by Sam Mariano
Mia looks like she’s going to choke on her food, but Mateo nods, not even perturbed. “Fair enough. I mean, he’ll be a corpse, but shake away.”
Dante glances from Vince to Mia, but he doesn’t comment. I’ve come to realize over the course of this meal that Mateo’s brother, while similarly handsome, does not have Mateo’s charisma. He rarely speaks and his dinner date looks tempted to stab him with her butter knife.
I realize no one is really speaking to his companion, so I attempt to offer an olive branch. “So, Colette, you’ve been here before?”
She nods, pushing her food around her plate. “Long time ago.”
“Not that long,” Dante mutters.
“A lifetime,” she says, glaring at him, but he doesn’t bother looking up at her.
Picking up on the obvious tension, Mateo says, “Things seem to be going well. Now here you are, Dante’s… companion again.”
“Prisoner,” she corrects, stabbing a glazed carrot. “The word you’re looking for is prisoner.”
Dante doesn’t bother refuting. He just reaches across the table for another dinner roll, unperturbed.
Mia nods, as if she understands.
I join in with a nod of my own, since, well, we’ve all been there.
“This is fun,” Vince remarks dryly. “You guys should come more often.”
“Hard pass,” Colette mutters.
“Damn,” I murmur, reaching for my wine, but stopping, going for my water instead.
Dante breathes in and then out, and when he exhales, I swear to God, I hear him growl. Glancing up, startled, I watch him finally glare over at this girl. She meets his gaze, but her eyes are still narrowed with dislike. Without another word, Dante pushes his chair back, confusing all of us, including the girl, until he grabs her by the arm and yanks her out of her chair, hauling her out into the hall.
Mateo merely watches with raised eyebrows, while Mia and I both sort of gape. I wonder if we should do something, but then, this is the Morelli house, so we should probably keep our noses out of it.
Mia cuts a glance at Mateo. “Jesus Christ, your brother is intense.”
“He’s making me feel like the fun one,” he says dryly.
Dante hauls her back in, but she still jerks her arm out of his grasp before dropping into the seat beside him. She is less mouthy through the rest of dinner though. I kind of feel bad for her; I wouldn’t want to be going home with him, and it doesn’t seem like she does either.
Chapter Twenty Four
I stare at the stick for several minutes before I fully accept the results.
I, Meg Milano, am carrying Mateo Morelli’s baby.
Biting back a grin, I go to deposit the evidence in the garbage. I stop just before dropping it in. Mateo wouldn’t miss a disposable pregnancy test tossed in the garbage can, and while he probably won’t come back to the bedroom before our date tonight, I don’t want to take the chance. He’s at the gym now, so it’s possible he’ll come back for a shower.
I shove the stick back into the box instead. It’s my first morning at the bakery, so I can just throw it away there.
Man, pregnant.
It hasn’t fully hit me yet. When I found out with Lily, that hadn’t been planned either, but there was a certain amount of horror then. Obviously I adore Lily and wouldn’t change it now, but at the time, I really didn’t want to be tied to Rodney for the rest of my life.
Having a little baby of Mateo’s, on the other hand, feels exciting. I love Mateo, and knowing he wanted more kids anyway, I’m actually excited to share this news with him. With Rodney, I hadn’t been sure of how he’d take it. He acted like he was pleased, but there was terror in his eyes.
Turns out for good reason, since he wasn’t cut out for the role.
But this… this is going to be different. This is going to be a real family, with this baby sealing together the little family it’s already felt like we had with our girls.
Maybe Mateo will finally get his son.
By the time I get dropped off at the bakery, I’m walking on sunshine. The baby news is finally starting to set in, and I’m picturing tiny little baby shoes on tiny little half-Mateo baby feet. I’m sort of glad I do have to be at the bakery, because there’s no way I would be able to keep this quiet until our date night if I would’ve been home today.
