Chapter Thirty Seven
Mia
My long blonde hair clings to the back of my neck as we ascend the stone staircase alongside the deli where we just picked up a few groceries. Various fruits peek out of the Marc Jacobs bag slung over my shoulder, my pretty new Italy sandals on my feet. I’m wearing the breezy summer dress I envisioned wearing with them, but instead of breezy and cute, I feel sticky and gross because it’s so hot today.
Mateo walks beside me in street clothes—the absolute weirdest part of vacations. Even his street clothes are classy, but seeing him not wearing a suit and tie is still weird, even after all these years.
As we trek up the narrow stone staircase, I let my hand brush Mateo’s, then I catch it and lace our fingers together.
“What’s so important?” I ask, nodding at his cell phone.
Normally he’s off his phone during vacations, but he’s already been on it more today than he usually is over the course of our whole trip. He turns the screen to flash me a picture of three blobs with lines coming out of various shakily drawn circles. “Rosalie drew a picture of us in Italy.”
I snort, grinning. “She’s the next Picasso, for sure. What’s the third blob?”
“The sun?” he suggests. Shrugging, he uses just the one hand to type something back, then slides the phone into his pocket.
“We should send her a real picture of us in Italy,” I suggest, indicating at the scenic town all around us.
“You and your damn pictures,” he remarks.
“Any excuse to record your overall sexiness is a chance I’ll jump on.”
Smirking, he lets go of my hand and puts his hand on my hip, tugging me close. “I’ll give you something to jump on.”
I wink at him. “I’m counting on it.”
The beach was packed today, so we decided just to get some groceries and head back to our room. We’ll have lunch between rounds, then we’ll head out later for a nice dinner.
Tomorrow begins Mateo’s long-awaited favorite part of this trip—the Amalfi coast, a yacht, and me in a teeny tiny bikini. I’m a little more self-conscious about the last part now that my waist is filling out with my very own baby Morelli, but when I critiqued myself in the mirror last night, Mateo rolled his eyes like I was being ridiculous and proceeded to show me just how sexy he thinks I am in my bikini, even pregnant.
“Did you ever bring Beth here?”
Mateo glances over at me. Surprisingly, just like the last couple times, mentioning Beth doesn’t seem to irritate him. He shakes his head. “No. We were going to come once, but she pouted until I agreed to go to Paris again. Fucking Paris.”
I smile faintly. “I like Paris, but I’m happy to go wherever you want to go. I can’t really complain about a two week honeymoon in Italy, regardless.”
“Beth could complain about anything,” he says, dryly.
“She’s a cow and I hate her.”
Flashing me a grin, he remarks, “She’s not even worth your hatred. She’s ancient history now and I’m glad.” Giving me a little squeeze, he assures me, “I’ve come to the conclusion that in every regard, you blow Beth right out of the water.”
I feel like he just handed me all the shoes in the world. I beam at him, then wrap my other arm around his chest and hug him while we walk. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”
I can’t see his face, but his tone is dry as hell. “I hope so, given the vigorous tests I put you through in order to arrive at this conclusion. You deserve some kind of payoff.”
“Eh, what’s a little mental torture between lovers? Some couples have rough patches, we have explosive mind wars.”
“It’s not much of a war, I just attack you and you love me anyway.”
I jab him in the abdomen. “I attack you with my love. I’m just so subtle you don’t even know.”
“You can attack me with your love anytime; I like it.”
It’s a hot but peaceful walk back to our room. I put our few groceries on the counter and in the fridge, then go over to join Mateo on the bed. He looks tired. The flight over here is long as hell and we’re both a little jetlagged.
“We should nap,” I tell him. “That way we’re rested for tomorrow.”
His head falls to the side and he raises his eyebrow like I’ve just said something unimaginably stupid. “If you think there’s even a chance I’m not going to fuck you senseless before we do any kind of sleeping, I don’t even know who you are.”
I laugh, lying beside him on the bed and curling up beside him. “Well, obviously you have to fuck me senseless first.” Dragging my hand across his chest, I rub his nipple through the fabric.
He watches my hand, a look of faint contemplation on his face. Then he meets my gaze, flattening his hand on mine to stop its journey across his chest. I smile because he flattened my hand over his heart, though I’m not sure he intended to.
“I want to give you your wedding present,” he says, suddenly.
