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"—Is very important. It’s part of the memory we’re helping her make." She holds my gaze, trying to convey that I should shut up now and go with the flow.
I blow out a breath. "Fine, fine. I’ll do it for Jeanne."
Massimo holds the door open and I follow Penny inside. That very male scent of spice and citrus and wood smoke seems to wrap itself around me as I walk past him.His fingers around my neck, his chest flattened to my back, every striated pec of his imprinted on my skin as he’d bent me over and thrust into me... Stop it, just stop. He’s part of the Mafia.Part of the life I swore to leave behind. I want nothing to do with his kind.
Mafioso come across as macho and charismatic. You can’t resist their sheer maleness. But I’ve seen how they treat their women. How they cloister them and refuse to allow them to make up their own minds. How they treat them like possessions and deprive them of choice.
My father was an outlier when it came to his daughters. But with his wife, he was as traditional as the rest of the Mafia men. She was an actress, until she met him. She sacrificed her career for him and her children. Grew bitter because of it. Yet, she was so firmly transformed that she wanted the very same for her daughters—security, marriage, staying in the community. Not me, though. I broke down that wall and escaped, and I’m not going to be dragged back into it again.
Something brushes against my ankle. I glance down to see a beautiful Savannah brush up against me. "Hey you," I bend down and rub the cat’s head. "Where did you come from?"
"Andy found you, eh?" A dark-haired woman walks over to greet us.
"Karma." Massimo closes the distance to her and kisses her cheek.
"Hey, you!" She smiles up at him, her eyes sparkling.
Something heavy crashes into my chest. It presses down on my lungs, and I can’t breathe. I tuck my elbows into my sides and try to regain my composure. Who is she? Wife? Girlfriend? Mistress?
"How’s the little guy, or is it a girl, doing?" Massimo touches her stomach. His movements have a familiarity to them that hint he knows her well.
That heaviness intensifies until it feels like my very body is being dragged to the floor.Is it his? Is she pregnant with his child? And the asshole slept with me?I curl my fingers into fists.
"It’s too early to tell," she laughs, her skin positively glowing.
He takes her hand between both of his, then turns to face us. "Meet Karma, my sister-in-law, and the designer of your bridesmaids’ dresses."
"Your sister-in-law?" I blink.
He smirks. "What did you think?" he murmurs, watching me closely.
"I didn’t. I mean, I thought... I mean—" I toss my hair over my shoulder and turn to Karma. "Are those your creations in the window."
"They are; you like?"
"Very much." I laugh.
Andy mewls and Karma narrows her gaze on him. "You’ve already had your snack. Nothing more until dinnertime. You’re putting on too much weight."
He walks over to Massimo, who scoops him by the scruff of his neck and places him on his shoulder. He nods at Karma. "Why don’t you take them inside and show them the dresses?"
9
Massimo
"What do you think?"
I glance up from my phone and my jaw drops.
After Karma took Via—she’ll always be Via to me—and Penny inside, the shop assistant showed me to the waiting area. I decided to use the time to catch up on work. With my oldest brother, Michael, wanting to legalize theCosa Nostrabusiness, I’ve been involved in many of the intricacies that come with that. Before I realized it, forty-five minutes had passed. I was about to ask the shop assistant to ask Karma how much longer it’d take, when Via stepped out from behind the door that separated the waiting room from the atelier.
I take in her curvy figure draped in a dress with long sleeves and a bodice like a corset, not dissimilar to what she was wearing the day we met. It nips in at the waist, and the skirt falls in a straight line to her feet. It’s a deceptively simple dress, but the way it’s cut, it clings to her every dip and curve. It shows off her hourglass figure, her gorgeous breasts, those curvy hips and thick thighs, with which she gripped me as I drove into her.
"Massimo?" She props a hand on her hip and angles her body so I can see the way the dress molds to her thighs and down the line of her legs. She looks like a picture from yesteryear’s Hollywood. Beguiling, alluring, and absolutely ravishing.
"Do I look that bad?" She purses her lips. "Maybe I should change." She turns to go, and I rise to my feet.
"Don’t change."