The bakery ends up being quite a bit of work. With Francesca gone, there was no one to make an order. The baker hasn’t even shown up in a week, because he showed up and couldn’t get in, so I have to call him after I get there to explain there’s been a management shift but we are open now, so if he still wants to work there, he can come on in and help me get things going.
Once he gets there, he helps fill me in on what I need to be doing. The bakery is dead most of the morning, possibly due to being closed for a week, possibly just because it’s a Monday morning. I have to make a supply order for a store I haven’t spent a single day in. I go with the numbers Francesca put down last, but I’ll need to look into the difference in orders between that week and this, not to mention reach out to all the people who had orders we should’ve fulfilled last week.
It’s a mess.
Since it is such a mess, Vince arrives to pick me up and it feels like I haven’t been there more than an hour.
“Already?” I ask.
He nods, checking his phone. “You’ve got a date.”
“I’m gonna need Mia this week,” I tell him, shaking my head. “It’s a mess in here. I have no idea what’s going on. Francesca literally just abandoned the place. So many people have yelled at me today. She made zero preparations. You guys still haven’t heard about her yet?”
He shakes his head, not looking pleased about it. “Still nothing.”
I hate to believe she really sold Mateo out, but it seems the most logical conclusion. Her bedroom was checked, but she has so many clothes, no one could be certain she hadn’t taken anything. If she did, she didn’t take more than could fit in a large handbag, because she was never seen taking any kind of luggage out of her room.
I can’t shake the worry that something happened to her instead, but then I recall her last words to me when I was in the basement, when she seemed so distressed that I was being punished in that way, telling me it would all be over soon. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but looking back, she probably meant when she disappeared, because Mateo would draw the obvious conclusions that he would’ve drawn, had he not been so worn down from the picture she painted for him of my affair with Salvatore Castellanos.
---
Riding in Mateo’s car on our way to date night, I start to recognize the path we’re taking. It’s not Adrian driving tonight, but when we turn onto the street where the piano bar was, I grin over at Mateo.
“I know where we’re going.”
“Do you, now?”
I nod, looking out the window to double check, but this is definitely the road we turned down that night. “Last time we sat in this car on the way to this place, I was so unexpectedly attracted to you and so afraid I was going to get caught.”
“Which you did,” he points out.
“Well, yeah.” Looking back at him, I ask, “How did you know, anyway?”
“The lipstick was the final straw.”
I nod. “That’s what I thought. Damn, you are an observant man.”
He raises an eyebrow, looking a little amused. “Your clumsy lies didn’t help. And, you know, I’m gonna be on guard anyway when I’m specifically requested at some insignificant bullshit like that. And then delivered a gift of a sexy woman who wants to be alone with me,” he adds, grimacing as if embarrassed for me. “Your whole plan was garbage, sweetheart.”
“Much like your sister wives plan,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.
“Now that’s a solid plan.”
“That’s a solid cube of garbage,” I state. Regardless of his garbage plan, I reach over to grab his hand, flashing him a smile. “I love your mind.”
“It wasn’t even my plan,” I tell him. “I thought the plan was… well, not garbage, but it had its faults. It got a lot more garbage-like when I realized you don’t drink anything you haven’t been looking at the whole time. My back story, now that was stinky garbage.”
“The avenging widow,” he says lightly, watching out the window as we pull up. “Here we are.”
Mateo climbs out of his seat so he can open the door for me, which I quite appreciate. I take his hand and climb out, grinning at the piano bar where we spent our first night together. I wonder if he’s going to drink this time.
Mateo stops outside though, instead of heading straight in. I don’t understand why at first, but then I look up and see the bar has been renamed. In neon blue lights, the new sign reads, “Meg’s Place.”
I gasp, covering my mouth. “You didn’t!”
Mateo watches me, smiling faintly. “Like it?”
I throw my arms around his neck, giving him a big kiss. “Hell yeah, I do.”
Nodding his approval, he tucks me into his side, locking his arm around my waist. “It’s gonna be Sinatra all night long.”
