by Nikki Chase
“Eventually he’ll find out, when I bring you home with me.” Matteo reaches out to stroke my cheek with his warm fingers.
That’s when it dawns on me. “You’re not really going to just leave me alone, are you?”
“No,” he answers without missing a beat.
“Why?” I ask. “Why are you so hell-bent on finding me?”
His gaze softens. “Why are you so hell-bent on losing me?”
“I told you I’ve built a life here. I have Jack to think about. I can’t just uproot everything and go home like these four years have never happened.”
“Why not?” he asks. “You know what the odds are of us meeting like that at the club? And you know what the odds are of me finding you again, after all these years?”
I stare at him. “And your point is . . .?”
“Don’t you believe in fate, kitten? We’re supposed to be together.”
I laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“You’re just too scared to admit it to yourself,” he says. “So what if you have a son? I don’t care. We’ll raise him together.”
“You just want me to go home to end the war.” A familiar rage burns in my belly.
I was born to fulfill a purpose—to be used as a pawn in my dad’s dangerous game. But I’ve always hated that role. I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself. So screw fate.
“And what’s wrong with that?” Matteo asks, his thick eyebrows knitting together. His voice grows in volume. “Do you have any idea how many people have died in the war? On both sides? Are you so self-centered that you’d sacrifice all those lives just so you can keep running away from your responsibilities?”
“Fuck you.” I don’t usually curse, but I’ve just found out that I’ve lost my freedom, and I’m back to square one.
Matteo raises an eyebrow. “Is that what you have to say to all the men who have lost their lives to the war? ‘Fuck you’?”
“It’s not my war. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.” Before I can stop myself, the words flow out of my mouth, like a dam bursting with water. “Why should I be the one to sacrifice my whole life to end it?
“Why can’t our dads just marry each other if they want to make peace that much? Two men can get married now if they want to.
“So yeah. Fuck. You.”
A lump wedges itself in my throat. If I stay here any longer, I’m going to cry. And I’m not crying in front of the man who has snatched away the freedom I’ve fought so hard for.
So I turn on my heels and march back into the house, locking the door behind me. I’d rather be taking a cab far, far away from here. But Matteo will never let me out of his sight.
Fuck him.
Matteo
When Grace cracks her door open, the sun hangs low in the sky. The apple-green stroller casts a long shadow on the walkway that almost reaches the gate.
She walks at a brisk pace, her eyes darting to my car as she approaches the sidewalk.
Oh, no. You’re not slipping away just like that, kitten.
I jump out of the car, plucking the key from the ignition in case I’ll have to chase after her on foot.
“Hey, need a ride?” I ask.
“What are you still doing here?” Grace wraps one hand around the stroller handle as she turns around to lock the gate.
I crouch down. “Hi, Jack. Looks pretty cozy in there.”
“It’s okay,” he says, unimpressed. He’s got his mom’s attitude.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Grace hisses.
Ignoring her, I ask Jack, “Where are you going?”
“To the park,” he says in the same monotone voice a middle-aged man would tell a neighbor he’s going to his dull, uninspiring office. “And the store. Mommy says there’s no food anymore.”
“Is that right?” I glance up and grin. To my surprise, Grace isn’t scowling at me. She’s just staring with shallow breaths, a strange expression on her face. “Do you want to go for ice cream, Jack?”
“Ice cream?” His eyes light up. Clearly, this is a little boy who doesn’t get to indulge often.
“Yeah. You want ice cream?” I raise my eyebrow at Grace, who’s still got her gaze fixed on us.
“Ice cream!” Jack yells out in a shrill, high-pitched voice.
“Well, this is happening now.” Laughing, I reach my hands out and pick Jack up.
Luckily, the rental car comes with a child booster seat that some bored employee must’ve forgotten to take out. Another sign that fate is on my side.
Grace’s lips have thinned into a straight line, but other than that, her face is a mask of neutrality. To my surprise, she even helps me strap Jack into his seat and fold the stroller.
“So where’s the best place to get some ice cream around here?” I ask when we’re all in the car.
Grace mumbles the name of a restaurant, and I punch the name into the GPS. It’s a short ride of about fifteen minutes, during which Grace keeps her silence, and Jack excitedly babbles unintelligible words behind us.
Grace continues to ignore me while Jack sits in his high chair, devouring his ice cream, smearing bits of chocolate around his mouth. Every once in a while, Grace grabs a paper napkin from the bag stowed under his green stroller to clean his face. It doesn’t take long for Jack to pass out from ice cream overload, a big smile on his face.
“He’s adorable,” I tell Grace.
“I know,” she says flatly
“Look. I’m sorry about yesterday. I . . .” I blink as ugly, bloody memories flash in my mind. “The past four years have been bad. I’ve been neck deep in the war. I’ve lost friends. People I knew since childhood have died.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she says in a softer voice.
“It’s always seemed to me that I—we could’ve resolved this conflict. Easily. It’s not like we didn’t have chemistry. We could give it a go, at least.”
“You know it’s not something we can just walk away from if things don’t work out,” she says. “Our marriage would’ve been a business merger.”