My eyebrows rise in surprise. “My wedding present? I assumed you were my wedding present. I should warn you, I did not get you anything.”
His other hand snakes around my waist and he pulls me on top of him. Gazing up at me, he states, “As long as he doesn’t fuck things up again, I won’t kill Vince. I know you don’t want me to.”
I sigh so hard with relief, my body deflates. “Thank you,” I say, resting my head on his chest and hugging him.
“That’s not the whole present,” he states.
I pull back to look at him again, since he sounds so serious. “Okay.”
Mateo watches me as he tucks a fallen chunk of hair behind my Vince. “I know that Vince and Joey were in on the plot to kill me together. I know Vince told you.”
I can actually feel the color drain from my face. Fear grabs hold of me and drags down my insides. I go to pull back, though I’m not sure where I think I can go.
Mateo stops me. “No, I’m not…” He trails off, looking mildly frustrated. “I’ve been holding onto ammunition against you and I’m trying not to do that. I’m not trying to scare you. I just wanted you to know, this way there are no more secrets between us. I don’t like you keeping secrets from me. I know you care about people, but you can’t lie to me to protect them. That doesn’t work. If people make you lie to me, that just makes me angrier.” Lacing his fingers together with mine, he states, “You and I always have to come first.”
Everything about what he just said makes me feel horrible. Not only because I kept this secret for so many years, or because I know he’s right, but because I’m holding onto another secret he doesn’t know about.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, quietly. “I tried to manage it on my own. I would’ve told you if he had any plans to try anything again.”
He nods, not making me explain. “I know. Just don’t do it again.”
I feel like pulling back, retreating. I know I don’t look adequately relieved, but he probably relates my guilt to Vince’s secret. He doesn’t know I have another one. Here he is, giving up his ammunition against me, and here I am, holding onto a secret to protect someone else.
That’s not right.
That’s not loyal.
That’s not good for us.
I take a deep breath and let it out.
Mateo regards me with a narrowed, curious look.
“What if there’s one more?” I ask, a bit timidly.
“Another secret?” he asks, his brown eyes sharpening with focus.
It makes me uncomfortable when he gets all predatory in this scenario, so I ease off him and sit up on the bed beside him. My stomach roils with anxiety—my poor baby is going to come out with an ulcer and a healthy fear of secrets, and it won’t even know why.
Keeping his tone level, he commands, “Tell me.”
“Please don’t do anything rash,” I plead, before I do. “I know I can’t always be worried about protecting people at any cost, but I really don’t think—I think it was a mistake, a huge, stupid, horrible mistake. She would never do it again—I really believe that. It was a stupid thing to do and she feels terrible. She wishes she could take it back. She hates that she hurt either one of us.”
His cool eyes narrow. “What did Meg do?”
That only makes my stomach sink harder. “And she’s Rosalie’s mother, and she’s having your son, and not because of any emotional connection with you or anything, but I think the kids of this family have lost enough mothers. Let’s not go down that road again.”
“What. Did. She. Do?”
I ramble faster. “And I know she’s really sorry, and this is in part why I wanted you to give her a loyalty test. I still think you should, but I think that’s sufficient. I know ordinarily it might require further punishment, but I was just thinking, you know, maybe it’s enough this time because she’s really sorry—”
“Mia,” he snaps.
“She told Vince I would be at the bakery that day.”
His face goes completely blank and terrifies the living fuck out of me.
I inch forward, shakily grabbing his hand, watching his face for some sign of change. “It was the sister wives thing, she couldn’t take it anymore. We were barely sharing by that point. You spent almost every night with me. Vince came when we were in the Bahamas and Meg saw him. She didn’t think he would hurt me.”
Yanking his hand out of mine, he lowly utters, “Bullshit.”
My heart pounds as he rises off the bed and strides across the room, his jaw clenched. I scurry off the bed to follow him. “Mateo, please. I understand you’re angry, I was angry, too, but—”
Swinging around, he glares. “Did he tell you, or did she?”
I take a tiny, cautious step back. “She told me. After we found out…” I trail off, not really wanting to remind him of the pregnancy he didn’t want when he’s clearly pissed off.
His gaze drops to my stomach anyway.
I want to flee again, but I stand my ground. There’s nowhere to go, anyway. He’s accepted the pregnancy. I remind myself of that. He was disarming himself before this—he’s not going to go back on his acceptance. I guess he could, but he won’t do that. He’s just mad right now, and that’s perfectly understandable.
