Chapter Fifteen
“Can I ask you for a favor?”
I turn my attention from the screen to Francesca, situated between my legs as we watch TV. It’s nighttime and she’s curled up on the couch with me in a thin pair of leggings and one of my T-shirts; life is fucking good right now.
“Of course,” I tell her.
Now she twists around so she can look at me. “Do you have someone not connected to your family who could look into something for me? Kind of like a background check, I guess? I don’t want it on anyone’s radar. I was going to see if I could find a private investigator on my own, but to be honest, I don’t know who my brother works with, so I didn’t want to make a mistake. I don’t want him to know. Given you are part of his world, I figure you’re probably more knowledgeable about that stuff.”
Frowning, I ask, “What do you need a private investigator for?”
“You know my cousin, Vince?”
“Vaguely, yes.”
“Well, he’s been sort of seeing this girl, but he’s adamant about Mateo not finding out. On one hand, I get it, Alec feels the same way. But on the other hand, he’s a little more defensive about it than I think he should be, and Cherie brought her into the bakery today, so I have her name, I know what school she goes to. I’d just feel better if someone could check her out and make sure there’s nothing wrong with her. Because, you know, Mateo does usually find things out.”
“I can’t wait until he finds out about us and I can wear my new cuff links to family dinner.”
She elbows me in the ribs. “Not funny. He hates when people try to keep secrets from him. Even if he would’ve been amenable to me dating you, we’ve fucked it up by sneaking around.”
I shrug, since I don’t want to think about our situation. “Yeah, I know a guy who can look into that for you. Just get me her name and I’ll get him on it tomorrow.”
“Not connected to your family, though, right? I don’t want any trouble. Just in case I do get caught, I don’t want Mateo to lose his shit.”
“Not exactly. He’s not connected to my family, like la famiglia; he’s my half-sister’s boyfriend. He hates both my dad and your brother though, so he doesn’t get mixed up in anything that’s not above-board.”
Frowning slightly, she asks, “Why does he hate my brother?”
“Because he’s kind of a monster? Nothing personal, Ethan just doesn’t care for guys like us. He’s a fucking Boy Scout.”
Francesca smiles, rolling her eyes like I’m ridiculous. “Like you’re so bad.”
“Not with you. I’m not so nice when it comes to business.”
“Well, unless there’s a ‘take your secret girlfriend to work’ day no one’s told me about, I doubt I’ll ever see that side of you.”
“Nah. Ma’s been with my dad for nearly 40 years and still doesn’t know the details of his business. That’s just how it works. Better for you if we ever get busted, too.”
“Is that something you guys worry about? Mateo never seems to worry about getting caught, so sometimes I forget it’s something to consider.”
“Your brother has a different set-up and a hell of a lot more money at his disposal. He keeps pretty good separation between himself and the shit he’d do hard time for, plus he’s bought off a lot of the right people. We have cops on our payroll too, of course, but we don’t have a relationship with law enforcement like he has. Your brother’s a beast. The way he has it all stacked, Dante would go down a lot harder than he would.”
She nods, glancing back at the TV screen. “Yeah, Mateo gets shit done. He was so pissed at Joey for getting caught. I was kind of worried. Joey’s out now and everything seems to be okay. Mateo won’t let him come back home, though. He had to get his own apartment.”
“I don’t know how you all handle living together. I love my family, but I couldn’t live with all of ‘em.”
“We all have our own space. It’s more like being neighbors who get together for dinner every night than anything else. Mateo’s just so controlling. Plus, you know, he wouldn’t approve of our relationship, which makes him a major bummer.”
I can’t help grinning. “You should tell him that. ‘Mateo, you’re a huge bummer.’”
Laughing a little, she says, “He wouldn’t care.”
“Well, he should.”
“I wish I had power,” she tells me, suddenly spirited. “I’d make sure you never got caught.”