I shake my head. “That’s not how I see it. Not since I found out you were the woman I was supposed to marry.”
“Then how do you see it?”
I gaze into her sweet eyes. “Nobody had ever made me feel the way you do, and I was supposed to marry you, and our wedding was going to end this terrible war that had already taken so many lives. It was perfect, Grace. We even had the chance to meet and get to know each other outside the context of our families.”
She glances away, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“I guess I didn’t try to see it from your perspective.” I take a deep breath. “I’ve had four years to get used to the facts. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of making things right again. I thought you’d realize we belong together as soon as we meet again.”
Grace remains quiet. I’m normally good at reading people, but she’s completely opaque. Must be all that practice dodging people’s questions, hiding her real identity.
Jack coughs in his sleep, and Grace tends to him right away, checking that he’s okay.
I’ve imagined this before so many times, Grace and me and a baby, spending an afternoon together—only in my mind, the baby is mine.
Jealousy squeezes my chest as the thought of Grace with another man invades my mind. Whoever he is, he must’ve been a moron for letting someone like her go.
“Grace, I’m sorry.” I grasp her hand and smile when she lets me. “I was angry yesterday. But you’re right; it wasn’t your fault the war started, and it’s not your responsibility to end it.”
Her gaze softens.
“I guess I was also jealous that you had a baby,” I admit. “Obviously, you saw someone, and it was serious enough for you to have a kid together. This is going to sound dumb, but I, uh, haven’t seen anyone else since I met you.”
“No one? Not even a one night stand?” she asks, an incredulous frown creasing her forehead.
“N
one.”
Grace’s lips part. “I, um . . .”
“What is it?” I ask. “Go on. You can laugh at my dry spell.”
“It’s not that.” Her chest heaves as she fills her lungs with air. “I should apologize too.”
“What for?”
“I didn’t . . . I haven’t seen anyone either. Since that night at the club,” she blurts out as though she’s afraid she’ll change her mind about telling me halfway through.
She hasn’t . . .?
But that means . . .
My gaze flicks between Grace and Jack as a million thoughts rush through my mind.
The realization hits me like a freight train.
Jack . . . He’s . . .
Fuck.
I get up. I hear the sound of my chair hitting the tiled floor, but it’s so far away.
“Jack is . . . He’s mine?”
Grace nods, her eyes fixed on me.
That’s good news, right? I should be happy?
But as I grip the door handle and yank it open, my head spins violently. I drag air into my constricted lungs, letting the oxygen flood my system, hoping it’ll help quell the anger rising up inside me like an unstoppable tide.
My hands clench into fists. No. I need to rein myself in. There’s a baby—my baby—and I can’t have him wake up to the sight of me blowing up in a rage.
“Sorry,” I hear a soft whisper.
Sorry?
I have a baby, and I didn’t know about it for four years. Four fucking years I’ll never get back.
I missed his birth, his first word, his first step. A million moments slipped through my fingers without me even realizing it.
When the screaming in my head stops, I turn to find Grace and Jack already gone. The woman I love, and my firstborn son. My family.
I have a family.
And I need to find them. Lay my claim to them. Bring them home with me.
Get it fucking together.
I narrow my eyes and find the bright-green stroller on the sidewalk across the street, moving away from me. Grace’s hips tick from side to side as if to remind me I don’t have all the time in the world. She raises her hand up to her face. Is she wiping away her tears?
Breaking into a run, I catch up to them. “Grace.”
Grace’s eyes are red, and so is her nose, but she puts on a brave face. She probably didn’t want to cry in front of strangers in some ice cream shop. She’s too proud for that. She’s too proud to let me see her breaking down too.
“If you’re going to freak out, I’m going home,” she says. “Jack doesn’t need to see that.”
I run in front of the stroller and block her path. Jack’s still asleep. My son is still asleep. Anger flares hotly in my chest, but I can control the burn now.
“I agree he doesn’t need to see that,” I say through gritted teeth. “But I can’t let you just walk away after revealing something like that. You don’t get to walk away every time something gets difficult.”
Grace stares at me, unflinching.
“Look, I didn’t mean to scare him, and it looks like he’s still asleep, so no harm done, right?” I ask. “I’ll take you home. We’ll talk there.”
Grace opens her mouth but changes her mind and follows me toward the car. I didn’t think a car ride could possibly be quieter than the one before, but this one is. No one says a peep.
Too many thoughts swirl in my mind, forming a tornado that destroys everything in its path. I have to focus all my attention just to drive us back to Grace’s house.
Thankfully, Jack’s a good sleeper. His chest rises and falls regularly with his breathing as he lies in his crib with me and Grace looking down at him.
That’s my son. My chest tightens with emotions. God, look at him, all tiny and perfect. How did I not see the family resemblance? The little curve of his lips makes him look like my mom.
I can’t wait until my parents find out they’re grandparents now.
Glancing at Grace, I find her staring at me, watching me closely. “We need to talk,” I whisper.
Grace nods. She leads the way to the kitchen, asks me if I want anything to drink, and pours us two glasses of iced tea.
She leads the way to her living room. A thick, colorful rug in primary colors takes up half the space. A red truck is parked by a picture of a dinosaur.
