Page 60 of Savage Proposal

Her head snapped up, and she flushed. “Oh, Don Vitali, I’m so sorry.” She floundered, tapping frantically at her tablet. “When Ms. Amalia called, she made the reservation for the same table where she and Mr. Elio always eat. I just assumed it was for them.” Sweat began to dot the hostess’s upper lip.

Isabella leaned into me. “I thought this wasn’t one of your businesses.”

“It’s not,” I said. “I’ve never been here before.” But if she knew me as Don Vitali, then she was a member of one of the minor families. “Amalia recommended it.”

Finally, after a few moments, the hostess grabbed two of the menus and tried to smile. “Right this way,” she said and led us into the dimly lit dining room. She took us to a corner booth and gestured for us to sit down. “Here we are.”

Isabella sat and scooted into the curve of the booth, and I followed after her, not stopping until I was right beside her. The hostess handed us the menu and wished us a good meal. When we were alone, I watched Isabella flip through the leather-bound menu. I noticed that she blinked a lot, like she wasn’t able to see it properly.

“Something wrong,dolcezza?”

“There aren’t any prices.”

Was that a big deal? “Order whatever you want,” I assured her.

She wriggled in her seat, obviously uncomfortable. “I just don’t want to pick something that’s too?—”

I reached over and put a hand on her thigh. “Money isn’t something you have to worry about. Get what you want.”

She stared at me for a moment and then nodded. “Okay.”

Our waiter showed up a few minutes later, an effervescent smile stretched across his face. “Hello, folks,” he said in a singsong kind of way. “How are we doing this evening?”

I knew he was trained to be friendly, and he probably got tipped really well for that reason, but these particular types of waiters exhausted me. “I want an eleven-ounce filet, rare, with the loaded baked potato,” I said. The waiter was surprised for a second, but to his credit, he caught on and grabbed for his order pad.

“Would you like a salad with that?”

I shook my head. “But bring me a whiskey. Whatever your top shelf is.”

“Very good, sir.” He looked at Isabella. “And for you, ma’am?”

Isabella ordered salmon, worried eyes pinned to the menu, as if she were trying to work out what would be the cheapest thing to get. When the waiter hurried away, I squeezed Isabella’s thigh again, bringing her eyes to mine. “Are you doing okay?”

She stared at me like she couldn’t quite decide if I was trying to trick her or not. “I’m trying not to think about it,” she said finally. She looked around at our surroundings, and then back atme. “Is this the part where I ask you if this is a date, and you tell me no?” Her words surprised a laugh out of me, and she snorted. “Now, you want to call me a brat.”

“Because you’re acting like one,dolcezza.”

Isabella hummed softly. “You like it, though,” she said.

My cock twitched. I did like her acting like a brat almost as much as it pissed me off. But that wasn’t what tonight was about. “How are you feeling physically?” I asked, trying to steer us away from my desire to drag her into the bathroom to bend her over the sink.

Her expression was bemused. “Are you asking if I think the pregnancy is doing okay?”

A food runner came and dropped off our drinks. I picked up the whiskey tumbler and took a sip. It burned all the way down, leaving behind a warmth that made my muscles unwind. “I guess that’s what I’m asking,” I said when we were alone again.

Isabella twirled her straw in the iced tea that she’d asked for. “I’ve had some nausea, but so far, I don’t feel all that different.” She sipped at her drink. “I always thought that I would, you know? I would know and feel it the moment that I got pregnant.” She sounded a bit melancholy, and it struck me that she was lonely, and what was even worse, I actuallycaredthat she was struggling.

“My mother was almost in her third trimester when she realized that she was going to have Cristian,” I told her. “Or, that’s what my father told me later when I asked why she doted on him more. He said that she didn’t get to bond with him for as long as she did with me because she didn’t know he was there.”

She studied me for a long moment. “Maybe it was that you didn’t belong to her,” she said. “You were your father’s heir, right? Maybe she knew that you were never going to be hers, so she was glad to have a baby who could be.”

Her words were a blow to my ego, but I couldn’t find fault with her logic. Cristian was beloved by my father, the same way that my mother loved me, but even before he decided to join the Church, he hadn’t really been a part of the Cosa Nostra. He didn’t attend meetings in the same way that I did when I was a teenager; he didn’t have the same expectations laid on him. My father would have made space for Cristian, of course, if he’d ever shown any interest, and he did train with me at the gun range, but it was never as serious for Cristian to get things right.

Our waiter came by with a tray laden with food. When he set the salmon in front of her, however, her expression crumbled. She sprung up from the table, slapping a hand over her mouth, and ran toward the Restrooms sign.

“I’ll just take this, then,” the waiter mumbled and picked the plate back up.

I looked at my steak, mournful. “Just bring us the bill,” I said.

---