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The thought of anything happening to him bothered me more than it should’ve, and not just because he was my fiancé.
The flicker in his eyes returned, hotter and brighter. His expression softened. “Enjoy the meal,mia cara. Don’t let my family bullshit ruin it.”
A velvety flutter brushed my heart. “Don’t worry. I can enjoy good food under any conditions.”
It wasn’t true, but it made Dante smile.
I shifted, and our legs grazed beneath the table. It was a whisper of a touch, but my body reacted like he’d slipped his hand beneath my skirt and caressed my thigh.
The conversation from the rest of the table fell away as the mental image of his touch entered my bloodstream in an intoxicating rush.
There must be an invisible thread connecting my fantasies to his mind, because black bled into the edges of his eyes like he knew exactly what I was picturing.
My pulse drummed.
“So.” Luca’s voice snapped the thread with brutal efficiency.
Our heads jerked toward him in unison, and my pulse pounded for an entirely different reason when I noticed the speculative gleam in his eyes.
The table was too large and our voices too low for him to have heard us talking about him, but he was clearly up to something.
“How’s the wedding planning going?” Luca asked.
“Fine,” Dante said before I could answer. The softness was gone, replaced with his usual curt tone.
“Glad to hear.” The younger Russo took a bite of turkey, chewed, and swallowed before saying, “You and Vivian seem to be getting alonggreat.”
Dante’s jaw hardened.
“Ofcoursethey’re getting along great,” Janis said. “They’re in love! Honestly, Luca, what a silly thing to say.”
I pushed my food around my plate, suddenly uneasy.
“You’re right. Sorry,” Luca said a tad too innocently. “Just never thought I’d see the day when Dante fell in love.”
“Enough.” Dante’s tone was sharp. “This isn’t a roundtable on my love life.”
Luca’s grin widened, but he heeded his brother’s warning and didn’t say anymore after that.
After dinner, Dante, Luca, and Gianni cleaned the dining room and took out the garbage while Janis and I did the dishes.
“I like the way Dante is around you,” she said. “He’s less…”
“Uptight?” Normally, I would’ve never been so blunt to the man’s mother, of all people, but wine and days of sun had loosened my tongue.
“Yes.” Janis laughed. “He likes things done a certain way, and he’s not afraid to tell you if they don’t meet his standards. When he was a toddler, we tried feeding him broccoli with a bit of mashed potatoes on it. He threw the plate on the floor. Three-hundred-dollar Wedgwood. Can you believe it?” She shook her head.
I didn’t ask why she’d been serving a toddler food on Wedgwood china. Instead, I broached a more sensitive topic, one that’d been weighing on my mind since my beach conversation with Dante.
“Was it hard saying goodbye to him and Luca?”
Her movements stilled for a split second. “I see he’s been talking to you about us.”
My bravado retreated in the face of possible confrontation. “Not that much.”
At the end of the day, Janis was Dante’s mother. I didn’t want to antagonize her.
“It’s okay, darling. I know he’s not my biggest fan. Truth be told, I’m not a great mother, and Gianni is not a great father,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s why we left the boys in their grandfather’s care. He gave them the stability and discipline we couldn’t.”
