Page 83 of Savage Proposal

My heart squeezed again. I felt like I had whiplash, and as badly as I wanted to be in my baby’s life, as much as the thought of leaving them behind was choking me, I couldn’t simply say yes. “Can I think about it?” I asked, squeezing my eyes shut. I wasn’t sure what would come out of my mouth if I kept looking at him. “Just for a little while?”

Lorenzo was quiet for a moment, and then he hummed in agreement. “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he said. “You can tell me your answer in the morning.”

I nodded, and we finished up our shower.

“I’ve got some things that I need to finish up in my office,” he said after we had dried off and gotten dressed again.

I figured that would happen. “Sure.”

He left me alone, and I sat heavily on the side of the bed. “What the fuck was that?” There was no way that Lorenzo Vitali asked me to marry him. There wasno waythat counted as a real proposal.

For months, I had been insisting that there was nothing but sex between us, and once I held up my end of our agreement, it would all stop. That’s all that it was, right?

Except that he had shown me parts of myself that I didn’t even know existed.

Except that he had brought me a sense of peace that I would have never felt if he hadn’t dragged me here.

If you stay, you can protect the baby. It was a tempting thought. There would be little I could do to shield the baby from the Cosa Nostra, but maybe if I was here, I could temper it. I could make things as soft as I could for as long as I could.

But would that make me and Lorenzo like Amalia and Elio? Could I handle being married to a man who didn’t love me? I didn’t know…especially when my own feelings were so complicated. Lorenzo scared me in so many ways, and that fear had become an exciting, delicious,awfulthing that made me feel more alive than I ever had before.

Was that love? And if it wasn’t, was it enough for a marriage?

“What do you think?” I asked, touching my belly. “Should I stay?”

The tiniest flutter was my reply, and my breath hitched in my throat. There really was a baby in there; it wasn’t just in my head. It was such a weird concept that I was growing what would become another human being. Someone with a whole personality who would lead a life entirely separate from me.

My eyes stung, and I wiped them furiously.Thatwould be one thing I wouldn’t miss when all of this was done: crying at every little thing.

I would go and talk things out with Amalia, but I imagined that she was busy with Elio, from the way she’d dragged him out of the kitchen earlier. Why couldn’t that have been the end of my night? I was never confused in Lorenzo’s arms. It was the one time that I felt safe, and I knew the way things were.

I couldn’t lie here with my own thoughts anymore. Getting up, I got my phone from the bedside table. There were now three numbers saved in the contact list: Lorenzo, Amalia, and Gemma.

It probably wasn’t fair to drag my sister into any of this mess, but I needed to hear from the outside world. A little bit of normalcy to anchor me to reality.

I clicked on Gemma’s name and held my breath as the call connected. It would be my luck if she was out for the night or already in bed or?—

“Isabella.” The voice on the other end of the line made every hair on my body stand on end. I had hoped to never hear it ever again. “It’s so nice of you to call,” my father said, and I could hear his smile. I could picture it: spread across his face so wide that it must hurt. It was the smile he wore whenever he was getting exactly what he wanted. “A little late, though, don’t you think?”

CHAPTER 52

Isabella

“What in hell are you doing answering Gemma’s phone?” I had never gotten so angry so quickly before. My heart pounded so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if I looked down and saw it knocking into my ribs.

My father chuckled, like I was being so silly. The sound made my skin crawl. “I’m just spending time with my youngest daughter,” he said. “Now that she’s in college, and your mother isn’t constantly in her ear, we can build our relationship again.” Hetsk-ed. “You should be happy that she and I are getting to know one another again. It was all you talked about when you were younger.”

“Things change.”

He hummed. “Obviously.” His voice was less friendly now; there was a thread of anger beneath his tone.

A shiver ran through me, and I wrapped my free arm around myself, as if I could fight away the chill. But it was bone-deepand had nothing to do with the air conditioning. “You need to leave her alone,” I demanded. “Gemma wasn’t raised around your bullshit, and she doesn’t deserve it now.”

“I really don’t know why you’re acting like this. I’m only trying to get my family back.”

I scoffed.Did I really use to buy this bullshit?The longer I was on the phone with him, the angrier I became. Not only at him, but at myself. It was infuriating to think back to all the times that I let him talk his way back into my life. “What trouble are you in this time, Santino?”

My father was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed, and it was an ugly thing. Mean and jagged, and it dug into my body like knives. “I’m not the one in trouble, honey,” he said flatly, as if that horrid laugh had never come out of him. “I’m not the one shackled to Lorenzo Vitali.”

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