“I had no choice.”
Dreams weren’t this limitless entity movies and books and politicians made them out to be. They were bound—by our opportunities, by our responsibilities, by the privileges we either possessed or lacked.
“You do now, Carina.” He entered a code into the door and led me into the substantial space. “If there’s anything I want for you, except to be with you for the rest of my life, it’s for you to follow your dreams and be happy.”
He had remembered. Our Spaghetti Sundays had always been my silly excuse to spend more time with him, but he had always treated them seriously, like they were practice for my future career as a chef.
The space was perfect for a restaurant. The location occupied prime South Beach real estate with generous foot traffic; the floor-to-ceiling windows offered loads of natural light; the massive space was more than enough to fill with tables and chairs; and past the peek-a-boo wall slot, I could see that the kitchen was enormous. This was a chef’s dream. It was my dream. But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
I turned to Ranie. “I can’t accept this from you.”
His defiant arms crossed over his chest. “Why the hell not?”
“We’re not even dating. We’re… we’re nothing, Ranie.” I paced the length of the floor. “I can’t accept something like this from someone I’m nothing to.”
“You’re not—” He reached for my shoulder and halted my movements. “Stop pacing, damn it.” With both hands on my shoulders, he leaned down and looked me in the eyes. “You’re not nothing, Carina. You’re everything, and I want you.”
I raised my chin. “Tell me the truth. Tell me what happened.”
“No.”
“If you cared about me, you would tell me the truth.”
“I can’t tell you the truth.” A frustrated groan tore past his lips. “I would if I could, but I can’t. And that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. It doesn’t mean anything other than I. Can’t. Tell. You.” He took a deep breath, his pinched expression drawing underserved pity from my weak heart. “You still love me. You’re in love with me. I see it in your eyes. I hear it when you speak to me. I feel it when you cave under my touch, like you did in the elevator.”
The elevator.
Where he hadn’t fought fair.
Where he had used my body against me.
Where he had used my desire against me.
Thanks for reminding me, asshole.
“You. This restaurant. Us.” I pushed my shoulders back, raised my head, and strengthened our eye contact, so he knew I was damned serious. “It’s a nice fantasy, but that’s all it is. Until you tell me what happened, none of this will ever be reality.”
I stepped back and turned away from him.
If he wouldn’t fight fair, neither would I.
* * *
* * *
The skirt of Gallo’s short sundress lifted as she walked up the plank to the private jet. I angled my body, so the bag courier behind me wouldn’t have a free show of the white lingerie set she wore underneath the dress.
“Gallo…” I warned.
She was wearing this skimpy dress to piss me off. Same reason she had walked out naked after her shower earlier, her back to me as she slid her lace white panties on. I had admired the way her pussy lips glistened when she bent over from behind, sandwiched between that perfect ass of hers, like the snack of my dreams.
And when she shimmied her panties up her long, slender legs, I could almost imagine her full breasts bouncing with each movement. From behind, I’d even caught the mouthwatering swing of her side boob. I had wanted to fuck her, and it took everything for me to not bend her over the bed and sink my cock into her tight, hot pussy.
She looked at me over her shoulder. “Yes?”
I spoke through gritted teeth, “Hurry up.”
She took the furthest seat from me, waved sweetly at the horny teen of a bag courier before he left, and shifted to face me. “I wasn’t aware we were in a rush.”
The plane doors closed. The stewardess poured a whiskey neat for me and a glass of water for Gallo. As soon as the stewardess dipped out of the compartment, Gallo parted her legs. The short skirt of her dress rose, exposing her underwear. A wet spot stained the center of her panties, and I wanted to suck it clean with my tongue.
I gripped my glass. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Tell me what happened to us, and you can have me. All of me.” She rose to her feet, determination evident in her eyes as she stalked toward me, and for a brief moment, I was proud of her for being so strong.
“You’re already mine.”
It was her turn to kneel before me. “I’m not yours to touch.”
“Careful,” I cautioned.
Because she was mine.
Always had been.
She placed a palm on each of my suit-clad thighs. “I’m not yours to kiss.” Her hands slid upward, stopping short of my painfully hard cock. “And I’m not yours to fuck.” Her fingers brushed my belt buckle, the proposition clear as day. “But I could be.”
“I can’t tell you what happened.”
She slid the leather out of the metal loop. “Why not?”
I downed the whiskey, never needing liquid strength more than I did now. “It’s not my secret to tell.”
She unzipped my pants. “If it involves you and me, it’s just as much ours as it is anyone else’s.”
I gripped the handles of my seat. “I made a promise.”
She tugged on the edge of my boxer briefs, and my cock popped free and bobbed against her cheek, nearly the length of her face. It was the hottest thing I had ever seen, and I swore, if the CIA sent Carina Gallo to Guantanamo, she would have all those inmates spilling their dirtiest secrets by sunset. Not that I would ever fucking let that happen.
Her warm breath stroked my cock as she spoke, “To who?”