Bringing his fiery gaze back to mine, he shakes his head. “She better be glad you waited until we were halfway across the goddamn world to tell me this.”
It’s the worst feeling in the world when Mateo’s angry at me. This is not how I wanted to start our honeymoon. I should’ve waited. I don’t see how I could have, though. He gave me the perfect opening. How could I repay his openness, his honesty, with secrets and lies?
“I’m sorry,” I say, my heart in my throat. “I just, I don’t want to keep secrets from you. When she told me that one, things were still really rough between us and you hadn’t made up your mind about my pregnancy. I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“I want to rip her fucking throat out.”
He’s still radiating anger, but it hasn’t crossed the line into violence, so I take a tentative step forward. Catching my movement, his gaze slides to me, but it’s narrowed and cold, not warm. My skin crawls, but I move closer anyway. I feel like I’m about to hug a pissed off lion, but I remind myself this is the same man who loved me intensely five minutes ago.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you right away. I promise I won’t keep a secret like this from you again. But please… please don’t do anything crazy.”
“Is it crazy to punish someone who could have cost me everything?” he asks, taking an aggressive step forward. I almost fall back a step, but he grabs a fistful of my hair—no tenderness right now, just anger. He’s not playing. I’m a little scared.
I snake one arm around his waist, then the other. He doesn’t let go of my hair, but I pull him close anyway. “I’m sorry.”
“Show me,” he says, a bit shortly.
My heart continues to pound a furious beat in my throat, but I sink to my knees on the floor in front of him. It must be the right move. He looks down at me as I unzip his pants and free his cock, grasping it in my hand and caressing him. I look up to make sure he’s pleased. His gaze is hooded, still angry. His cock is hard in my hand, though, so I lean forward and take the smooth, perfect tip of him into the welcoming warmth of my mouth.
After I’ve worked his cock for a couple minutes, Mateo suddenly asks, “Do you remember the first time you were on your knees for me, Mia?”
I don’t expect him to ask that—I’m not even sure which time he’s referring to. The time he had his gun pressed to my forehead and he threatened to kill me if I lied to him, or the time he made me suck his cock in his bedroom during my four days of hell. Neither time is an especially treasured memory.
I guess because I don’t answer, he yanks me off his cock.
I take a breath, remaining on my knees in front of him, his hand fisted in my hair. “Which time? In the study, or in your bedroom?”
“The study.” He squats down, still holding onto my hair, and leans in to tell me, “I don’t like being lied to, Mia. I don’t like you keeping secrets from me. If you can’t manage your friendships without keeping secrets from me, you don’t get to have any. Am I being clear?”
I’m not completely sure—does he mean he’ll kill her, or just not let her be my friend?—but I don’t chance asking for clarification, I just nod my head.
“Good.” His grip on my hair eases up a little, but he tugs me back and lays me down on the ground. I swallow as he climbs on top of me, a strain of arousal responding to his position and forgetting he’s still mad at me. “I will deal with Meg as I see fit. I’m the boss. Not you.”
I swallow so loudly, I know we both hear it. “I wasn’t trying to—I just… This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Meg is the one who fucked up, not you. You made it your problem by keeping her secret.”
“And you created the problem by using her,” I blurt.
His eyebrows rise in surprise.
I try to soften the accusation. “I’m not saying it justifies what she did, and I understand that you were doing it all for me in your head, I do. But she didn’t know that. She thought it was real, and I can tell you from experience that it’s very… it’s very easy to get pulled under with you, and it’s very hard sometimes to see the lies everything is built on, even if they’re plain to see. She loved you for real. You loved her like… I loved my wedding shoes. Even when she took part in doing this awful thing to me, she never wanted to hurt you. She thought you loved her. She thought I was in the way.”
“But you weren’t in the way,” he states, more calmly than a moment ago. “And she did hurt me. I was fucking lost without you.”
My stomach bottoms out, hearing that.
“The world isn’t worth a damn without you in it,” he states. “And she could’ve taken you from me. Vince might have hurt you. Rafe didn’t have to help. There are a million ways this could have ended with me never seeing you again, Mia.”
