old.

“That makes sense. No matter how my parents fought, I am very glad that I got to know them both and that they were together for us,” Melinda said. And she was. She wanted that for her child. She knew in her heart that she and Slade were very different people, but she also firmly believed that children needed to know both of their parents to be successful in life.

“Are you?” he asked gently, but the more she pushed him on this, the more defensive he felt. “I think that might be because you had them both. But if your father was like mine, you might not feel the same way.”

“What are you trying to say?” she asked. “You know you’re not anything like your own father.”

“Am I?” he asked.

“Unless you’ve been lying to me and deceiving me since we started dating. Have you?”

He cursed and stood up, walking away from the bed and over to the glass doors that overlooked her balcony and then the city. She wondered what he saw. What was he trying not to tell her?

She got out of bed and put on her floral-print robe, belting it at the waist. Pixie trotted over to her and Melinda bent down to pet her and gave her a cuddle before walking over to where Slade stood. She put her hand on his back and leaned around, looking up at his face.

She remembered when they’d made love in her condo at the glass door. So much of her life was tied to his now. She knew she’d have a hard time separating from him when he walked away. But she also had no regrets. She might be confused about single parenthood and how her life was going to shake out, but she was also excited about entering this new phase of her life.

One she would never have had if not for Slade.

“Okay, so you’re a teenager and rebellious and...you go see your dad?”

“Yeah,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder and hugging her to him. She wrapped her arm around his waist and put her other hand on his chest.

This confession haunted him probably the same way that the time she’d run away when she’d been in fifth grade had dogged her for a long time. She’d gone to keep her friend from being alone, but the repercussions had been a deterioration in her relationship with her mom, who thought she’d left because of the fighting at home.

“It’s okay. Whatever you did,” she said.

“It’s not,” he said. “I started sneaking out to see him and he’s a really funny guy, smart and charming. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why my grandparents hated him or even why my mom left him. After about six weeks, he asked me if I wanted to go to work with him. See what my Bartelli family was like.”

She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She should stop him from telling her anything more, but at the same time she wanted to know exactly what had happened. She needed to see the entire picture, so she knew what she was fighting.

“I bet you were curious. You’d never met them, had you?”

“Not since Mom and I had left,” he said. “I went with him and met my uncles and the rest of my goombahs.”

“What’s agoombah?” she asked.

“Well, in the Conti family, it means friends who are close like family. But for the Bartellis... Well, it’s more like anyone associated with their crime family. This thing I’m about to tell you, Melinda...I’ve never told anyone.”

She nodded. “Your secret is safe with me.”

And it was. She loved this man and would do whatever she had to protect him.

“Some of my uncles were like my dad. Funny, charming. But some of the others wanted me to prove myself. They thought I had no place in the Bartelli family. And my goombahs were even more adamant. So, Dad pulled me aside and said if I went on a job, proved myself, they’d leave me be and that would be the end of it.”

“What kind of job?” she asked.

“I had no idea. I had been to work with Nonno and though I knew the rumors about the mob stuff, I still didn’t really get what that meant. I mean, I had a vague idea from watchingThe GodfatherandGoodfellasas a point of reference but that wasn’t Houston. Wasn’t my Italian American family, you know? God, saying this out loud makes me realize how naive I was.”

She hugged him. “You don’t have to say anything else.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes. You’re nothing like your father,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me about him and how it affected you for me to see that.”

She watched his face and noticed the ways his eyes flickered away from her, as if he didn’t want her to see the truth.

“Right?” she asked him.

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