Page 30 of Faking It with my Bestie's Billionaire Brother

It was obvious that Mrs. Moretti was barely impressed. I saw quickly where Ava got her defiant streak from.

Seemingly oblivious to the niceties at play, Leo interjected, “Wait a minute, Ma, did you say Ava’s boyfriend?”

Mrs. Moretti looked at her son with fond exasperation. “Yes, Leonardo, catch up, please.”

Leo looked to his mom sharply. “But, Ma, he’s a little—”

She cut him off by saying, “Overdressed for the occasion, yes, but as I always tell my children, Mr. Ashbury, it’s better to arrive overdressed than underdressed. You hear that, Mikey?”

“You have literally never said that,” Mikey called back, and Mrs. Moretti looked ready to charge in there and box him around the ears. Instead, she looked at me with an exasperated smile. “You’ll have to excuse my sons, Mr. Ashbury—”

“Please, call me Spencer.”

“Spencer, then,” she continued. “As you can tell, they’re not accustomed to company and clearly do not know how to act.” She directed that last part at both Mikey and Leo through gritted teeth.

“In our defense,” Leo cut in, “it’s not like Ava has ever brought a guy home before, especially not Daddy Warbucks.”

“Leo Moretti,” Maria hissed.

“What? If he’s Penny’s brother, then that means he’s the CEO of Ashbury Corporation. Plus, you know, he’s kind of long in the tooth.”

“Leo,” both Ava and Maria hissed now.

Leo looked genuinely confused at their censure. “What? Is that some big secret?”

I caught Leo’s gaze. “Believe me, no one knows better than me just how old I am. Dating someone considerably younger doesn’t exactly help fooling me into believing that I’m still young. But Ava is worth any discomfort that might cause.”

Maria smiled, and I even saw a curious smile from Ava, but Mikey’s voice called from the living room, laughter evident in his voice, “Yeah, I’ll bet she is.”

“Hey,” Leo said, breaking away and storming into the living room, “is that any way to talk about our sister?” He propped his knee on the couch next to his brother and proceeded to pummel Mikey with a nearby throw pillow.

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Mrs. Moretti muttered before yelling out, “Boys! Don’t make me get your father’s cane.”

Ava snickered beside me as both men stopped instantly, though I caught Leo sneaking in one last smack upside the back of Mikey’s head that had me biting back a smile.

Mrs. Moretti looked at me apologetically. “Oh, look at us, standing here and entertaining this nonsense, and there’s the lasagna. I’ll take that. And what is this?” she asked, eyeing the bottle I held. She snatched up both easily, her eyes widening when she saw the label on the wine. “My, my, Leo wasn’t kidding about your job, was he? This thing is older than me,” she said in clear admiration.

A rush of warmth went through me when Ava squeezed my arm and said, “Spencer is very cultured. He knows all about those aged wines.”

Mrs. Moretti nodded approvingly, then gathered up the things and said, “Okay, Ava, come help me get everything finished up. Boys!” she hollered towards Leo and Mikey, who were still furtively picking at one another. “Make our guest comfortable, please.”

“Oh, um, Ma, I think Spencer would probably be more comfortable in the kitchen with us. In fact, he helped me prepare the lasagna last night,” Ava added, her voice going a little high at the end, and I couldn’t resist watching her face carefully, enjoying how it pinkened in embarrassment.

I grinned broadly. “Yes, ma’am, I like helping in any way I can,” I purred out, winking at Ava, whose pick cheeks went crimson. There was the stirring behind my fly again.

Do not get a boner in front of her mother.

But as Mrs. Moretti turned and led us toward the back of the house where the wonderful smells were coming from, my eyes fastened to the gentle sway of Ava’s hips beneath her dress, my fingers itching to reach out and grasp those hips and jerk her against me.

My head jerked up when Ava turned abruptly, shooting me a warning look and saying in a voice only loud enough for me to hear, “Now, listen here, Duke, I know you’re accustomed to being the one giving orders, but when you’re in Ma’s kitchen, you shut up, pay attention, and do what she says. You got me?”

I nodded obediently, still slightly stuck on her mentioning me giving orders. The sentence yanked my mind immediately to those images of her tied to the headboard with scarves or ties, at my mercy.

I shook myself free of the image as she raised a warning brow at me. I cleared my throat forcefully. “Got it.”

Upon entering the kitchen, I was immediately hit with the heat coming off the stove and the frantic energy of a young man who was maybe a couple of years older than Ava. “Ma, I don’t know what happened. It started bubbling, and now, there’s this weird smell—”

“Were you stirring continuously like I told you to, Tony?” Ma questioned, seeming to already know the answer.

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