Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“Giovanni,” he greets, his voice smooth like a Disaronno Originale sliding down the throat after a hard day. “And Valentina.” His focus shifts to Valentina, where he eyes her with a probing but not unkind glance. “Finally.”
I bark out a laugh. “Finally? It’s barely been a week, Papa.”
He smiles sardonically before gesturing to the chairs opposite his desk. “Sit.” His smile is more welcoming when he directs it to Valentina than the one he gave me. “Both of you.”
When we do, the leather sighs under our weight. I brace myself for the inevitable questions about loyalty and legacy that our family meetings forever inspire, but instead, he leans back in his chair, steeples his fingers, then says something that knocks the breath from my lungs.
“Have you picked a date yet?”
Valentina chokes on the spit of her ragged gasp, and I feel the ripple of her strain.
My response isn’t far from hers. I’m obsessed with Valentina. Wholly and without constraint. But marriage? That’s a huge commitment.
You wouldn’t believe a word I spoke if you could see my smirk.
I won’t oppose my father’s ruling if it further cements Valentina’s placement in my life. If I weren’t obsessed with ensuring every inch of her—both inside and out—smells like me, that would have been the outcome of her confession last week.
I see fear in Valentina’s eyes, and her panic about the speed of our relationship, so I reach for her hand under the table and give it a gentle squeeze.
“Relax.” My suggestion is unusually soothing. “He’s not talking about marriage.” The thudding of the veins in her neck fades… until I add, “Yet.”
Cockiness thickens my cock when she doesn’t object to my plan. She merely blinks before a ghostlike grin twitches across her mouth.
Good. Because I won’t accept anything other than yes when I ask her to be my wife.
I gesture with my head toward my father, who’s watching us like a hawk. “He wants your mother to come to dinner. He asked me to invite her last week, but with everything that happened, I’ve not had the chance.”
Relief floods Valentina’s gorgeous face as her lips part. “Dinner? That’s what all this is about?” She highlights my father’s makeshift office with her hand. When he nods, she sighs so loudly her chest sinks. Clearly, she thought it was something much worse. That’s understandable. They don’t call my father the king of the Cosa Nostra for no reason.
I’m glad our competitors can’t see him now. They’d kill for a chink in the Caruso dynasty, and his frail frame would give them that.
“We should do it soon,” my father says, drawing my focus back to him. “It’s Concetta’s birthday next week, so it’s perfect timing.”
Still stunned, Valentina misses his confession that he knows her mother intimately enough to remember her birthday. “Yes, it is. Perfect timing.”
“Invite your aunt too,” Papa demands, his tone casual but firm in a way he can’t help. He is who I inherited my bossiness from. “I assume she’s still in the area?”
Valentina nods as a shocked mask slips over her face. “She is. She’s never left Sicily.”
“Good.” My father’s smile is warm in a way I haven’t seen in years. “Let’s have a celebration. You can pick the day while visiting your mother this morning. I’ll handle everything else.”
“Do you think you’re up for that?” I ask, jumping back into the conversation.
When he nods without pause for thought, I stare at him, floored. This isn’t the man I expected when he summoned me to his side. He doesn’t seem as sick as he once was, not in spirit, anyway, but he was on his deathbed only days ago.
What prompted such a drastic backflip in his prognosis? It could be the surge the doctor warned me about last week, but it seems like more than that.
He looks alive.
I scan the documents he was perusing when we arrived, and that’s when I see it. A pregnancy test sits on the edge of his desk. Although a stack of papers partially hides it, I know what it is. It’s the same brand as the test Valentina showed me last week. The exact brand I’ve been seeking for the past seven days.
I rearranged my entire fucking room searching for the proof I wasn’t dreaming when Valentina told me she was pregnant, and I never found it.
Now I know why.
My jaw tics as frustration sparks an inferno low in my gut. Valeria must have taken it when my back was turned and showed it to my father. I bet she didn’t tell him the possibility of the child being hers is nothing to be excited about.
Valentina is carrying our child, not Valeria’s. Ours. Deep down in a place where science can’t touch, I know this. An IVF mishap didn’t give me a child with Valeria. It gave me Valentina.