Chapter Twenty Nine
Vince
“Don’t do it, Lana! You don’t really like Lex, you’re mentally compromised!”
I glance back at my crazy girlfriend as she sits in the floor, advising a fictional character on a show that aired years ago not to follow the plot.
“Don’t be crazy,” Laurel says, handing me the bottled water she brought and breezing past me. I close my bedroom door and make my way back to the couch. Laurel sits on the floor beside Carly instead of sitting on the couch next to me.
“Oh, thank God, you brought sustenance.” Carly grabs the bottle water Laurel brought up for her, as well as a fistful of popcorn.
“You started the episode without me. You’re a monster. You know Lexana is my ship.”
“I’ve decided to abandon the ship,” Carly states. “I can no longer support Lana’s romantic interest in this villainous individual.”
“You’re cracked. They’re meant to be. Go grow corn and leave Lana alone, Clark.”
Carly sighs, letting her head fall back against my legs. “Your cousin has ruined my life.”
“Join the club,” I tell her.
Laurel rolls her eyes. “You’re being incredibly dramatic. You’re still allowed to want Lex and Lana to fall madly in love. If you don’t, we have irreconcilable shipper differences and I can’t watch this show with you anymore.”
“Lex is a selfish asshole and I hate him.” Lifting her head, she turns to regard Laurel, her gaze slowly moving over Laurel’s body.
“Are you checking for love bites?” Laurel asks, proudly yanking the neck of her big sweater out and showing her collar bone. “I actually got some.”
Carly sighs. “He marked you.”
Laurel nods happily. “It was super hot. Nerve endings I thought long dead were resurrected. It was an Easter miracle.”
Carly sighs. “My little baby sister is all grown up. You survived a one night stand with a Morelli. I’m not sure if I should be proud or horrified.”
“Is that usually a trial of some kind? Did I survive an ordeal? Do I get a sticker?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had a one night stand with a Morelli; I bought the subscription package. They’re a lot of trouble in general, though. I think you should get something out of it. Vince, are there prizes of some sort?”
I lean down and grab a handful of popcorn. “Typically we ruin your life once you fuck us, but I think you’re okay with Rafe. He doesn’t get attached.”
“Was he nice to you?” Carly asks.
Laurel sighs blissfully, leaning back against the couch. “So nice.”
I grimace. “Do I have to hear this?”
“Yeah?” Carly asks, ignoring me. “Sometimes when they look like that, they’re lazy as fuck. I’m glad that wasn’t the case.”
“Nope. I think I became a woman last night.”
Carly snorts. “You’ve had sex before.”
Laurel shakes her head, grabbing some popcorn. “I’m not sure I have anymore. I think now I have to go back and retroactively void all sexual interactions that happened prior to last night. I’ve been doing sex wrong. Or, the guys have. I don’t know, but someone somewhere has dropped the ball in all my previous sexual encounters. I thought I was having average sex, but I have doubts now. Maybe I was having bad sex.”
“Definitely, definitely do not want to hear any of this,” I say again.
They both ignore me. “What do you mean, bad?” Carly asks. “Like, unskilled?”
“Like, I thought my body was just weird and that’s why the lazy assholes almost never gave me an orgasm. Turns out, I can have three in a single sexual encounter.”
I grimace, standing and walking away. “This is my room. Why do I have to hear this?”
“So yeah, I have a new standard,” Laurel announces. “If you can’t figure out how to give me at least one orgasm, no more sex for you, you lazy fucking asshole.”
Carly uncaps her water, grinning. “Wow. I didn’t realize you had such shitty sex before. Maybe I’m slightly less mad at Lex.”
“What does Lex have to do with any of this?” Laurel questions.
“It’s my nickname for Vince’s cousin, Mateo. The one you met last night. He’s all diabolical and shit. He brought Rafe here early and sent him after you just to be an asshole.”
“Well, tell him I said thank you and I owe him a pan of brookies.”
“I don’t have to, he has cameras.” Carly raises her voice. “My sister says thank you for being a horrible human being.”
