Page 55 of Mafia Doctor's Secret Baby

“Hey, I want the tour before you two start getting all lovey-dovey,” Cara calls to us, and Luca and I break away from each other, grinning. We have plenty of time to pick up on all of that in the near future. Right now, I want to explore this beautiful new home of ours—and figure out just what kind of luxuries he’s managed to sneak into this place.

I hang back as Cara heads in before me, tilting my gaze up to meet Luca’s for a moment—to bathe in how good it feels to be back in his presence, after all this time. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but every moment apart from him feels like it drags on for a lifetime, and I can’t pretend that seeing him again isn’t everything I hoped it would be.

“You don’t want to check out the house?” he remarks softly.

“Of course I do,” I reply, grinning up at him. “I just need to kiss you again before we go inside…”

As though this is what he’s been waiting for since the moment I stepped out of the car, he kisses me once more—a longer kiss than the one he gave me as greeting, a kiss that leaves me a little breathless when I pull back. I glance down at Polly, who’s watching the two of us with interest, until he takes her into his arms.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmurs to her, carrying her into the house. “Let’s show you your new home, huh…?”

And as I follow him in, I can’t help but feel a flutter of excitement at finally being here. My new home—the place that’s going to serve as Polly’s childhood base, my family home, everything that I make it into. The place where I become the woman I know Iwas meant to be—not just a mother, not just a lover, but a person who makes a real difference in the world.

And it begins right here, right now. With the man I love at my side.

And his giant engagement ring on my finger.

26

LUCA

“God, I’m nervous,”she mutters, as she paces back and forth along the dining table. The lights are low, the candles flickering and casting long shadows across the polished wooden table, and in any other scenario, this would feel like a romantic night in. Instead, Katie is wracked with tension, and I know nothing is going to ease her mind until he’s finally here.

Because tonight is the night she’s going to meet my father. It’s been nearly a month since she arrived in the city, and my dad has been chomping at the bit to meet her in person that entire time. It’s taken pretty much every excuse in the book to give her long enough to settle in and start feeling like herself around here, but this evening they’re going to meet, and the two sides of my life are going to come together for good.

“It’s going to be fine,” I assure her, pulling her down onto my lap. Outside, the sound of the fountain in the garden serves as a soothing backdrop to our conversation, and she wraps her arms around my shoulders and gazes down at me for a moment.

“You sure there’s no way I can still get out of this?” she asks. I can tell she’s joking. Well, mostly.

I shake my head. “He needs to meet you,” I remind her. “To give his blessing for the marriage. I know it’s not…” I trail off. I’m not even sure how to put it into words, not really. Not what?

She knows that she’s becoming a part of this family, and that he’s the head of it; now that we’re going to be married, she needs to know who she’s dealing with, who she’s going to be working with from this point forward. But, not unreasonably, the thought of being in a room with a mafia boss seems to have her spooked to the core, the last vestiges of her old life still clinging to her and throwing her off-balance.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she mutters, managing a small smile. “I mean, a year ago, I was working for a city councilor, and now I’m sitting down with a mafia boss…”

“Trust me, they’re probably not as different as you think.”

She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Oh, trustme,” she replies. “They probably are…”

“This is the last thing,” I remind her gently. “The last thing you have to do before you’re part of the family for real. After this, you can start with your plans, put them into action, make some tracks toward helping the women who came out of the brothels…”

She closes her eyes for a moment, and nods. I know that’s the most important thing to her, part of the reason she’s even willing to go through with this in the first place. She knows that my father has access to the kind of power most people can only dream of, and after what she saw when she was kidnapped at the hands of the Magliones, she will do whatever it takes to help those women who survived him.

“You’re right,” she agrees. “And besides, I don’t want to have spent all day slaving over a hot stove for?—”

All at once, I hear the sleek buzz that announces a new visitor—the doorman lets people come and go at his discretion, and I can already guess that my father will have some smart comments about being kept out of the house that he helped me purchase. This place, of course, came through one of his connections, though I paid for it with my own money—no way am I going to rely on anyone else to provide my family home for me, no matter how willing my father might have been to cover it for me.

He's still making sense of the fact that he’s a grandfather. Emil, by some miracle, managed to keep his mouth shut when he got back to the city, allowing me to tell my father what really happened. Though he was shocked, and more than a little horrified to discover that I’d had a child out of wedlock, when he found out that I was engaged and intending to bring Katie and our daughter to live with me in Harrotsville, he swiftly changed his tune. As long as he got to meet her, and scope her out for himself—which was what the intention of tonight has always been.

I make my way to the door, where the doorman has already allowed my father onto the property. He lifts his gaze to take it in, nodding approvingly.

“An old friend of my uncle’s designed this place,” he remarks, extending his hand to mine and giving it a businesslike shake. “Looks like the places I used to summer near Bologna…”

And then he glances past me—and I turn to see that Katie has followed me out from the dining room and is currently twisting her hands into knots in front of her, waiting for me to make the introduction.

“Dad,” I stop him in his tracks. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

I take Katie’s hand and pull her to my side—showing a united front, making it clear that nothing and nobody will come between us. She squeezes her hand against the small of my back, silently thanking me for taking the initiative.

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