Page 54 of A Trap So Flawless

But I can’t look down at him for that any more. Because now I’m in the exact same fucking gutter with him.

“So Elio came back to check on Deirdre, and he brought Mamma with him.” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Her lips mook matte with sticky sugar.

I’ve never enjoyed maple syrup. The fact we have any here at all is a testament to my shopper’s preferences, not mine.

I still want to lick it off her anyway.

“I want to go as soon as possible,” she goes on. “Mamma’s all alone at the house. Sounds like all the capos and soldiers are either in Montréal right now, or Elio’s got them guarding Deirdre. Mamma is all alone. And unprotected.”

She stares at me.

“Oh, fuck no,” I say, reading the message in her look. “If you think I’m going to be your mammy’s personal bodyguard, then you must have lost your goddamn mind.” I take the empty plate away. “No more waffles for you. The glycemic load is turning your brain into shit.”

I put the plate and fork in the sink while Valentina huffs behind me.

“Well, I don’t know what else to tell you,” she cries, throwing her hands onto her hips. “I’ll be living at home with her.”

“No. You won’t be. You will be living here. Or in whichever house I am occupying at the time.”

I’m not letting her sleep away from me. Not even for one bloody night.

And I sure as shit am not going to move into Vincenzo Titone’s fucking house, even temporarily.

“But-”

“But nothing. You are mine. You go where I go.”

“I’m yours?” Her gaze sparks. “In what capacity? Because you certainly haven’t called me your fiancée lately, and last time I checked, if you married me, then you’d lose your entire Irish inheritance.”

“You know?”

She nods, her mouth doing that tight, frowny thing she sometimes does before she cries. “Papà told me right before my wedding to Sal. He told me… Told me that he and Callum had made the idea of marriage to me very unappealing to you. He told me you’d be disinherited if you went through with it.” Her voice gets very small. “And that’s why you didn’t come back for me.”

Her words are in my guts and they are twisting.

“Pet,” I say hoarsely, “Valentina, precious, I didn’t know about Sal.”

“You didn’t know. Yeah. Yeah.” She nods to herself, then suddenly switches gears and angrily shakes her head. “Do you know why Papà got all pissy with me and told me that? Because I was wearing your fucking ring.”

My chest hurts.

“I wore your ring. Just like you told me to. Wore it on the morning of my wedding to somebody else. Papà ripped it off and told me you were never coming back for me.”

A shimmering tear rolls down her perfect cheek. I catch it beneath my thumb. It burns like acid.

“So forgive me,” she snarls, batting my hand away, “if I married someone else with a proverbial gun to my head. Forgive me if I believed him. Because even now, you’re proving Papà right.”

“Proving him right about what?” My voice shakes. I have to fight to keep from shouting in her face.

“That the change in Callum’s will was enough to keep you away.”

“Keep me away?”

I lose the battle and shout it after all. She’s not cowed or frightened by my volume. Quite the opposite. She’s always been a passionate fighter. Probably would have made a good boxer. She stands up straighter as I grip the counter on either side of her, caging her in.

“How the hell can you say that something like that kept me away?” I snap, pressing myself against her. My cock is straining for her. “When I brought you home myself, against my own better judgment? When I fucked you in my bed last night? And then made you fucking breakfast this morning?”

I grab her hips and forcefully spin her around. My hand finds the back of her neck. I give a shove, pinning her flat against the counter. Then, with my other hand, I wrench down her stretchy black pants and thong. I shove my fat tip against her cunt – already wet.

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