“You sure know the way to my heart.”
“Well, I think I found it before tonight,” he points out.
“Sure, but you can still get bonus points. You need them, actually; I’m sure you still have numerous ex-lovers paired off with various family members I haven’t met yet.”
He shoots me a dry, unamused look, but I just wink and smile back at him.
The place isn’t very crowded, and I’m glad. The left bar is fuller, but the right bar is pretty empty again, so we take a couple of seats over there.
“I can’t believe you really bought this place,” I tell him, shaking my head.
“I told you I would,” he says, signaling for the bartender.
I almost stop him, but it doesn’t feel like the right moment to tell him yet. He might figure it out, if he orders us drinks and I don’t touch mine.
“Are we doing dinner after this?” I ask, once he’s placed a drink order for both of us.
“Yes,” he says, glancing at me, his eyes raking over the shimmery gold dress I picked out for tonight. “You look gorgeous, have I told you that already?”
Smiling, I shake my head. “You haven’t, actually. You’re slacking, Morelli.”
“Can’t have that,” he remarks, hopping off the stool and grabbing my hand.
I glance back at the bartender, since our drinks haven’t even arrived yet, but I don’t hesitate to follow him. He finally hauls me out to the dance floor, and as the pianist starts playing I’ve Got the World on a String, Mateo tugs me close, gazing at me with such intensity that I think I might overflow with affection for him.
“What’s our wedding song gonna be?” he asks.
I laugh, caught off guard, my stomach dropping at the thrill of imagining actually marrying this man. “Our wedding song?”
“Mm hmm,” he murmurs, still watching me.
I can’t stop grinning, but I try to come up with an answer. “Um… I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
“Getting married, or the song?”
“Both?” Although I sort of hate to bring her up, I do anyway. “I know you were with Beth for a long time and you never married her. Thought maybe you weren’t the marrying kind.”
He considers my words, glancing over my head instead of at me. Finally, he nods. “I was never sure I was the marrying kind either, I guess, but I’m not opposed. You essentially agreed to marry me when you took the necklace,” he points out.
“I’m not the one I thought would be reluctant. I’ve already been married, and to someone far less impressive. Obviously I’m the marrying kind.”
“I hate that you were married before,” he admits. “I don’t like the idea of you promising forever to anyone but me.”
“We can pretend I wasn’t,” I offer. “It’s not like it was some grand romantic decision. I didn’t even wear a real wedding dress. I had this knee-length, black and white clearance prom dress in my closet that I bought for a birthday party once—that was my wedding dress.”
Mateo smirks, his brown eyes dancing with amusement. “Your wedding dress was black?”
I grin, nodding my head.
He shakes his head at me. “When we get married, you’re wearing white.”
My heart skips a beat, my grin widening until it almost aches. “When we get married? Aren’t you supposed to ask me first?”
“I thought about it. It’s not really my style though. Couldn’t even come up with a way that sounded right.” Nodding his head down and to the right, he says, “Reach into my pocket.”
It feels like my heart may fly right out of my chest as I reach into Mateo’s pocket, my fingers closing around a small box. “Are you serious?”
He smiles down at me as I pull it out, swallowing audibly. “I went to a few different places. I thought Tiffany’s, classic. But… I didn’t like any of them. I looked at a lot of rings, bigger rings, and I’ll trade up if I missed the mark, but when I saw this one, it just looked like it belonged on your finger.”
“Oh, my God, Mateo,” I murmur, looking at the ring box, somehow afraid to open it.
His hands fall from their places on my body. He stops, though the music is still playing, and takes the box from me. “All right, all right,” he says lightly. Cracking open the box, I get a brief glimpse of the ring, but then I can only look at his face as he asks, “Meg Milano, will you marry me?”
Excitement courses through me so aggressively that I can hear the adrenaline rushing through my body. To my horror, tears well in my eyes, but I’m just so goddamn happy.
