“Once upon a time, your mommy went into a store.”

Dante was already wriggling like a minnow, little fists flailing and his opened mouth rooting. Pulling down the front of her dress, she bared herself to the waist and guided her nipple between his parted lips.

He latched on like a pro.

Beth sighed, experiencing the sweet relief that came with nursing when her breasts were full. “A man was there,” she said softly. “He was hurt, and Mommy helped him. We spent one night together. Before I left, he gave me a present. He gave me you.”

Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them away. She’d been so afraid of his gun, of his wound. She’d been scared that he would die. When his mobster family descended on them, she had worried that she would die, too.

She still worried. Less than she did, but her concern was very real. She was alive only because it suited Dom Visconti to have her here. Now that Dante’s biological father was back, she was more expendable than ever.

Matteo’s name was on the birth certificate. For her sister’s sake, she had named Giovanni Visconti and his son Val as Dante’s legal guardians when she’d made out her will. Workaholic Nan wouldn’t stand a chance at getting custody. And if she did, the Viscontis would simply remove her from the equation with a cut brake line or a drive-by shooting or a hit made to look like a mugging.

No, it was better this way.

Beth stroked the cap of wispy black hair and traced the curve of his small ear. With the light olive tone to his skin and the hereditary birthmark at the base of his spine, there was no mistaking him for anything else than what he was—Matteo’s child.

For better or worse, Dante was a Visconti. The only child of the eldest son was the apple of his grandfather’s eye.

That had come as the biggest shock of all.

Giovanni Visconti might tolerate her, but he doted on Dante. More than making certain that he lacked for nothing, he actually spent time with him. Every two weeks since Dante was born, Giovanni would come to hold the baby and watch TV or talk Visconti business with Bernardo while she and Constanza scrubbed bathrooms or baked or cleaned closets—anything to keep them out of the family room and away from the men’s conversation.

Beth burped the baby and switched sides. It was late enough, she nearly fell asleep with Dante in her arms. He was all but lost to the world. Pressing to break the suction, she put him over her shoulder and rubbed his back, hoping to ease out any gas. Tucking him into his crib on his back, she covered her breasts with her bodice and tiptoed out the door, closing it softly behind her.

She wanted a drink. Since she couldn’t have one, she settled for a bath. The day had taken a toll on her nerves. She desperately needed to relax and unwind.

Her soiled dress would need to be cleaned before it was returned. She’d have to call tomorrow and see where they wanted it taken, or if they preferred to handle it themselves. Just one more thing on a “to-do” list that never seemed to get any shorter. She honestly didn’t see how working mothers handled it all.

Slipping out of the dress, she draped it over the back of a chair to finish drying and went into her en-suite. Her bladder felt nearly as full as her breasts had been. She took care of that first. She’d worn dark pantyhose that flattered her legs and left no lines in her dress. Peeling them off, she consigned them to the laundry hamper, grabbed a clean towel and matching washcloth, turned on the taps, and flipped the stopper. She lit her current favorite candle and set it on the corner of the soaker tub, breathing in the heady scent of jasmine while the water rose to its maximum level.

The hair needed to come down at some point. She left it up to keep it dry, sank down to her neck, and soaked, letting the hot water ease the tension from her body and her mind.

At some point, she fell asleep. The cool temperature brought her back to awareness. Warming the water up again, she lingered a bit longer before she let it out, listening to the rush as it escaped down the drain, carrying away whatever she’d managed to release.

Beth did a quick pass with the bath sheet before stepping out of the tub. Too tired to care, she dried her drips as she walked, headed for a soft pillow and silky sheets until Dante woke, hungry or wet or both.

She stepped into a darkened room and cursed her luck tonight. First Matteo. Now this. She hoped that she had the same-sized bulb to replace the burned out one. The task required a stepladder. It would wait until daytime tomorrow.

Feeling her way to her nightstand, she tapped her reading lamp on. The soft, telling intake of breath coming from across the room made her freeze. Her muscles stiffened while the skin above them crawled.

Whoever was there would have had to get by Bernardo, which meant that Bernardo and likely Constanza were dead—unless it was Matteo.

Please, God, let it be Matteo.

“Turn around.”