“It’s, uh, the fire truck is rescuing the dinosaur,” Grace explains when she notices the line of my vision.
A smile plays on my lips as I follow her to the couch.
“Let me explain,” she says. “I was in a bind, Matteo. I was pregnant with a stranger’s baby, and I was supposed to be married off to a mobster. Doesn’t sound like the kind of reasonable guy who’d be okay with something like that. I had no choice.”
“That’s why you faked your own death?”
Grace nods. “If I wanted to raise the baby, I had to get away from my family, from your family. I had to shed my old identity. Because the old me had to live under very strict rules. There was no question in my mind that I would’ve been forced to . . . end the pregnancy if it was ever discovered.” Grace’s voice breaks, but she regains her composure. “I can’t imagine my life without Jack, Matteo.”
“I understand that.” I suck air into my lungs. “But that means you should understand my anger too. I’ve spent the last four years not even realizing I had a son.”
“I wanted to tell you thousands of times over these past four years. I swear,” she says, guilt flashing in her green eyes. “But I had to cut all ties with my past. I thought if anyone from the Guerriero family ever found me, they’d kill me and my baby without even asking any questions. I couldn’t risk that, even if the risk was miniscule.”
That does sound like something my family would do. “If you had called me—”
“I threw away my phone, along with all the numbers I had in it when I ‘died.’ I left everything I knew behind. I didn’t expect to see anything familiar ever again.” She gazes at me. “And then, you appeared. Matteo Guerriero. And I didn’t expect that name to belong to you.”
“You were only doing the best you could.” I take her hand in mine. It’s shaking. Looking up at her face, I marvel at what a good job she’s doing at hiding her anxiety. “I just can’t help thinking . . . If you had called me, and we had cleared up everything in the beginning, we could’ve skipped all this mess. You wouldn’t have had to fake your own death. Jack would’ve been able to spend his first years surrounded by family.”
Grace hesitates. “I don’t know, Matteo. That sounds too good to be true.”
“Sometimes things are just right. Like you and me. How can you still have doubts about us, after everything that we’ve been through?”
“But what if things go wrong? Aren’t you being a little naïve? How can you be so sure?”
I stare at her. How can I be so sure?
All the words in the world won’t make her see what I know to be true. It’s time to stop explaining and start showing her what I mean.
I grab her by the waist and pull her up onto my lap, letting her slide down until she’s sitting between my thighs.
“What are you doing?” Grace asks, struggling to get away.
“Stay,” I order. My men know I mean business when I speak like this, and my woman should learn to listen.
“Let go of me,” she says in an unconvincing tone.
Snaking my arm around her, I pull her back until she loses her balance and leans against my chest.
I bury my face in her soft hair, and the scent of wild jasmine fills my lungs. I remember that from the first time we met. The memory sends blood rushing to my cock.
“Is your neck still as sensitive as I remember, kitten?” I press my lips against her skin and taste her. Judging by the cute little gasp she makes, the answer is most probably yes.
Grace seizes my arms and sinks her nails into my flesh in a token show of struggle. But when she speaks, her voice is husky from arousal. “What do you thi
nk you’re doing?”
I wrap my hand around her throat and drag my lips up her neck. “What do you think you’re doing . . . Sir.”
When she swallows, I can feel her throat undulating under my fingers.
“Do you understand me, kitten?” I whisper, knowing my breath is tickling her ear and sending pleasant tingles straight down to her center.
Grace hesitates. But when she opens her mouth, her voice makes my cock strain the zipper of my pants. “Yes, Sir.”
“You have safe words, kitten. Red if you need me to stop and yellow if you want me to slow down. But we both know you don’t want to use them.”
Her breath catches when I bite the flesh on her neck. “Yes, Sir,” she moans.
“Very good.” I undo the fly of her skinny jeans. “Take them off.”
Without a word, Grace wiggles out of her jeans, her hips grazing against the hard-on tenting my jeans. She’s squirming more than she needs to. She thinks she’s doing it subtly enough so I won’t notice, but I do.
She hasn’t taken her panties off. I should punish her for that, but I’ll do that next time. This woman will spend the rest of her life beside me; we have all the time in the world.
I press my palm against her mound. Fuck, the crotch of her panties is soaked. “You don’t really want me to let you go, do you, kitten?”
Grace shakes her head, her lips parting as I rub my fingers over her panties.
“You like that, kitten?”
She nods.
Lightly, I hit her pussy with my open palm. She whimpers—the sexy sound makes my cock jump in my pants. “You’re a big girl. Use your words. And don’t forget to address me correctly. Now, tell me.” I rest my hand over her pussy, letting the heat soothe her stinging skin. “Do you like this?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good girl. Now take off the rest of your clothes and grab my drink for me.”
I loosen my grip, just enough for Grace to lean forward and reach the glass on the coffee table. Her ass grinds against my throbbing cock.
Waiting is torture. But this is not about me. I want to show Grace she belongs with me. I blindfold her with my tie and take the glass of cold drink from her hand. I’ll take this as slow as I have to, even if my dick is aching for some action.
