“I’ll join you,” Stefano says immediately.
“I only need your ears,” Maverick explains. “You always know when people are lying, and when we bring Victor in, I want to know he speaks the truth. I won’t ask you to be part of anything else. I know you hate it.”
Something soft passes over Stefano’s face.
“I trust you,fratellino.” He sets his tiny cup in the sink. “I’ll go get ready and meet you in the foyer in thirty minutes.”
Maverick watches him leave.
“He’s too soft for this part of our lives,” Maverick says. “I wish like hell I had his ear so I didn’t have to ask him for this.”
“Really?” I ask. “He seems pretty sturdy to me. He’s your twin, after all.”
“Yeah.” Maverick sighs, reaching for my cup. “That’s why people always assume he’s either me or he’s like me.”
Before I realize what he’s doing, he takes a drink of my coffee and his entire face changes.
His brows draw together. His mouth tightens. Then he looks down into the mug like it personally betrayed him.
“What is this blasphemy?”
I gasp as he dumps my coffee into the sink.
“Thatwasmy morning elixir.”
“That was water with cream.”
I glare at him. “What is it with you Moretti men making my coffee feel bad for simply existing?”
“It has feelings?” he asks, arching a single eyebrow.
I am way too frustrated to acknowledge how sexy that is.
Mostly.
“Back to Stefano,” I say, pulling stuff out to make another coffee. “You said people assume he’s like you.”
“He is gentle,” Maverick says. “Loving. Compassionate.”
“You’re all those things too,” I frown.
His expression softens.
“Yes,bella. With you. With Olivia. With the people I love.”
He steps closer, and suddenly the kitchen feels much smaller than it did a second ago, and I forget all about all things coffee.
“But I’m also hard where he’s soft. Stefano hates being in charge. He hates being ruthless, even when ruthlessness is necessary.” His thumb brushes along my jaw. “I thrive on it.”
I swallow.
Then, because I apparently enjoy flirting with danger, I smirk.
“Hard and ruthless, huh?”
His eyes darken.
“Careful, Amelia.”