“What?” Laurel looks around, trying to find security cameras. “No, he does not. Are you serious?”
“He’s a weirdo,” I inform her. “He wouldn’t like your brookies, either. He doesn’t like sweets.”
Turning wide eyes on me, she’s like, “I have so many questions. Is this the polygamist? I only met one wife at dinner. Can I go ask him questions?”
“You stay far away from him,” Carly states, before I can. “I made the mistake of getting curious and last night happened.”
“Well, if I get good sex every time you get curious, you have my permission to be as curious as you want,” Laurel states.
“How was he this morning?” Carly asks, still looking for reasons to disapprove of this situation.
“Hospitable. Friendly. I think he’s well-versed at one-night-stand etiquette so he wasn’t exactly stumbling his way through it.”
“Mia said you’d be a happy customer. I’m glad she was right. I was worried about it.”
Laurel’s eyebrows rise. “Mateo’s wife, Mia? The gorgeous blonde at the dinner table?”
Carly nods. “Also Vince’s ex, Mia.”
“She banged Vince and Rafe before Mateo? Does she have a Morelli sexual bingo card she’s trying to fill up or something?”
“Nope, wasn’t before Mateo. Vince said she didn’t meet Rafe until a year ago and she was with him then. I definitely got intimacy vibes between them, though. Mateo’s too perceptive not to notice and he didn’t seem surprised or have an issue with it, so I bet they double teamed her. Unless he’s into cucking.” She pauses, tapping her chin in consideration. “No, I don’t think that’s it. He’s too dominant to want to be humiliated. I think they fucked her together.”
“What?” I demand, walking back over.
“Oh, sorry, baby. Cover your ears, we’re talking girl talk.”
This is girl talk? “Why would you think they…?”
Carly raises her eyebrows like I’m dense. “Because of their vibes. Plus, your cousin’s rich, and rich men always have some kind of kink. The bedroom cameras make me think he might have a strain of voyeurism in there, too.” She looks back at Laurel. “So, tell me about the size? Shape? Oddities? Skill level is obviously adequate.”
“No.” I scowl down at Carly. “I don’t want to hear any of this.”
“Come to think of it, maybe they’re just swingers,” Carly states. “They do make jokes about Adrian being her second husband.”
Since my evil girlfriend won’t stop giving me mental images of men I despise fucking the girl I loved, I go to take a shower and get away from her version of girl talk. Jesus Christ, I thought girl talk involved discussing shoes.
After my shower, I decide to slip out. Cherie is supposed to be coming over today, so I drop by the servants’ quarters to see if she’s around yet. She’s not, but a little blonde girl sits on the couch , reading a book to the little boy in her lap.
I cock my head in question as she looks up at me. “Hey, Vince.”
“Hey Lily. That’s not Roman.”
Lily shakes her head. “I’m babysitting West while Mia and his mom coordinate about Easter. They’re upstairs if you wanted to see them.”
“I actually came by to see if Cherie was here yet.”
“Nope, not yet. You want a sopapilla? Maria made some earlier, they’re delicious. They’re on the counter.”
“Nah, I’m good, thanks.” My gaze drifts to the stairwell. I shouldn’t go up there, but my legs carry me in that direction anyway. “Dom up there?”
“Yep,” Lily verifies, turn pointing at the book and gasping at the toddler in her lap. “Oh no, the list! Where do you think it’s going to go?”
“Over there,” he states, pointing at the book.
I look away from them and make the decision to go up the stairs. Even halfway there, I tell myself it’s not too late to turn back, but then I hear Dom’s little squeal and it lures me down the hall and tentatively inside the open door. I give a passing knock as I step inside and Elise and Mia look up at me.
“Oh, hey, Vince,” Mia greets, warmly, shifting Dom in her arms.
“Hey. Lily said you guys were up here.”
Elise spreads something out on the table and pats the surface, telling Mia, “Just pick which style you like and I’ll personalize them for all the kids.” Then she walks around the table and heads over to check on her new baby in the bassinet across the room.
I drift over and take a peek at what they’re doing. Various designs of tags are spread out with little bunnies, carrots, eggs, and various Easter-themed décor.
