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To see the place where my father grew up, where he met my mother and married her.
To see the place that was home to our small family before we’d moved to New York.
“I’d like that very much,” I added quietly.
***
“What are you thinking,perla?”Amadeo asked me from the driver’s seat of his Ferrari. He’d started the engine, but seemed to be in no hurry to leave Nathaniel Sinclair’s driveway.
I laughed a little and the movement felt light and buoyant, like there was nothing holding me down.
“I’m thinking that a few weeks ago, I would have been terribly relieved to discover my father wasn’t a thief, and equally appalled to learn what he really was.”
“And now?”
I smiled and leaned over to graze my fingers down the side of his face. The scrape against his five-o-clock shadow left them tingling pleasantly.
“And now I don’t care one whit about what he was, only what he wasto me.”
“From the sounds of it, he loved you very much. And now, thanks to him, it seems you’re a very rich woman,” he mused with a wry smile.
I shrugged, figuring now was as good a time as any to delve into the topic. “Not really,” I said.
He cocked an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue.
“If that money truly belonged to my father, then I’d like to set it aside for Grayson and his sister, Alice.”
He smiled. “That’s quite a college fund.”
I shrugged again. “Between my work and your… ill-gotten gains…” I smiled. “I hardly think we’ll be lacking. And I don’t believe I’ll find a better use for it than two children who’ve had a rather difficult start in life.”
“I take it that means you’re still intent on fostering the kids?” he asked, though there wasn’t quite the same amount of disapproval in his voice this time.
“I am.”
“You do realize that means you’re moving in with me,si?”
My breath caught in my throat.
We hadn’t known each other long enough for this to be happening, and yet, it was. But it wasn’t that simple.
“Do you realize that would mean that a sixteen-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl would be moving in as well? Are you sure you want that, Amadeo?”
He scoffed. “I’m definitely getting the better end of the deal,perla.You seem to be forgetting that by moving in with me, you’ll be stuck with my cranky father, psychopath brother, and Freya—who, just keep in mind, has been giving you space, trying not to scare you away. That won’t last forever. Then there’s Greta, who drops by—generally unannounced—at pretty much any time, day or night. And you haven’t even met my youngest brother, Matteo, yet.”
“And Aurelio?” I asked.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Do I need to be worried about leaving you two alone?”
I shrugged. “You could always mark me with your scent, and then you’ll have nothing to worry about.” I waggled my eyebrows. “I promise I’ll only shower it off when you let me.”
His jaw dropped. Perhaps, not a full hit-the-floor kind of drop, but I’d most certainly caught him unsuspecting.
I couldn’t help but smile, but the smile fell away and I dug my teeth into my lower lip when his gaze heated in an instant and turned predatory.
Without a word, he maneuvered the car out of the driveway and kept his eyes on the road in front of us all the way back to his estate while the confines of the car snapped with a whole different kind of tension, like electric sparks in the air all around us.
By the time we pulled into the long driveway of the Luciano estate, the sun had set and it was a wonder the sparks in the air hadn’t set anything on fire.
He turned the car off at the top of the drive, but he made no move to get out. He looked around the property, then looked at me. And even before he spoke, I could see it in his eyes, the man turning into the predator, the hunter preparing for the hunt.
My breath caught in my throat as arousal hit me so hard, it felt like I’d been struck by a tidal wave.
My teeth were biting into my lower lip, my muscles taut, anticipating it.
He smiled, the look filled with every dark and sinful promise imaginable. And then he said the word that had my heart racing and my thighs clenching against the onslaught.
“Run.”
