Page 85 of Mafia And Taken

I was beginning to question my resistance to him and beginning to let myself go to him.

I was past being angry about the implant. I’d always wanted babies, and although I hated his actions regarding the implant, I got the feeling that it was going to be long battle to make him change his ways. He was a Made Man, and he was used to controlling people and have them do exactly as he ordered.

I wasn’t going to be a pushover, though. If things were going to work between us, and if we were going to raise children together, then this had to be an equal partnership where he respected me and my opinions.

That morning, we went for our usual run, and it was easy to talk to him as I felt relaxed in his company after all the time we’d spent together recently. My feelings toward him were definitely softening.

After lunch, I was in the kitchen getting a coffee and thinking about all this when Camillo walked in.

He looked at me and blurted out, “Can you cook?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you able to cook dinner and stuff like that?”

“Is this your chauvinistic way of telling me that now I’m Alessio’s wife, I should be cooking dinner every night?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that Marco and Alessio normally do all the cooking for the family. But since we’ve been here, they’ve been busy with sorting out this whole mess with the drugs and FBI. And I can’t cook. Which means that Juliana always ends up offering to make dinner and we have to eat total shit every night.Andpretend to enjoy it so as not to offend her or Marco. I’m just wondering whether you can cook, and then maybe you could take over some of the cooking and we could all not get killed by food poisoning.”

I wasn’t about to say it out loud, but I knew what he meant about Juliana’s cooking. It was pretty awful.

“I haven’t really cooked much in the past. My grandmother always insisted on doing all the cooking. But like a good Italian Nonna, she made sure that she taught me how to cook a few things. She was worried that I wouldn’t catch a good husband if I didn’t know how to cook.”

Camillo chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds like an Italian grandmother—spending all her time preoccupied with either food or how to marry off her grandchildren.”

I grinned, and I thought that this was probably the first real conversation I’d had with him. “I guess I could try to cook some of the things my grandmother showed me, although I don’t know how well it would turn out,” I said slowly.

“I can help you,” said Camillo eagerly, “but you’ll need to tell me what to do.”

“And Juliana can help as well,” I added.

“No way. Don’t let her near the kitchen again.”

“I don’t want to offend her—the kitchen is her territory.”

I knew that Camillo wasn’t exactly full of tact, so I’d have to be careful about what we said in front of her when we offered to make dinner.

I thought about what I could cook. “How about we make something simple tonight, like pasta and meatballs?”

“That sounds great. I love meatballs—well, I did until Juliana started cooking them.”

I looked in the fridge. “We’ll need to get some groceries. I think one of the problems is that Juliana never has all the right ingredients and just throws together whatever is in the fridge.”

“I can take you to the store and help you carry the bags and stuff.”

“Won’t your boss be displeased if you let me out of his prison?”

“Alessio won’t mind if you’re with me. As long as he knows you’re safe, then he’ll be happy,” replied Camillo, ignoring my sarcasm.

I felt myself perking up at the thought of leaving the villa for a while. It was overwhelming being around everyone all the time and having Alessio always watching me so closely. I couldn’t think straight when he was around me and I knew that despite my efforts to the contrary, I was starting to lose part of myself to him.

Later that day Camillo drove me to the grocery store which was located in a busy shopping area.

We bought all the ingredients we needed—some minced meat, herbs, fresh tomatoes, onions, pasta, and a few other things. When we were paying, I realized I had forgotten garlic. “We need garlic as well—I’ll just go grab some while you pay.”

As I returned to the fresh produce area without Camillo, I noticed there was a fire exit door propped open to catch a breeze. As it was a fire exit, the door could be opened from the inside without a key. And it probably wasn’t alarmed, or the alarm would be sounding now.

This was exactly the sort of escape route I’d been hoping for since Alessio had brought me to Italy.

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