Nodding in that stupid, giddy way I didn’t think girls really nodded during proposals, I somehow manage, “Yes, of course. Of course I will.”
Laughing as he extracts the ring from the box to slide on my finger, he asks, “Are you crying?”
“Leave me alone,” I say, laughing through the tears threatening to wobble over my eyelid and ruin my make-up.
This is the baby’s fault, I’m sure of it. I learned during my pregnancy with Lily, I’m highly sensitive in the first trimester of pregnancy, and any minor emotional trigger is likely to set me to crying. Once I share our good news, I’ll have to warn him.
The ring is absolutely gorgeous. I’m glad he didn’t get an enormous, showy ring that—honestly—I would’ve expected from him. This one is a gorgeous vintage-style ring, set in a platinum, diamond-encrusted band, split shank with a halo, a glittering cushion cut diamond at the center. When my favorite man in the world secures it on my finger, I flex my hand, admiring the way it glints in the light.
“Thank you so much, Mateo. It’s perfect,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him close. “I’m so happy,” I whisper in his ear.
Holding me a little tighter, he murmurs back, “Good.”
The song wraps up, and Sinatra’s My Way starts playing. I glance around the bar, happy that no one noticed. I wanted that moment just for us, not witnessed by a crowd of strangers. The pianist is smiling at us, but he doesn’t make a fuss.
Mateo sways with me again, bending his head to drop a few kisses along my neck. My eyes drift closed in pleasure as I stretch my neck to give his lips better access. There’s nothing better than the sensation of Mateo’s lips leaving a trail of kisses along my neck.
Well, almost nothing.
When he’s done, I lean my head on his shoulder, gazing off at nothing, realizing I am now the fiancée of Mateo Morelli. I’ve sure come a long way since the first time we came here. I literally own the place now, not to mention the heart of the man I was supposed to take down. I can’t help smirking a bit at that. I won’t wound his ginormous ego pointing it out, but let’s be honest—this man is all mine.
I hold my hand up so I can look at it in the light again, admiring my new engagement ring. I’m en
gaged. And pregnant. Man, I haven’t even got to share my news, and this is already the best night ever.
“In case you were wondering,” I tell him, “we’ve definitely reached dream date status.”
He chuckles, low and rough in my ear, and just the sound of it sends desire coursing through my veins. I’m just about to tell him we should cancel dinner and head straight home when my eye catches on one of the other patrons. Fear and shock coil through my gut as I realize why I recognize him.
Giantman.
The color drains out of my face and I can’t breathe.
He has a gun.
He’s pointing that gun at us.
Oh my god.
Without thought, without the capacity for words, I pull back, shoving Mateo with as much force as I can muster off to my right.
Scowling in confusion as he stumbles back away from me, he asks, “What—?”
Giantman’s face transforms with panic as the gun fires, and as I turn to follow/shove Mateo further off the dance floor, it feels like fire rips through my body, tearing me apart from the inside. It’s the sharpest stab of pain I’ve ever felt, but then it doesn’t stop.
Mateo’s face goes white, staring at me, his gaze dropping to my abdomen. “Meg.”
The pain won’t stop. I’m dizzy with it. There’s pandemonium in the bar—all the people are screaming and staring at me, shuffling away toward safety. I see our driver on top of Giantman, tackling him to the ground, pointing a gun at his head.
My legs give out, but Mateo catches me in his arms, sinking to the ground, his terrified eyes moving from my stomach to my face.
“Meg, hold on. Hold on.”
I don’t want to touch it. There’s so much blood. Oh my god, so much blood, so much pain.
It’s hard to keep my eyes open, hard to focus on anything but I look down and see blood staining the right side of my gold dress. It’s already spreading everywhere, but there’s a hole right where the bullet went through. Right in the stomach.
“Oh, God,” I whimper, tears running down my face.
“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay,” Mateo assures me, scooping me up in his arms and standing.