“We’re taking care of the final touches on Easter baskets for the kids.”
I nod at Dom. “Does he get a basket?”
“He does. I’m sure he won’t care about it, but of course he’ll get one.” She nuzzles her face against him and gives him a kiss. “We can’t leave you out, huh?”
Dom grins and looks over at me. “Carly makes Thanksgiving baskets. They’re a little less kid-friendly, though.”
Mia smiles. “Oh yeah?”
“Mine was, anyway.”
She flushes slightly, but maintains her smile. “I bet.”
Realizing how that sounded given her blush, I correct her. “Oh, I didn’t mean… It just had whiskey in it. Wild Turkey…”
“Clever.”
I smile faintly at the memory. “She certainly thought so.”
“I really do like her,” Mia tells me.
“She likes you, too. I didn’t expect you to like one another. I think your opinion of Jessica set my expectations.”
Mia rolls her eyes. “Ugh, Jessica. I did not like her. I hate calling people gold diggers, but she basically advertised herself as one. Also, how could anyone sleep with your awful father for any dollar amount?” Her eyes suddenly widen and she claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh, crap, I forgot. I’m sorry, he just died.”
I wave her off. “Please. I didn’t care.”
“Maybe it hasn’t hit you yet.”
I shake my head. “No, I think I just don’t care. He was awful, you’re not wrong. I’m glad he never met Dom. He didn’t deserve to meet him.”
Unlike Carly, Mia does not call me out on my clear hypocrisy. Mia nods her vehement agreement, almost like she doesn’t even understand the parallel between us. It’s comforting, though. I don’t mind Carly calling me on my shit, she keeps me a little more honest, but Mia’s unquestioning acceptance and forgiveness certainly feels nice, too. Because of those qualities, I can lean in and play with the baby she shouldn’t have been forced to have, and she can smile and hold his other hand like we’re just friendly exes.
“Are you guys doing photos with Maddie?” Elise asks, cradling her own little bundle as she walks over to us.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Mia says, shaking her head.
“What photos? Who’s Maddie?” I ask.
“Salvatore’s sister. She’s a photographer; she’s coming over to take Easter photos of the kids,” Elise explains.
“Uh oh.” Mia looks over at Elise. “I hope she doesn’t try to flirt with Rafe again. Laurel might get mad.”
“That guy,” Elise says, shaking her head. “Are his man parts coated in chocolate or something?”
I grimace, recalling the conversation I just ran away from. “Can we not talk about Rafe’s sex life? Every woman in this house is obsessed. I’m ready to go hang out with Mateo just to get away from it.”
Mia snickers. “Sorry, Vince. Was Laurel giving a performance review?”
“Yes, and apparently my girlfriend and her sister learned girl talk in a locker room.”
Elise grins. “Sorry to burst your bubble of Morelli chauvinism, but yeah, women talk about sex, too.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t hear them. I can’t repeat the things I heard.”
Mia pats my shoulder in mocking support. “It’ll be okay, Vince. Get it all out.”
“Go get him a sopapilla, he’ll be right as rain.”
“I need to pick a tag first. Vince, which one do you like best?”
I don’t especially care about basket tags, but when Mia picks one up to show Dom, he stops chewing his hand and vibrates with excitement at the sight of the Easter bunny. Seeing his enthusiasm softens my attitude toward the stupidity of spending any amount of time picking out a paper tag and I look over them, pointing to the one I like best. Dom clutches it, crumpling it in his tiny fist. No one’s getting that one back now.
Mia invites me to the playroom afterward. I know I probably shouldn’t go. Carly’s plan to hide makes the most sense, but Dom peers at me over Mia’s shoulders, beckoning me with his little brown eyes to come and play. I can’t say no to that.
There’s no shortage of baby activity mats and toys in the playroom. Mia hands me Dom and drags a bunch of them out of the closet. She spreads one of the mats out and takes Dom for something called “tummy time.” Apparently it’s just him lying on his tummy. Pretty straightforward. He does a baby push-up and cranes his neck, sticking his tongue out at me.