She eyed my cock like every man dreamed a woman would look at his cock—like she had been gifted the holy grail, and she wasn’t quite sure she could fit it all in her tight… pocket. Her eyes widened with lust she either couldn’t or didn’t bother to conceal, and determination lurked behind those pretty Mazarine-blue orbs.
“To who?” she repeated before she wrapped her plump lips around my cock and took me deep into her mouth until my head brushed the back of her throat.
Oh, fuck.
I closed my eyes and groaned. “To your father.”
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
She pulled back immediately. “My father?”
My cock was hard and bare in front of her, and we were Talking. About. Her. Father. It was almost shameful how my erection didn’t whither a centimeter. “Fuck. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“My father,” she repeated. Dumbfounded.
I think I’d shocked her. I slid my Calvin Kleins over my rigid erection, slightly embarrassed. My cock had been pressed hard against her tonsils, and it was her father that had shocked her.
Ego, meet blow.
My throat bobbed. “Forget it.”
“I can’t.”
“Carina.” I reached for her hands.
She yanked them away and crossed her arms. “Tell me everything. Now. Or we’re done, and I’m gone.”
I gritted my teeth and kept silent.
Fuck my dad.
Fuck Niccolaio.
And fuck Piero Gallo.
For the rest of the plane ride, she sat as far from me as she could, her face turned out the window. She didn’t speak when we landed. She didn’t speak when I dropped her off. And she didn’t speak when I asked her, like a fucking High School Musical reject, when I’d see her next.
I had my chance—two chances, in fact—and I’d ruined them both.
I ruined her.
* * *
At the heart of all anger,
all grudges, and all resentment,
you’ll always find a fear that
hopes to stay anonymous.
Donald L. Hicks
* * *
“I have something to tell you.”
I needed to confront my dad, but gravity coated Brody’s features. Plus, he had been waiting for me outside my front door for who knew how long, so I nodded for him to continue as I turned the lock to my door and entered my studio apartment.
He cleared his throat as he followed behind me. “I saw Ranie talking to your dad a short while back.”
I had been taking off my heels, but at his words, I froze. “When?”
“Before you told me that you had seen him again.”
I kicked off my shoes, turned to face Brody, and placed my balled fists on my hips. “And why didn’t you tell me?”
“The guy fucked you over, and it took you forever to heal.” He scowled. “Why would I want to talk about him?
I still wasn’t healed. Ranie was a scar, branded on my skin over the twenty plus years that I had known him, and each second that passed, the scar only deepened. It may have been invisible, but I felt it.
It was raised and shaped like the dozen almost-kisses we had shared in middle school; the friendship he had bestowed upon me only to rip love from my fingers; and the lies that continued to pile between us, like a towering stack of rejected clothes after Spring cleaning, until I could no longer see the boy I had once known.
“Fair enough.” I left my shitty suitcase at the door and plopped onto my bed, precisely two-point-three steps away from the welcome mat.
Brody laid down next to me, like he had always done in the past, since there was no room in my studio apartment for a couch that would fit more than my left butt cheek. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault I have awful taste in guys.” I leaned my head on his shoulder. “But not in friends.” I glanced up at him. “Seriously, I have no clue what I would do without you.”
He turned to his side, so he was hovered slightly above me. When he leaned forward, and his eyes slid shut, I jerked back. I was flustered, unsure of what to say.
His eyes popped open and took in the dismay all over my face. He jumped off the bed. “I’m sorry.”
I took a step back. “What was that?”
He took a step toward me. “I—”
I held up a hand. “You just tried to kiss me.”
“I’m sor—”
I couldn’t let him speak. I was afraid of what he would say. “Can you leave? Please? I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“C, I—”
“Please.”
“But Carina, I—”
“Now, Brody! I can’t—”
“I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU!”
My jaw dropped. Was everyone in my life hiding something from me?
He took a step closer. “Say something.”
I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want to lead him on either. Clearly, I had been doing something wrong the past eleven years. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you love me, too.”
I gentled my voice. “But I don’t.” I swallowed. Hard. “How long have you been in love with me?”
His gaze shifted to the wall above my head, where some horrible IKEA painting hung in my lame attempt at prettying up this dump. “Pretty much since I met you.”
I wanted to scoff, but I refrained. Barely. “Love at first sight?”
“You were just so lonely, and vulnerable, and heartbreaking in that cafeteria.”
My brows shot up. “You fell in love with me because I’m broken?”
“I fell in love with you after that.” He sucked in a breath. “No, you weren’t broken. You were sad, and I approached you because I wanted to be the one to make the pretty, lonely girl happy.”
Maybe it was the look on my face, but when I asked him to leave again, he listened. His words had been… sweet? Creepy? I didn’t know, but I also didn’t want to deal with it. Because it all came back to Ranie.
Brody had been right the first time.
I was broken, and Ranie had been the one to break me.
* * *
* * *
I waited four hours in Dad’s kitchen before he got home from work. He had a studio like me. It wasn’t the two-bedroom I had grown up in, but it was the same building. Once I had moved out, the owner had given us side-by-side studio apartments at a discount rate.
Small mercies.
Dad tossed his keys on the hook. “What are you doing here?”
