Page 35 of Veiled Amor

He liked those Sundays. Not for family or food. And all to do with being around a forbidden woman he craved.

The biscuits were good, but like sawdust after that revelation, he gulped all three and then rose to his feet. Lucia was shocked about the car and money, but accepted both.

“How about we dump our stuff upstairs and take a walk around the compound? I need to stretch my legs.”

“Sounds good.” She agreed.

When they were on the next level of the clubhouse, she paused in the bedroom doorway, looking at the double bed. The only bed. It was clean, with a chest of drawers, a bathroom, and a few other room amenities, much like the flop rooms from back home.

“Is this… are we both in here?”

“Sí.” He gruffed, ushering her in. He dropped their bags on the floor. It wasn’t hard to see the color highlighting her cheeks when he turned around. The sick bastard that he was loved seeing it.

There was a comeback brewing in her eyes. He should let her insist they have separate rooms. Instead, he spoke before she could. “It’s safer this way.”

“It’s safer? Capone, you won’t talk about the kiss, but you want to share my bed because it’s safer?” The way she cocked her chin back to stare at him made Capone want to kiss her again. Goddamn him, he liked her confronting him head-on.

She was still his sister-in-law andveryuntouchable.

Or was he going to desecrate his brother’s memory into the ground some more?

“Yes, it’s safer.” He grunted, grabbing her jacket, he held it out to her. She huffed turning her to slide her arms into the sleeves. She was too busy staring at him when she spun around to notice he zipped her up to the chin.

“So that’s it? We don’t talk about it. And we don’t talk about what happened years ago.”

“It was a kiss, Lucia, no big deal,sí?”

Fucking liar.

She knew it too when her eyes flared.

“You Mercado men with your no big deal! I’m sick of it, and I don’t know why you’re even here, why you brought me here if we can’t talk about anything.” She came forward and air stalled in Capone’s chest. For the last two days, being in that cramped motel room with her, he was running on Lucia overload. His goddamn body didn’t know how to react other than to maul her like a fucking beast.

There was no getting her out of his system,she was his fucking system. Every nerve ending and molecule. And this close, he was about to be a fucking monster if she didn’t back up. He let his head drop as she lifted her stubborn pixie chin, eyes blazing as he’d ever seen them. She even poked his chest, and a twitch tickled the corner of his mouth. Damn, she might try to kick his ass.

“You needed help. That’s why we’re here, Lucia. Or you forgot that little detail? Somecabróngrabbed you to take you back to your father, who would sell you in a fucking ring to the highest bidder if it suited his business endeavors.”

“I’ve lived it, Capone. Every fucking day of my life, I know what my father is capable of. I couldn’t forget if I tried. But you? You forgot so easily. You were the one who ran away first.”

Suddenly, they weren’t talking about her predicament, and his chest filled with bricks. Capone had never been the type to back away from anything. For years he’d hated himself for what he’d done, for his weakness at the worst possible time. He’d felt like he’d pissed all over his brother’s grave by taking something that didn’t belong to him. The only way he could keep her, making sure she was fine, was to compartmentalize his feelings.

Or so Gia told him.

Being a therapist, Gia gave unbiased advice, but it wasn’t anything he could listen to because she’d told him more than once he had to forgive himself. He remembered Gia telling him,“Don’t waste an opportunity when it’s glaring you in the face, Capone, if you can be happy, then take it.”

Capone had always been about family, but he saw what his silence had done to Lucia, and he didn’t blame her for being angry with him.

“Lucia…”

“Lucia, nothing. Things never change, do they? I think I’d like to take that walk on my own if you don’t mind. And then I need to leave and take care of myself.”

“The hell you say?” He all but growled. “No, you’re not.”

At the door, she turned to look at him. Could she see he was coming out of his skin? If she took off again on her own, it would be a matter of hours before Nicholas scooped her up. And he couldn’t think about what would happen to her after that.

With a step forward, she kept him at bay simply by holding out a hand. “If there was a reason why you won’t talk to me, maybe I could understand. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like I’m such a burden to you.”

The fuck? That’s what she thought?

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