Feeling like I have a slightly better grip on this thing, I reach a hand up and caress his jaw. “I know. That terrified me, too. But it’s over now and we’re together. We’ll never be apart again. This is all in the past. Give her the loyalty test to make sure she wouldn’t turn on you now, but as long as she passes, don’t hurt her. Please.”
“You’re so goddamn worried about everybody,” he mutters.
He comes down on top of me, releasing his hold on my hair to shove his fingers through it and cradle the back of my head. He moves in and pours his frustrations into a brutal kiss that ignites my blood. I wrap my legs around his hips to keep him close, rocking my own hips forward. My heart emerges from the pit it fell into and starts to race.
I push my hands up under his shirt as he reaches beneath my dress and literally tears the panties right off me.
“Jesus,” I mutter, watching as he tosses the flimsy lace aside.
Catching my wrists, he pushes them over my head and pins me down. “I’ll buy you new ones,” he states.
I don’t argue. He repositions my arms so can hold them at the wrist. Just to be an imp, I pull free. He catches them again, a sexy gleam in his narrowed eyes, his lips curving up in the faintest of smiles. I’m not sure if the demanding kiss he follows up with as he pins me to the floor is a punishment or reward, but I can’t always tell the difference.
“I need your cock,” I tell him, freeing one of my hands to reach down between us. I savor the look of relief on his face as my fingers close around him, as I pull and tug, then guide him between my thighs. My entrance is already slick for him. Desire coils in my gut as I rub his head up and down my pussy before easing him inside me. I cry out with relief, even controlling the pace myself. I don’t know how I was cold just a minute ago; there’s wild fire pouring through my veins now, and I need his cock deep inside me like I need his kiss on my lips. “Please,” I murmur, pulling him against me.
Shifting his hips and rocking them forward, he gives me the friction I need, then he claims my lips and I feel like I can breathe again.
“Harder,” I tell him, my fingers digging into his sides as he slams his cock inside me. “Oh, yes.”
“You like when I’m angry, don’t you, sweetheart?”
He punctuates his question with a rough tug of my hair and I groan, nodding my head as he pounds into my hips like he’s trying to bury me in the floor. He grinds his hip in this magical way of his, dragging my clit to the party. I cry out, reaching above me for something to grab onto, but there’s nothing. My hand grabs at the floor, then moves across my mouth and frantically down my body.
“Mateo…”
“Should I let you come, Mia?”
“Please,” I say on a gasp, nodding my head vigorously.
“Do wives who keep secrets from their husbands deserve orgasms?”
I don’t know if it’s more exhilarating that he’s teasing me with orgasms, or calling us husband and wife. The combination is so exciting it verges on fucking torture.
I writhe and buck against him, but he easily maintains control despite my attempts. “Please, Mateo. Please.”
He thrusts inside of me, grinding his hips and I arch up off the floor, crying out with a mix of pleasure and frustration. “You won’t ever keep another secret from me again, will you, sweetheart?”
I shake my head frantically. “Never. I promise.” I groan again as he tortures my clit with another practiced movement. “Please, please, please.”
I must not be desperate enough to satisfy him, because he still teases me. His cock may be filling me as he fucks me mercilessly, but he drags out my arousal and stimulates my clit until I’m ready to cry with frustration. He knows how to work my body better than I do, and it’s so deeply frustrating when he’s in the mood to withhold.
Grabbing onto his shirt, I beg again, “Please let me come.”
He crushes his lips against mine and adjusts the rhythm of his hips. I cry out and gasp against his mouth, and he catches and keeps every last desperate sound.
“I own your pleasure, Mia. Be a good girl and I can make you happy. Piss me off, and I’ll drive you fucking crazy.”
He’s already driving me fucking crazy. I frantically kiss his lips, bringing my arms around him and holding him close. Finally, he lets me have relief. I cry out, coming apart on the floor beneath him. I close my eyes and cling to him, trying to catch my breath as he continues to move inside my body. A moment later, he finds his own release and empties himself inside me.
Mateo relaxes against me for just a minute, then eases onto the floor beside me and pulls me into his arms.
I snuggle up against him, right there on the floor. Nuzzling my face into his chest, I drop a series of light, sleepy kisses there. “I love you,” I tell him.
“I love you, too,” he murmurs.
“I’m sorry I kept a secret from you.”
“I know.”
“It won’t happen again,” I assure Mateo, holding onto him like I’m shipwrecked and he’s the only life raft in the world.