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I laugh. “No, Sophia, I’m not pregnant.”
She smiles knowingly. “Given time, you will be.”
Beside me, Nico coughs.
She looks at him and smiles. “Looks like marriage suits you both, Domenico. But marriage is hard work, and you must both put in the effort to make it survive. Don’t lose what you have when you reach your first hurdle.”
She has no idea the marriage is fake and will be over in twelve months.
Which doesn’t excite me as much as it used to because we’ve entered confusing territory. What started as an arrangement has grown into something a lot more.
I glance at my husband, wondering if he’s thinking the same thing. But he remains expressionless, and my gut tightens because I want to know how he feels.
Sometimes I think I’m breaking down his walls. Other times, I feel like he’s already breaking my heart. Like I’m falling toward something that isn’t really there, and I can’t break my fall.
My father appears in the doorway dressed in a suit and tie, looking every inch the successful businessman.
He cuts an imposing presence. But there is an even bigger presence in the kitchen—my husband—and the two are about to collide.
All morning I’ve been on edge about having them in the same room. I’m not sure how this meeting will end and what fires I might have to put out.
He greets me with a kiss on the cheek. “Bella, my beautiful daughter.”
When it comes to greeting Nico, my father stops in front of him. The two men lock eyes. Tension tightens around us. My breath hitches. But my father surprises me when he offers his hand to Nico. “Welcome to my home.”
Nico’s back stiffens, but he accepts his hand. “Grazie.”
I let out the breath I was holding. But I still feel uneasy.
“Come, follow me into my den,” my father says. “Sophia will call us when brunch is ready.”
We leave the delicious smells of baking frittata, percolating coffee, and the freshly baked parmigiana behind us and follow my father through the alfresco tiled foyer and into his office. The impressive room, with its wood paneling and million-dollar paintings, smells of leather and cigar smoke with a hint of something sweet.
“I suppose you want to know why I invited you here today,” he says, walking to his desk and taking a seat.
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Nico replies, the dark tones in his voice unmistakable.
My father gestures for him to sit, but he declines, and I remain standing beside him.
“Twelve months is a long time.” My father removes a cigar from a box on his desk. He offers one to Nico, who declines, then lights it. “I think we need to find common ground while you are wedded to my daughter. I invited you both here to work out how we make that happen. We may be rivals, Don De Kysa, and I may not have forgiven you for this, but you are family… for the next twelve months, at least. Let’s lay our cards on the table and find a truce so this arrangement works instead of blowing up in all our faces.”
Nico remains rigid. “I’m listening.”
“Perhaps we can try to trust one another.”
Nico scoffs. “Just like that?”
“I have nothing to hide. How can I prove that to you?”
Nico looks completely calm, but his voice is threaded with dark danger as he says, “You can start by telling me how you were involved in my mother’s suicide.”
Fear flushes heat across my skin. Any second now, my father is going to pull out a gun and shoot him.
Or vice versa.
But I’m wrong.
Unfazed, my father leans back in his chair and puffs out a mouthful of cigar smoke. “You’re misinformed, Nico. Your mother didn’t commit suicide. Your father murdered her.”
36
Nico
Your father murdered her.
Vincent’s words spin in circles in my brain, and my immediate urge is to put a bullet in him for such a lie.
But Bella would never forgive me.
And truth be told, a little part of me knows there could be some truth to it.
When my father was don, he was capable of anything. I saw him cut off a man’s hand for repeatedly touching my mother while she flirted with him. Their marriage was an unhappy one. Mamma hated him and resented us kids. Did the old man finally tire of her stony looks and frosty words?
My jaw stiffens. “You’re lying.”
“No, son, I’m not.”
I have to give it to the old fuck. His expression of remorse looks genuine.
He folds his hands in front of him on his desk.
“The night she died, Marianne called me frantically. She said that Gio knew about the affair but worse—” He pauses, choosing his next words carefully, and I feel a sense of foreboding tighten in my stomach. “He knew she was working with the feds.”
The moment the words drop from his lips, my fingers itch to reach for my gun.