“Is there a point to this?” I ask, curiously.
Mia smiles. “Building up his strength. Think of it like a baby workout. He’s strength training.”
I hunch down to look at him. “Are you getting ripped?”
“Neck muscles for days,” Mia says.
“He can’t crawl yet, huh?”
“No, not for a few more months. He’s gotta train and work up to that.” Mia scoots down on her belly. “You’re building that Morelli shoulder strength, huh?”
“I can’t believe we have a baby.”
Mia glances up at me uncertainly for a second. I didn’t mean to say it, I just can’t quite get over it. She’s had months to adjust to her role, to Dom’s existence, but I had no idea. I didn’t even know she got married, let alone that she had a baby—and my baby, not Mateo’s.
“It’s weird not knowing what’s going on in your life,” I tell her. “I know I had a whole life before you, but you became such a big part of everything.”
“I know,” she agrees, her voice soft. “It is a little weird.”
I know it has to be that way for us, but I don’t exactly like it. It’s too hard not to drift back into her orbit when I’m around her, it’s too hard to see Mateo raising Dom, it’s too hard to see her with Mateo. I got to a place where I could be cool with it, but then Mia started being nice to me again and drew me right back in. I know it’s not her fault. I realize now she doesn’t do it on purpose. It’s just who she is. It’s what drew me to her in the first place, but it’s the same thing that draws other fucked up men to her. I could’ve only kept Mia if I kept her in a cage.
Mateo keeps her in a cage, though, and somehow she’s happy with him.
“Do you have an open marriage?”
That startles her. Wide blue eyes dart to me, floored that I would ask such a thing. “No!”
“All right.” I hold up a hand to halt her shock, but she’s still gaping at me. “I was just asking. I keep hearing things.”
“Things like I have an open marriage?” she demands. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry, I was just curious.”
Mia buries her face in her hands. Dom sees her hiding and cranes, bobbing a bit as he tries to get to her to see what’s wrong. I can’t help smiling. I’m glad he looks out for her already.
Since he can’t get to her, he braces his hands on the ground and squeals, then babbles at her until she lifts her head up to look at him. She wrinkles up her nose at him and crawls forward on her tummy to brush noses with him. He grabs her face and slobbers all over her as he delivers his open-mouth kisses.
I join her on my stomach. Mimicking Mia’s position scores me some of his attention. He falls down on his side, grinning up at me as he grabs a red bird toy and shoves it in his mouth.
“I made you a carrot,” Mia announces, now that she’s recovered from her fit of embarrassment.
I look over at her and blink. “Thank you?”
“A craft carrot,” she specifies. “It’s an Easter decoration. It was Carly’s idea. I made it with Dom’s footprint, that way you have something to take with you when you leave.”
“Oh. That is nice. Thank you,” I say, with a little less confusion and a little more sincerity.
Mia nods. “You still talk to Cherie?”
“Yeah. Not as much as I used to, but yeah.”
She nods some more. “Well, I don’t talk to Cherie much, but I do send pictures of Dom to Maria sometimes. She’s the closest thing to a grandmother as he really has.”
“He doesn’t see your mom?”
“She saw him when he was first born, but no, Mateo doesn’t like to bring her around. He seems to prefer Maria filling the grandma outlet.”
I can’t help rolling my eyes. “Well, it’s not his call, is it? Dom’s yours, not his.”
“That’s not how our family works,” she says, shaking her head. “We aren’t possessive over the kids. We all love them, we all raise them. It’s a village effort here. Besides, Dom is Mateo’s in every way that counts.” Cutting a look my way, she adds, “I’m not saying that to be mean, it’s just the truth. He’s the one who supported me through my pregnancy, he’s the one who held my hand through labor and cut the umbilical cord—”
“Only because I didn’t get the chance,” I argue. “You know I would have done all that stuff. You know that.”
Mia looks away from me, offering Dom a smile and pushing one of his toys closer to focus his attention. “I don’t want to fight.”