I smile at the idea of Francesca running this city from her bakery, sending her hit men home with cupcakes. “You’re too sweet to have power. In order to have power, you have to be willing to do the dirty work. No one just hands out power. You gotta fight for every bit of it.”
“Well, then I wish I had enough of my own money that you didn’t have to do that kind of stuff anymore. We could settle into a nice, peaceful life in the suburbs. Buy ourselves a nice SUV, have a couple kids. I could take up Pilates. You could bowl on the weekends.”
“Are we moving to Bedrock?”
“I’m just saying.”
I reach for her hand, twining my fingers together with hers. “It’s a nice thought, but even if you did have enough money to be my sugar mama, it doesn’t work like that. There’s no getting out for me. I know how set you were on falling for a commoner, but that’s not in the cards for me.”
“Well, now I’m not going to marry you,” she says, with mock-disdain.
I smirk. “You were gonna before I said that though, huh?”
“Obviously. You made me breakfast for dinner. It’s all changed now, though. Don’t even try to change my mind.”
“What if I get you the house in the suburbs, the SUV of your choosing, a couple of kids—eventually—and raise you a dog? I’m probably not going to go bowling, and I still have to be a bad guy at work, but just like any other job, once the workday is over, I can come home and be a normal guy with you.”
“Mm,” she murmurs, reaching forward to grab her wine glass from the coffee table, then settling back against me. “That sounds nice.”
It really does. I’ve never been much for the suburbs myself, but the peace radiating off Francesca at the mere thought of it grows the appeal real fast.
On the same track I’m quickly moving toward, Francesca says, “Let’s think up ways to make your dad like me. How can we make this happen?”
“Can you kill your brother?”
Laughing shortly, she says, “No.”
“Can you change your last name and find a time machine so you can travel back and erase all evidence of your relation to him?”
“That’s slightly beyond my abilities. What if he met me, not knowing who I am, and he really liked me? And then once he totally likes me and wants me as a daughter-in-law, then we drop my last name? But I can totally disapprove of whatever Mateo does that he doesn’t like, or just disapprove of Mateo outright? Then I’ll be an ally.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not? I’m sorry, but your dad doesn’t sound like the greatest person in the world either. Maybe he should get off his high horse about Mateo.”
“Respect for your parents is pretty big in my family,” I tell her, since that’s the easiest way. “As much as my father pisses me off, I’d never disrespect him the way Mateo has disrespected yours. The way my dad sees it, it’s the principle of the thing. Mateo could kiss my father’s ass—which, obviously he wouldn’t anyway—and my father would still hate him. What your brother has done is unforgivable to my dad, and it’s not a precedent he wants to see accepted.”
“But my family isn’t like yours. Why can’t he just see Mateo’s empire as something different?”
“He’s not going to change his thinking, Francesca.”
She shakes her head, clearly aggravated. “So even if Mateo would let us be a couple, we still couldn’t. Your father will never accept me?”
I can’t bring myself to verify that, so I just don’t say anything.
“That’s stupid,” she states. “That’s really fucking stupid. Mateo just took over for my dad when he got sick. No, he doesn’t respect our father, but why should he? My father is a monster. My family is still traditional, Mateo is just the patriarch. We all respect Mateo, whether we like him or not. Maybe your dad should start thinking of himself and Mateo as equals and forget my dad altogether.”
“I wish I could reframe it for him like that, but it won’t work. It’s generational at this point. How’s he gonna look at someone a couple years older than me as his equal? He’s not. It’s always gonna be your dad.”
“Did your dad even like my dad?”
“Nope.” That’s the fucking funniest part of this whole stupid situation. “He didn’t disapprove of his actions enough to cancel all this out, though.”
“Right. Sure. He only imprisoned women and brutally murdered entire families. What’s not to like?”
I shrug. I hate when she puts me in the position of defending these assholes. “I agree with you, obviously, but the way my dad saw it, his wife was the one in the wrong. A woman shouldn’t cheat, she damn sure shouldn’t get knocked up by someone else and embarrass her husband, and then to top it all off, she left him. You can’t embarrass a powerful man like that.”
