Page 21 of Texas-Sized Scandal

“Sarcasm really doesn’t suit you,” he said gently. “I’ve apologized.”

“I know. I’m hurt... Look, maybe we shouldn’t do this tonight,” she said.

“I think we have to. Let’s get it settled so that tomorrow we can start fresh.”

She put her arms around her waist and shifted deeper into the chair. “Okay. Go on.”

“So Nonna was satisfied and tonight when we told her about the engagement, she was over the moon, but our agreement hasn’t changed,” he said.

“Why not?”

He took a deep breath. This was harder than he thought it would be.

“Do you mind if I get a drink? This isn’t going to be easy to talk about.”

“Sure... Go ahead and help yourself.”

He came back and instead of sitting down near her, he stood next to her chair facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked downtown Houston. She loved the view normally. Liked looking down at the city she loved and seeing it from up here. But as she glanced over at Slade, she didn’t feel the same kind of peace or satisfaction she normally felt.

She was still mad, so she was trying not to let herself empathize with him. He’d indicated whatever else he had to tell was going to be difficult to hear.

She shook her head.

She had known a tight ass and a pair of bedroom eyes would be her downfall, but she’d never realized how far she had to fall. But he was more than a hot bod to burn up the sheets with. She liked the way he listened to her when she talked about her projects and how he’d sometimes text her during the day when he saw something that he thought she’d like.

Last week, it had been a brown-eyed Susan flower that had somehow grown up between the cracked sidewalk outside one of the Conti warehouses. Those gestures made it very difficult for her to see him as someone with a dark past.

She heard the rattle of the ice in his lowball glass as he took a sip of the whiskey he’d poured for himself. He wasn’t a sophisticated drinker and even though her bar was fully stocked, he always went for Johnnie Walker.

“Okay. Say what you have to say,” she said. A part of her wanted him out of the condo, so she could regroup and figure out what was next. Angela was used to dealing with scandal and a fiancé their father didn’t like. Maybe she could help Melinda figure this out. But Ryder loved Angela... That was one thing Melinda couldn’t say about Slade.

She couldn’t just walk away from him, because the party tonight had been full of Houston society elite. Everyone had seen them together as a couple, which was what they’d wanted until she found out...what? That he’d used her? Well, get in line, right? Her dad had been doing it for years if rumors were to be believed. Using her good work to cover his own shady dealings.

She’d about had it with the men in her life.

“Um, it’s not... That is to say—”

“Stop. Just say it. Does it have to do with your father? I know you’re associated with the Bartelli... What do they call it? Syndicate? Mob? Gang?”

“He calls it the family,” Slade said.

“The family,” she repeated. That had to make it harder for Slade to walk away from. She glanced over at him, standing so alone and stiff and staring out the window.

Despite her anger, she did feel the stirring of sympathy for him. He had grown up in such an odd world. High-society half the time, street-level crime the other.

“Yeah, this might seem like more than you want to know, but I feel like you will just think I’m the biggest douchebag in the world unless you know the whole thing,” he said on a heavy sigh as he moved over to the couch and sat down facing toward her.

He had his legs spread and put his forearms on both of his legs. He had left his tie and jacket on, so he still looked like the cover of aGQmagazine, but in his eyes, she saw the steel that made Slade the man he was today.

“I’m listening.”

And she was. She’d heard the rumors about the Bartelli family, and she knew that despite the fact that everyone said “alleged,” they were not a family to be crossed.

“My mom was a bit of a rebel to hear Nonna tell it and her father was very strict. So when Carlo Bartelli flirted with her, she went after him with everything she had. I guess he was dangerous, and she liked that for a while, but her goal had been to piss the old man off. So once her dad was paying attention again, she went back to her regular life and then found out she was pregnant with me.”

Melinda had never in her life sympathized with another person as much as she did with Slade’s mom in that moment. Though she’d been older and more mature and should have known better, she totally understood what it was like to fall under the spell of a Bartelli.

“But her old man wasn’t about to let her have a kid without being married and I think that Nonno honestly thought that he’d be able to bring Carlo around to his way of thinking. Make him legit and part of the Conti family,” Slade said.

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