“I’m not trying to fight,” I mutter. “I just think it sucks that I have a son and I never get to be a part of his life. He’ll never even remember meeting me. How would you feel in my place?”
I know I have no right to ask that—no right—but because Mia isn’t Carly, instead of telling me that, her face transforms with guilt.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to minimize… I feel awful about that. I really wish it didn’t have to be that way, but I can’t convince Mateo otherwise. I’ve tried. He doesn’t bend.”
That’s because he knows better. “I know,” I tell her. “It just still sucks.”
“It does suck,” she agrees. Sighing, she adds, “Anyway, like I was saying before, I can’t send you pictures of Dom, but I send them to Maria. Maria will probably send some to Cherie. If Cherie sent them to you… well, that would be out of my hands, now wouldn’t it?”
Her little idea drags a smirk right out of me. “Look at you, plotting.”
“Hey, I found a loophole,” she says, shrugging innocently. “You have to promise you won’t make me regret it like last time I took a chance on you, though. No kidnapping, no craziness, no mischief. I’m not allowed to keep people alive anymore, so if anyone else messes up and crosses Mateo, my hands are tied. Especially you and Meg. I think I could save a stranger more easily than I could save either of you at this point. Mateo isn’t pleased with how far I’ve gone to try to save your asses and he’s fed up.”
“Yeah, I kind of got the impression he’d rather be burying me than my dad come Monday.”
She doesn’t even disagree.
“What about Meg? What’s she up to these days? I gathered your marriage is a two-person deal now, so no more sister wives?”
Mia shakes her head. “No more sister wives. That was done when I got home from Vegas. Mateo didn’t really want to do it anymore, and then when he thought he might’ve actually lost me… It just wasn’t working anymore.”
I nod, watching her. “So, Meg still comes to dinner—she still lives here, or is she just here for Easter?”
“She doesn’t come to dinner every night, she has a job now, but she still lives here. She didn’t want to live away from the kids and you know Mateo, he’s definitely not going to let his kids move out.”
I can’t help a faintly bitter scoff. Of course he never has to worry about being in my situation. He never has to worry about another man raising his kid, never has to watch someone live the life that should’ve been his. That bastard takes everything he wants and manages to keep it—whether he deserves it or not.
Mia sees my discontent and streamlines her explanation. “Anyway, so she still lives here, but she kind of does her own thing now. She works full-time at Meg’s Place, so that’s why she’s not around as much.”
I wait to see if she says anything else, but she doesn’t. I didn’t expect her to. If Mateo knew that Meg tipped me off on where to find Mia so I could take her away from him, Meg would be dead, not living under his roof and working at one of his businesses.
Of course. Bastard finds out everything else, but this slipped past him.
So now I have to tell him.
It was helpful when I was on the wrong side of things with her, but now I’m here on the floor watching Mia with my kid, and at a little over three-months-old, he’s doing a better job taking care of her than I ever did. But she needs to always be around to take care of him. I can’t keep my mouth shut and cover Meg’s ass, then come to find out her jealousy compelled her to do some shady shit like that again. It won’t be me next time. Suppose Mia gets hurt. Killed.
Nope, I have to tell Mateo.
I’m gonna wait, though. I don’t want to ruin Easter, and Meg isn’t going to pull anything between now and then. Mia doesn’t have any threatening suitors right now that I know of. Rafe has clearly had a taste of Mia in some way, whether in Vegas or Carly’s painful-to-imagine scenario, but he also slept with Laurel last night, so he’s not tangled up in her. He has clear affection for her, but he’s not stealing glances or obsessing, and he left her at the pool last night to openly go have sex with someone else.
Other threats could pop up, though. Mateo does occasionally miss stuff. It doesn’t happen a lot, but the man is not infallible, regardless of what he believes. If he doesn’t know Meg’s a threat, he can’t effectively protect Mia. As much as I hate talking to him, I guess it’s good I’m the one telling him. It would likely hurt Mia to know someone she thought of as her friend was willing to hurt her like that.
Mateo needs to know, though.
I’ll tell him Monday, after the funeral. Drop the bomb and leave, that way I don’t have to witness the fallout.