Page 15 of Undeniable

She gives me a sympathetic look as she pats my arm lovingly.

“Gio, I know that I never got to meet Isabelle, but from what you and Luca have told me about her, I think that she would want you happy. She would want you to fall in love again. She would want Alessandro to have someone in his life that can-”

I fly out of my seat and ball my fists at my sides. “Don’t you fucking dare finish that sentence, Ashlynn,” I bark.

She seems a little taken back by my quick burst of anger, and honestly, I am too. There is usually nothing that she can do to truly get under my skin but talking like she knows what Izzy would want or how she would feel pisses me the hell off. Like she knows my wife better than me? Bullshit.

“Whoa, I am sorry if I upset you. I was just trying to help,” she says with her hands up and a surprised look on her face.

“Well, I don’t need your fucking help! Stay the hell out of my business!” I shout before I storm away and slam the door to the kitchen open.

I am not 10 steps inside the house when a body crashes into me from behind and slams me into the wall. I turn around to see Luca glaring at me with a menacing scowl. He winds back and punches me straight across the face. I am a little stunned at first as I see stars and stumble a few steps before I right myself and shake the fog away. He takes two large steps to me as his hand wraps around my throat, pinning me to the wall.

“If anyone else shouted at my wife like that, I would fucking gut them. You just got the brotherly treatment. Now tell me what the hell is wrong, and then go apologize to Ashlynn,” Luca rumbles dangerously.

I sigh as I wipe at the blood beginning to trickle from my lip. I look down to see that there is a trail of water following us from the patio as it drips off of Luca. That fucker got to me fast for being in the pool with the kids just seconds ago.

“Look, I am sorry. She was talking about Izzy and moving on and I just…snapped. I will go apologize.”

A look of empathy flashes across his face and he nods, releasing my throat and taking a step back. Luca and Izzy were like Ashlynn and I. We were all like family. When she died, I know I wouldn’t have made it out the other side if it wasn’t for Luca. He yanked me out of the bottom of a bottle too many times to count in those first few months and reminded me at my lowest moments that I had to be strong for Alessandro, I owed it to Izzy to be the best father I could be.

“You miss her,” Luca states simply.

“So, fucking much,” I cringe as I hit my head onto the back of the wall. “But I can’t get this other woman out of my head, and it is making me crazy. She makes me smile, man. I look forward to seeing her and Alessandro adores her.”

“Tasha?” Luca questions.

I give him a short nod. Luca smiles softly as he walks over to the fridge and grabs a few beers. I take the bottle from him and slide onto one of the bar stools before I crack it open.

“Alessandro has been talking about her non-stop since he got here. Sounds like you both are smitten,” he muses.

I groan. “I don’t want to be. I don’t know anything about her, I mean, not anything that didn’t come up on her background check. She is just someone random that I bumped into outside of a coffee shop that also ended up being my new nanny. It has been years since Izzy, and I have never once felt tempted like I do with this woman. I don’t know what is wrong with me or how to stop it.”

“Maybe you don’t-”

“Luca,” I bite out.

He holds up a hand, silencing me as he continues. “Maybe you don’t need to stop it. You are healing Gio, that is a good thing. Look, even if you never truly move on, you at least have to allow yourself to be happy. She wouldn’t want this for you, she wouldn’t want this for Alessandro.

“Ever since your mother died you both have been so down. Ash and I don’t know what to do to help. But Alessandro is smiling again, and you are feeling again, maybe this woman is exactly what you need. I am not saying it is forever or anything but maybe you can just take it one day at a time and try to be happy?”

I mull over his words as I sigh. Doesn’t everyone else see how fucked up it is that I get to keep living my life and get another shot at happiness, when Isabelle was murdered because of me? It isn’t fair. I get to watch our boy grow up and live life while hers was stolen.

“You have to stop punishing yourself for what happened to Izzy,” Luca continues. “Chernoff’s men are sick fucking bastards, and we were in the middle of a war. You did not pull that trigger. You did nothing to put her in danger-”

“Except for love her,” I say solemnly. “I tried to have a foot in each life, the mafia and the family life. You of all people know that it can’t be done.”

Luca’s brows furrow. “I of all people know that itcanbe done. Look out that window. I have a wife a beautiful daughter and a little boy on the way, yet I am the Boss of the most powerful family in the country. It is hard and scary as fuck sometimes, but a life with them is worth it.”

As I think over his words, he tosses his empty bottle into the trash before looking at me again.

“Look, I am not as nosy as my wife, so I am not going to sit here and bitch at you and tell you that you need to move on. But you do need to let your guilt go and try to be happy, for your son’s sake. Kids are perceptive. They know when we are feeling low…or choosing not to feel at all.”

With that, he strides out to the patio and walks over to Ashlynn, kissing her passionately as his hands splay across her growing stomach. They are so in love it could be seen from space, I swear. My heart twists a bit and I can’t help but hear a tiny voice in my head that says,“I want that again.”

After I apologized to Ashlynn, she hugged me in forgiveness before I decided it was time to call it a day. Alessandro threw a fit and tried to hide Seraphina in the back seat of our car, sneaky little fucker. Can’t wait to deal with him as a teenager.

When we get home, I have Alessandro tucked into bed as we sing the bedtime song that my mother used to sing to him before I kiss his head and go to stand up.

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