She hadn’t heard it in eleven months, but she knew that voice. Exhaling the breath that had lodged in her chest, she hugged the bath sheet to her breasts, slowly pivoted on the ball of her foot, and turned to face him.

Matteo stalked toward her with the sleek grace of a jungle cat. She’d forgotten how tall he was. He was bigger. Stronger. Physically fit where she’d just been released to exercise in moderation. He kept his dark gaze locked on hers, holding her in dread. Hunter and prey, his empty hands were full of lethal promise.

He’d either kill her or keep her. At the moment, she had no idea which it would be.

He reached for the towel. She refused to let it go. Just because she’d given herself to him once didn’t give him the right to more.

He wasn’t expecting resistance. She spun away and skittered out of reach.

The corner of his lips curled in amusement before flattening.

When he started to take a step towards her, she thrust her hand, palm out, to stop him.

Miraculously, he did.

“What do you want?” she choked out.

He canted his dark head and began unbuttoning his shirt. “I want what’s mine.”

Wildly, she looked at the door, as if she could see across the hall to the nursery beyond. Tears blurred her vision when she thought that she might never see Dante again.

He tossed his shirt aside and reached for his belt.

“Please,” she begged him. “Can’t you wait a little longer?”

“It’s been eleven months, Beth. I think that’s long enough.”

He was here for her. Giovanni still hadn’t told him about Dante.

He’d know soon enough. The minute she dropped the towel, the truth would be out.

“You’re mine,” he rasped, his voice grown husky with desire. “My father gave you to me, to do whatever I want, whenever I want. Right now, I want that towel gone and your body in bed, capisci?”

Denying him would only delay the inevitable. “I understand,” she assured him. “I have no choice. I’ve been living at Giovanni’s whim. Nothing’s changed except my owner. But there are things he didn’t tell you. Things you need to know. I’m not the same woman that you kidnapped.”

For a moment, he looked at her, inscrutable. Thrusting his hands in his hair, he cursed beneath his breath. “Has he been fucking you?” he demanded to know. “God damn son of a bitch!”

“Ew! No! God, no! It’s nothing like that! Giovanni spared me after you were shot. And the reason…the reason was this.”

She dropped the towel and let him see. Breasts that had grown half a cup size during her pregnancy. The faint lines on her bosom and the stretch marks on her abdomen. But the most telling thing was the muted red line where a classical incision had split her open from an inch below her navel to the top of her pubic bone. It was still healing. Eventually, it would fade into a scar that she would wear for the rest of her life.

He stood there, wordless, wrestling to grasp his new reality.

“You have a son,” she told him. “Dante Santino Visconti. He was born April the eighth on Easter Sunday at 11:11 AM. Nine pounds, ten ounces and twenty-three inches long. I’d been in labor since the day before. I would have kept pushing, but he went into distress. The doctor told me that this—” she put her hand over the incision site “—was the quickest way to get him out and save him. I said yes.”

The only reactions from Matteo were his thin-pressed lips and a telltale tic in his jaw. “I didn’t know,” he said tightly. “Pop didn’t tell me. No one did.”

Beth shrugged. “Your brothers were probably like me. I was ordered to say nothing if you called. Not that I expected you to when you thought that I was dead.”

He didn’t deny it.

“Did you find him? The man who shot you?”

“No. No, I didn’t. I haven’t yet, but I will.”

The way he said it, she believed it.

“You’re only here for Italian Fest, then.” He’d be leaving again to hunt monsters. She should feel relieved. Instead, she felt an inexplicable sense of disappointment wash over her. “I have orders to attend with Dante. Your father wants him with the family.”

Matteo blinked, looking lost for a moment. “He does?”

“Bastard or not, Dante is his first grandchild. Or the first acknowledged one, anyway. If there’s a trail of them behind the Ribelle tour bus, no one’s slapped Marco or Tony with a paternity suit. Not yet, anyway.”

“There won’t be. They always cover up. Like me.”

Beth looked down at the evidence to the contrary.

Following her gaze, Matteo rubbed his beard-stubbled jaw and shook himself. When he looked at her again, the scar was still there.

