Page 122 of Effortless

Camilla cleared her throat. “I … never really asked Tommaso, to be honest.”

“Why?”

“Because it didn’t matter to me if he was connected, or not. It didn’t make a difference to how he treated me, or the things he did for me. I knew he was a good man, and the rest were just details.”

Abriella’s hands slowed in her work. “What made you come to that conclusion?”

“I was raised by a good man who lives in shades of gray. To people who only see his name come up on the news, he’s a criminal. He sells drugs, evades taxes, and puts guns on the streets. But to me, he is just my dad. It was the way he treated me that mattered. Not the rest.”

As she spoke, Camilla kept her gaze focused on the next dough she was rolling into a perfect loaf just the way her mother had taught her. It was easier to be honest that way, as then she could simply speak and not worry about how her words might sound to Abriella.

“You didn’t consider at all that Tommaso is the son of a boss—the only son? That someday, he might sit where his father does because those expectations have followed him around for his entire life?”

“Not really,” Camilla said.

She knew, of course. She wasn’t a stupid girl.

Camilla just didn’t think it mattered.

“Do you think that’s because you’re a bit naive, or perhaps you grew up in this world of … business?”

“Definitely not naive,” Camilla replied.

“And the other one?”

Well …

Camilla didn’t think it was entirely because she grew up inside the suffocating world of Mafiosi, either.

It was something else entirely.

“As long as he loves me, then I don’t care about the rest,” Camilla said, finally looking up to meet Abriella’s gaze. “I never went looking for a man who lives his life on the right side of the law. I never went looking for a man at all. A good man found me and something about me was good enough for him. That’s all I want to know. It’s all I needed to know about Tommaso.”

Camilla sighed. “That doesn’t mean I went into this blind, or that I’m moving forward with blinders on, either. It just means I know what I signed up for here.”

“Do you? Do you know how hard it is to love a man who can be taken away with one misstep—in a single second? Do you know how difficult it is to build a life around a man whose very nature could leave you entirely without because he is not an easy man?”

“I do now,” Camilla said.

It was scary.

It was also their life.

“And?” Abriella asked.

“And I still love him.”

Once more, Abriella reached across the counter, and patted a floury hand against Camilla’s cheek. “I like you, Camilla Donati.”

“Do you?”

“It’s hard not to.”

Tommaso’s mother smiled in a way that said she knew something Camilla didn’t.

“I can see why he found you,” Abriella murmured. Then, louder, she added, “You can stop hiding around the corner, Tommaso. I know you’re out there, son.”

Sure enough, Tommaso stepped into the entryway of the kitchen. His striking blue gaze fell on Camilla, but his face was blank. No emotion—nothing to give away he had been listening in to their conversation.