AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pausing with a bite of prime rib nearly to his lips, Benny frowned at her. “He would never beat you. I know from witnessing a few of them that his spankings aren’t for the faint of heart, but he would never harm you.”
In the deepest parts of her heart, she knew he was telling the truth. The spankings she’d received had hurt like hell, and no doubt the one she was set to receive tonight would be a doozy, but she still trusted Emilio with her life. “Whatever you call it, he’s still going to punish me.”
“Probably, if half of what I heard from him was the truth. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Why not? It couldn’t do any more damage. And maybe he could help her sort out this mess with Uncle Gio. “He said some things. About Uncle Gio. I didn’t like what he said, so I slapped him.”
The snort of laughter from the older man had her staring at him in shock. “What’s so funny?”
“I’ve waited a very long time for a woman who could go toe to toe with Emilio Rinaldi,” he explained, giving her hand an affectionate pat. “I’m glad he’s found you.”
She drummed her fingers on the table as she considered his words. “He thinks he wants to marry me.”
“Then he does,” Benny said with a shrug. “In my experience, if Mr. Rinaldi says he wants something, he isn’t going to let anything stand in his way of getting it. And I’ve almost never known him to change his mind without a damn good reason.”
Her stomach churned with a combination of guilt and fear. “What if there is a really good reason?”
Sobering, Benny laid his fork down and met her gaze evenly. “Then I suppose he deserves to know about it before he does something you both regret.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” she mumbled.
“Now, having said that, I don’t believe there’s anything you could have done so bad he wouldn’t be inclined to forgive you for it.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“Just talk to him, Amara. He’s a decent man.”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? At his core, Emilio was a good, decent, caring man. He deserved better than to chain himself to a woman who’d tried to kill him and then lied to his face about it.
The question was, did she have the courage to tell him and risk losing him? And if she didn’t, was she prepared to live with this secret for the rest of her life?
Chapter Twelve
Benny eventually coaxedsome food into her, but about the time she declared she couldn’t eat another bite, his phone vibrated on the table and the easy playfulness between them evaporated.
“Your daddy wants you changed into your pajamas and standing in the corner when he comes upstairs. We have ten minutes.”