“I know that. I’m glad to see your family’s as deeply entrenched in the dark ages as mine,” she adds, rolling her eyes.
“Hey, I’m a modern man by most standards. If you cheated on me, I’d just kill the guy, not you.”
She glances back at me so I can see her roll her eyes. “My apologies; you’re clearly a modern marvel. Being a woman is stupid.”
“I’m gonna have to disagree with you on that one,” I tell her, running a hand down her arm. “I’m pretty glad you’re a woman. My dad would approve even less if you weren’t.”
“Something worse than being a Morelli?” she asks mockingly.
“Well, I’m assuming you’re still a Morelli. Hey, maybe that’s what I should do, bait and switch him. Make him think I fell for Mateo, then when he’s about to actually combust, I say, nah, Dad, look at this gorgeous woman, I’m actually in love with her. Aren’t you relieved?”
I expect her to at least give me a smile at this scenario, but instead she takes a bigger gulp of her wine and doesn’t look at me.
I go back over it in my head, then I realize what I said.
I just said I was in love with her. Which I’ve kind of accepted as a fact inside my head, but I have not shared that sentiment aloud.
“I mean…” I start to backtrack, bring it back to a joke, but then I shake my head, deciding against it. “Nah, fuck it. That’s exactly what I meant.” Her wine glass is still tipped back—man, she is chugging it. “Does that really come as such a surprise? Don’t get weird on me. It’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to say it back, I just—”
She leans forward, putting the drained wine glass down on my coffee table. Then she turns around in my lap, leaning on my chest and smiling at me. “You love me?”
Phew. For a minute there, I wasn’t sure how she was going to take it. Bringing my hand up to her face, I run the backs of my fingers along her jawline, then tuck a chunk of dark hair behind her ear. “Of course I love you. I think about you every day. I crave you like a fucking addict. I’m nuts about you, Francesca. Can’t you tell?”
A slow grin stretches across that perfect mouth of hers, and it’s like she’s lit from within. Seeing her happy, knowing I made her feel that way, it’s like someone injected a shot of happiness straight into my veins.
“I had a hunch,” she teases. “Sometimes it’s just a little hard to reconcile what we feel with what we can do about it. I know your family is important to you. I know they wouldn’t want you with me. I don’t know how we build anything that lasts on top of that.”
No, I don’t either. I know I’m going to, though. It depresses me even to think about life without Francesca now. She’s on my mind so much, more than anyone else ever has been. Making her happy is a goal I set out to achieve each day—what if I weren’t around? No one else makes it their mission to make her smile. A world in which Francesca might not feel loved on any given day isn’t a world I wanna live in.
Life without Francesca isn’t something I’m interested in, period.
I caress her face again, watching as my thumb inches closer to her lips. I catch her plump bottom lip with the pad of my thumb, and her brown eyes flicker with need. “Well, you’re important to me, too.”
“I know that. I’m just afraid I’ll lose you.”
“You won’t,” I assure her. “You’re mine already, that’s done. I don’t know how we’ll make this work, but we will. I’m not going to let you go. If my dad found out about us tomorrow, I wouldn’t let you go. It would just make my life considerably harder, because I don’t know to what lengths my dad would go to, to intervene.”
Instead of responding with words, Francesca coaxes my thumb into her mouth, closing her lips around it and sucking.
My cock instantly recalls the magical wonderland of Francesca’s mouth.
Then she slides back, releasing my thumb, and says, “Let’s go to bed.”
I remember all too well how this went down last time. As much as I want her, I don’t need things to progress if she isn’t ready yet. “I’m not all that tired,” I tell her.
Her hand moves between my legs, finding the clear evidence of my arousal, and she strokes my cock through the soft fabric of my pajama pants. “Neither am I.”