“It’s not pretty, but he did a neat job, and it’s healing. I have to tell you, wrestling and breastfeeding a ten-pound newborn after major abdominal surgery are no fun. Do you want to see him now? He has your hair and ears and the family birthmark on his spine, your father tells me. He’s asleep but he’ll be waking up soon to eat again. I’m breastfeeding. He won’t take a bottle.”

He raised his gaze to her bosom. Beth felt herself blush. Color warmed her cheeks and spilled down her neck. She cursed her body’s response when her nipples tightened under his perusal.

Aware of the awkwardness of the situation, she grabbed the robe that she kept for night feedings. “The nursery is across the hall,” she stammered, slipping it on and tying the belt with shaking hands. “Just…be quiet, please. You won’t like what happens if you wake him.”

He followed her to the baby’s room. The nursery was decorated in a classic Winnie the Pooh theme, with framed prints on soft, yellow walls and accents in muted shades of brown, peach, blue, and green. The rocker where she nursed him sat in one corner with a large bed pillow in its seat. The end table beside it held a stack of children’s books, a coaster with a bottle of water, a lamp, and a framed picture of Matteo that Giovanni had given her to show the baby.

Val had done one better. He’d sent a video clip to her phone of Matteo with his old girlfriend, Chiara, teasing and talking at last year’s Italian Fest.

In the opposite corner, stuffed toys sat in a child’s rocker, waiting until Dante was old enough to play with them. For now, his favorite object was the mobile that hung above his crib.

She held back, waiting until Matteo stepped up to the crib before she came to stand beside him. Watching the baby’s mouth work in his sleep, she whispered, “He’s dreaming of eating. When it’s not enough, he’ll wake up.”

Matteo stared into the crib, his face revealing nothing. Paternity had come as a shock. Processing it was going to take time. If acceptance never came, if he never bonded with his son, if he had no more use for her, at least she could die easier knowing that Giovanni would see that Dante was cared for and loved.

They hadn’t been in the room five minutes when the alarm siren sounded. Dante filled his lungs and let it fly. Matteo backed off. She crooned to the baby, “Wet your diaper, did you?” She checked and found that he had soaked his onesie as well. “Come on, Dante. Let’s get you changed, little man.”

She lowered the side of the crib. Picking up the crying infant, she took him to the changing table, stripped off his soiled clothes, and readied another disposable diaper to replace the one he wore. She was acutely aware of Matteo behind her, watching, stepping close enough that his bare chest brushed against her back.

“Daddy’s here,” she told Dante. “Can you see him?”

Dante cried harder.

“Yes, I know,” she commiserated with their son. “You’re wet and you’re hungry. We’ll feed you when you’re nice and dry and you can slip right back to sleep.”

At least one of them would get some rest tonight. She had no idea what to expect where Matteo was concerned.

She tore the tabs off Dante’s diaper and readied her wipe. Getting sprayed anytime was less than ideal, but tonight, it could be disastrous. Unable to quiet her fears, she looked over her shoulder at Matteo. “Whatever you decide to do with me, promise me that you won’t hurt him. He’s the innocent in all this.”

He said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes. Unfortunately, she couldn’t understand a word until he moved. Forcing her aside, he rolled Dante over to look at his birthmark. It was there, just like she said. Lifting Dante’s small, naked form from the changing table, he brought him to his chest and studied him up close, from his wispy hair to ten perfect fingers and toes.

“Talk to him,” Beth said. “Let him hear you.”

“Sorry, kid,” he told the baby. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t do baby talk.”

Dante stopped crying. For a long moment, the two of them stared at each other, then the baby smiled and waved his arms, cooing and chortling.

“Look! He recognizes you from the video he’s seen.”

She’d shown it to the baby a number of times, even though Matteo was with another woman. If he was coming back to Chiara, Dante would need to know her, too.

Dante eventually hit his mouth with his fist and gummed it like a dog with a meaty bone.

“I need to get a diaper on him before he eats,” she whispered. “Unless you want to do the honors…?”

Matteo shook his head. “No. You do it. Here.”

Instead of putting Dante back on the changing table, he put their son into her arms. Maybe because she was used to diapers and spit up and all the other unpleasant odors that came with the territory, but Matteo was the best thing that she’d smelled in months. Pure male musk. Nothing to mask or enhance the natural scent of his skin.

She inhaled deeply, savoring the moment before duty forced its end.