Page 53 of Vow

Andino tugged on the sleeves of his suit jacket, and shrugged. “Woke up late.”

Lies.

Dante didn’t look willing to argue, and Andino wasn’t about to go and offer his uncle the truth. So, unless the two of them wanted to stand there for any longer and discuss things that weren’t actually going to get discussed in any great detail, this seemed like a giant waste of Andino’s time.

And he hated wasting time.

Gesturing at the waiting restaurant, Andino asked, “Are we ready?”

Dante gave him another one of those looks. “Act appropriately today. The way I know your mother and father taught you to behave, Andino. This is important not just for you, but for her. Make her comfortable.”

That time, Andino did roll his eyes. He didn’t even try to hide it, and he didn’t give a single fuck what it made him look like.

“Do I seem like the kind of man who wants to make his future wife uncomfortable?”

Because yeah … that’s what he was there to do. Have breakfast and meet his wife-to-be for the first time.

Should be fun.

“I don’t know what kind of man you are sometimes, Andino,” his uncle murmured as he moved past him when Andino opened the front door.

Yeah, him either.

Funny how that worked.

“You know, your mother might have enjoyed being here this morning,” Dante said as a hostess directed them through the business. “You could have invited her along.”

Why?

So, then his mother could meet and try to like a woman that Andino had zero intention of actually being with, never mind making a life with?

That seemed … wrong.

“Just me today,” he said. “Had I been able to have this breakfast go my way, you wouldn’t even be here.”

Dante scowled again. “You’re in a mood, I see.”

He always was, lately.

“Dante, Andino. We thought you weren’t coming.”

All it took was the sound of Kev Calabrese’s voice drifting across the quiet restaurant for Dante to finally take his attention away from Andino. He was both grateful, and extremely fucking annoyed because of it, too.

Christ.

He hated the Calabrese brothers.

Kev and Darren stood on either side of a young woman who looked no older than twenty-one, or so. Hell, maybe she was younger than that.

Too young for me, Andino thought.

Nobody would care about that, though.

Kev was saying something else, but Andino tuned the man out. He didn’t give a shit what Kev had to say, or how the asshole wanted this whole breakfast to go down between them. He was more interested in the quiet woman with her gaze turned down toward the floor, and her shaking hands clasped tightly together at her middle.

Oh, they’d dressed her up, sure.

An appropriate purple number that showed off her curves, and womanly appeal. Her long, dark hair had been let down in soft waves, and someone had taken time to do her makeup with care to make her look natural and fresh. He could see that she’d taken her hair color and the shape of her mouth from her dead father, but the rest? He suspected that came from her mother.