Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
I kiss the apple of her cheek. “You’re a good girl. I understand. Just know that it doesn’t matter to me, any of it. If they approve. If my mother approves. In fact, a part of me feels you’re doing something goddamn right if she doesn’t.”
“I like that. She’s so high-strung and uptight, and it’s easy to bait her.”
“Maybe don’t bait her too much.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
Her lowered voice and twinkling eyes make her look like a little winged wood nymph, ready to fly away from me on dainty gossamer wings to cause mischief. I half imagine she’d fill that role quite nicely.
I catch myself with the whimsical thought, and almost want to shake myself. I don’t think like this. I definitely don’t ever think about things like fairies and wood nymphs and fanciful flights.
What the hell has this woman done to me?
I didn’t think any woman ever had the power to change me.
I was wrong.
She does need instructions, and not because she needs to prove herself to me or anything like that, but because she needs to prove this to herself.
“Go downstairs. Check on the food. Do a taste test, make sure everything’s hot and seasoned well and that there’s enough of it. The last time we hosted a dinner, we ran out of salad plates and the coffee was cold.”
I’ve cooked much of it and the rest has been cooked by my staff.
“On it!” she says, grinning at me. With her head held high, she marches to the door.
“Marialena!”
The sharp tone of my voice makes her freeze mid-step. Looking over her shoulder at me, she looks perplexed. “Yes?”
“Put some fucking clothes on.” I stab my finger at the pile of dresses. “Silvery white.”
It’s the only one that puts me in mind of a nymph. I keep that detail to myself.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Marialena
When I look into Salvatore’s eyes, when I hear what he says… when I truly listen to him, I hear more than bravado and swagger. I see a man who lost his father at a very young age and is afraid of falling in love because he’s steeled himself against it.
Yeah, so I like to play armchair psychologist. But a woman like me learns what makes people behave the way they do. When you strip away pretext or veneer and boil down what makes people vulnerable at their very core, we’re really not much different from one another. Beauty and wealth, honor and prestige, they don’t change who people are at their core. They don’t change what people still crave and need to be human.
Humans need to be loved. Humans need to be needed. Humans need security and comfort.
Humans need each other.
Even the rich, capable ones that command a room or an army or a nation.
So when I see Salvatore, I don’t see Don Capo, head of Tampa’s elite and most feared. No.
I see a man who’s caught in his role, trapped in a family that cares more about his power and money than the man behind those cerulean eyes of his. He doesn’t have the companionship of his siblings like I have. He doesn’t have the real love of a parent like I have. He has nothing but wealth and power, but that isn’t enough to bring anyone happiness. Humans aren’t solitary creatures.
I see the way he tries with me. I see the compromises he makes, the softening of his heart. And while I’m not sure what exactly brought him to a place where he’s actually willing to bend, to subdue himself, to allow himself to no longer be a wild beast but domesticated… I like that I may have had a part in all that.
I won’t let him down. I’ve meant every word of what I said. When I commit to something, I stick through it until the end.
But the question is… when will we have our end?
It’s hard to imagine any mob couple lasting for decades, though I’ve known a few. They weren’t like us, though. Never. Two born and raised mafia? We’re testing the limits of our own human frailty.
Or are we?
Maybe I’m the only one who hopes for more than hot sex and the security of wealth. Maybe I’m the only one who wants more than she can touch and hold.
Or maybe I’ve finally done what my family’s warned me about for years, and let my optimism make a fool of me.
I never hoped a man like Salvatore would love me… until I saw the man behind the curtain. I felt the whispered promises of hope begin to grow within me. Though I’ve never been one denied love because of the tight-knit family I grew up in, I spent a lifetime dealing with rejection from my father. The rest of us—my mother and siblings—were like flowers that grew through cracks in concrete. Never meant to thrive. Never meant to live. Defying the odds. But despite the oppression and abuse, we lifted our faces toward the sun.