I nodded to the bowl of spaghetti at the placemat across from me. It was long cold by now, but I wasn’t in the mood to heat it up for him. “Eat.”
He grabbed a fork and sat down. “Spaghetti?”
“It’s Sunday.” I watched as he twisted the noodles around the fork and stuffed spaghetti into his mouth.
He spoke around a mouthful of food. “It’s cold.”
“You were late.”
“Didn’t know you were waiting on me.”
I tilted my head to the side, scrutinized him, and said as he was mid-swallow, “I was with Ranie. We spent the weekend together in South Beach.”
He choked on the spaghetti. I waited a few seconds before I stood and grabbed him a glass of water.
He took a sip. “Thanks.”
“Why did you lie to me?” I figured if I didn’t say about what, he would fill in the blanks for me.
His face paled, and he dropped the fork he had been holding. “He told you?”
“Yes,” I lied. “What I want to know is why I had to hear it from him and not you.”
He pulled his chair back and stood abruptly, sending it tumbling to the floor with a violent crash. “I can’t talk about this with you.”
My arms crossed, and my heavy gaze never wavered. “If you want me in your life, there’s no other option.” Was I prepared to follow through on my threat? Damned if I knew. But the secrets had ruined my past, and I wouldn’t let them ruin my future.
“Honey, no—”
“Why, Dad?!” In my twenty-five years of life, I had never raised my voice at Dad, yet my voice rang loudly in the small apartment, rattling us both.
He quietly righted his chair and sat down. The slump of his shoulders stabbed my heart. “I couldn’t tell my daughter her mom had an affair with her best friend’s dad.”
It was my turn to pale.
He took in my face. “You didn’t know.”
“Dad, I need you to stop lying.” My hands tightened into fists, but I hid them under the dining table. “I don’t know who you’re protecting at this point, but it sure as hell isn’t me.”
“Honey, I can’t—”
“You will, or I’m gone.” It was time to start putting myself first. People treated you based on your expectations for them, and I wouldn’t be persuaded into expecting less.
He swallowed his words, and silence descended upon us. “Your mother met Cristiano Andretti when she picked you up from Ranie’s. She started… seeing him after that, every time she came to pick you up.”
I lowered my eyes. I remembered how dressed up she would be when she came to pick me up. I had even told her once how pretty she looked when she showed up with her flowing dress, curled hair, and red lipstick.
She disappeared “to the restroom” for an hour, and I hadn’t thought anything of it because I was too busy playing with Ranie, and I was too young to know what any of it meant anyway.
When it was clear Dad had no intentions of continuing, I scoffed. “I’ve been here every day for you for the past twenty-five years, and you’re still keeping Mom’s secrets. You’re still loyal to her.”
Dad pushed the bowl away from him. The fork fell out the side and clattered to the floor. “It isn’t your mom’s secret. It’s mine!” He lowered his voice until he no longer shouted at me, but his words only cut deeper. “I wasn’t enough.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it really? Look at this place. You’ve said it yourself, time and time again.” He gestured widely across the apartment. “Your mom wanted more. She deserved more! So, when Cristiano asked your mom to leav
e us, she did.”
“Stop making excuses for her dad! I was ten! Ten! She had no right to leave.”
“He gave her the glamorous life she always wanted. The life she deserved.”
“And you gave her a family.”
Inadequacy tugged the edges of my heart, but I pushed it away. If there was anything I knew for certain, it was that I was wanted. Ranie had spent the past two days confirming what I should’ve already known. It was Dad’s turn to figure it out, and I hoped, for both our sakes, that he would.
Dad averted his eyes. Guilt—so much guilt—consumed them. “He had her set up in a penthouse apartment on the opposite end of Miami Beach, but a couple years passed, and she was lonely and wanted to come back home.”
He swallowed. “We were working things out. Cristiano didn’t want her gone, so he tried to show her how,” his throat bobbed, “I wasn’t enough for her. Not enough looks. Not enough flash. Not enough money. When you were in eighth grade, honey, Cristiano had his goons coming around. Protection money, they’d called it. And I paid it. It was so much money, and I paid it. I just wanted you safe.”
“But you couldn’t keep up the payments,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Where’s Mom now?”
Cristiano was gone. There was no reason for her not to come home.
Dad shrugged, something that looked too much like pain brimming in his eyes. “I don’t know. I always figured she was maybe too ashamed about what she’d done.”
I stirred in my seat. “Why are you pining over her? Why don’t you sell the store and leave this shitty town? You’re hemorrhaging money left and right,” I gestured at the apartment, “and look at where we live! You could buy a nice ranch in a cheap state and retire with the money from selling the store. Maybe find someone to love again, Dad.”
“But I love her.”
I couldn’t reason with that.
I knew firsthand what illogical love felt like.
I shifted the conversation. “What did all of this have to do with Ranie and me?”
“Cristiano gave us an ultimatum. If Ranie stopped spending time with you, he would drop the protection fee.”
Ranieri Andretti: A Second-Chance, Enemies-to-Lovers Mafia Romance Novella (The Five Syndicates Book 3) Page 8
