Page 62 of Better Left Unsaid

“I know, Maria. I know.”

After a beat, I sniffled and tried to rein it in. “Okay, well, I actually have something to tell you. It’s about Dom.”

He furrowed his brows. “Hold on a minute on that thought, if you don’t mind. I wanted to talk to you about your old position.”

“Fashion editor?”

He nodded. “Finding a replacement isn’t going to be easy. I was hoping you could help me interview candidates. I tried Perla and Allie first just in case, but they both said no. I even tried Bianca, although Lord knows why. She said no, too.”

I pursed my lips and strummed my fingers on the desk. “What about Jade?” I knew what you were thinking, by the way—holy hell did Maria just think about Jade and suggest bringing her into the Morelli circle even more by having Jade replace her at the magazine? Yes, I knew what I was saying, and I was really okay with it.

“What about her?” A puzzled expression came over him, and his eyes narrowed.

“Last I knew she was unemployed and unsuccessful in her hunt for a job. Maybe she’d be interested.” If I knew one thing for sure it was that this was what Mom would have wanted—all of her daughters to have a chance to work at her publication. She wasn’t here to make that come to pass, but I was, and I wanted to do that for her. And Jade.Bellissimawas her legacy, too.

He slowly nodded, crossing his arms as he seemed to give the idea some thought. “All right then. Ask Jade and schedule a time for us to meet with her. Have her email her resume over, too. I need to know what kind of experience she has.” He scratched his chin. “You know, I’m kind of surprised you thought of Jade for the job. Last I knew you two weren’t on the greatest of terms. Not that I’m questioning it. Your mother would be very happy that her daughters are getting along.”

I shrugged, smiling. “She’s family, and Dom helped me see things clearly.”

He snapped his fingers and widened his eyes. “Yes, that was it. What were you trying to tell me about Dom earlier? Before I brought up your replacement, or lack thereof.”

Oh, right, that. I should tell him. He was going to find out eventually, and it would definitely be better if he found out from me than walking in Times Square and seeing our naked bodies on a billboard or something.

All right, I was going to do it.

Well, not right now.

I brushed him off, waving a hand between us and gesturing for him to move past it. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

He studied my expression. “Are you sure?”

I nodded, swallowing. I’d tell him tomorrow. Mmhmm, certainly tomorrow. It just seemed like a weird conversation to have with my father and it turned out I needed a second before I said anything. I should start with my sisters first. Yeah, that would be easier. Well, minus telling Allie and Jade because they were definitely going to make it out to be something it wasn’t. As soon as Allie had found out about us, I knew she was expecting more than it was. I mean, her whole reaction was evidence enough.

“I don’t know what you and Dom are waiting for. I’m not getting any younger, Maria, and I’d love some more grandkids. Plus, Isabella is getting to that age where it’d be nice if she had a sibling. You don’t want too large of a gap. It makes it more difficult for them to get along when there’s—”

Ohmigod.This was ridiculous. What was it with this family? Dom and I were not together. Or getting together. At least, not in that sense. End of story. For any of you who thought we were, sorry, but we weren’t. We were sleeping together, that was it. Geez. “I’m modeling naked with him in a campaign shoot,” I blurted out, hoping it would end this babble about me and Dom being such a sure thing that Dad was merely waiting for the day we’d give him more grandkids. Try never, Dad. We were never having kids together.

His face turned beet red, and I could have sworn I saw smoke coming out of his ears. Oh, yeah, he was fuming. It was probably the part where I’d mentioned being naked. Yep, it was one hundred percent that. “What?” he practically roared. “No daughter of mine is going to be photographed naked for the whole world to ogle.”

“Dad!” I admonished, hoping he’d simmer it down. He was making it seem a lot worse than it was. “It’s not like that. Our bodies will be on top of one another, so we’ll be covered. Dom would never let me do something like that. You know him.”

His jaw twitched, and his face wasn’t getting any less red. “For a second there I was going to punch the living daylights out of that kid. How did you get involved in this anyway? You’re not a model, and you’ve never shown any interest in it before.”

True.He had a point. I cleared my throat, rubbing my neck as I considered my next words carefully. “Listen, Dom is such a good friend. He does a lot for me. He needed someone to do this with him, so I offered to help as his friend.” Maybe not the whole truth—I left out a few details of how I’d come to terms with doing it—but, in this case, I felt it was okay to paraphrase.

“As his friend,” he echoed. Then he slumped his shoulders, his body becoming less rigid and the color coming back in his face, the red dissipating. “That’s nice of you. And I suppose you know what you’re doing.”

“Of course,” I guaranteed, nodding. Let’s be real, lately, I hadn’t a clue what I was doing where Dom was concerned. It was like I was walking on a tightrope and I truly feared that I was going to lose my balance and fall. Our arrangement was great, don’t get me wrong, but it had been having its moments as of late. Maybe because I was breaking one of my own rules. Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely sure where my head was at.

I chalked it up to it being life, though. I mean, what didn’t have its moments? Every situation was complicated, ours was just a little more so. But it worked for us. We had no regrets. And nothing had changed between us. It hadn’t ruined our friendship.

What scared me was that I feared I might be in danger of screwing things up. Emotions couldn’t get involved. It would make things too difficult, and then who knew what would happen? I loved rules, always had. That was why I’d made them. Because rules never ceased to amaze me. When rules were part of the scenario, what could possibly go wrong?

Only, I had to wonder if some rules were made to be broken. We weren’t the same people we were when we had agreed to those rules. Things had. . . changed. Life moved on, right? So would it have been so bad if I let myself lean into whatever it was I was feeling for Dom?

I questioned everything all the time. I followed rules. And I never liked to poke the bear, so to speak. For some reason, I couldn’t resist the urge to poke this one, though. Why was Dom causing such a visceral reaction in me? I was always attracted to him, but this ran deeper somehow.

I didn’t know. Maybe I was looking into things too much.

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