Page 14 of Broken Mafia Bride
She makes a clucking sound at the back of her throat and mutters something under her breath. “Well, don’t worry about the investigator or none of that now. Eat your food,cara mia. The baby won’t feed itself.”
From across the table, Sienna snorts. “The baby will be the size of King Kong with the way you’ve been stuffing food down Ariel’s throat.”
“She’s aiming for the size of Godzilla,” Sienna’s thirteen-year-old brother pipes up, giggling at his joke.
“What’s wrong with wanting the baby to be healthy?” Mrs. Amato plants her hands on her hips, cutting her daughter a glare.
“I’m a doctor, Mom,” she groans. “The baby is healthy and it’s not suddenly going to curl up and disappear because she ate a normal, human-sized portion of food.”
Her mother remains unmoved by her declaration. “When you finally see it fit to give me a grandchild, you can choose to eat those itty-bitty salads and starve the child.”
A collective groan goes up across the table. Free-minded Mr. Amato continues to shovel food into his mouth without sparing either of us a glance. Before long, Sienna and her mother have delved into their usual argument about the doctor’s single status.
I glance down when a hand enters my view, and I watch Marco switch our plates with a small smile.
My heart feels like it’s melting into goo whenever he does these tiny acts of care. I don’t know what my life was like before Marco fished me out of the water, but I have a feeling it wasn’t one that was full of love and affection. It must be why I find myself a little reluctant to go back to it.
I’ve not told anyone yet, and I’ve not fully admitted it to myself, but I’m kind of hoping the state investigator takes his time coming around.
Being around Sienna’s chaotic family, Marco’s sweetness and this sleepy town in general is healing something inside me. Something I don’t even know how it got broken.
Occasionally though, I feel a certain restlessness, a niggling in the back of my mind reminding me I’m not supposed to be here, and I’ve left something important… Or someone.
So far, Marco, and I have come up with theories that whoever I’d been getting married to had to have been responsible for what happened to me, and the only reason I’m not being hunteddown right now is because they assume I’m dead. The fact remains that we can’t actually say what’s what until my identity has been recovered and we can safely start looking into my life.
Dinner is exceptional, and by the end of it, even though Marco switched out our plates, I’m still bursting full.
“I’ll do the dishes,” I rush to say as soon as everyone’s done.
“Don’t worry about it, you’re pregnant,” Sienna argues.
“I don’t remember pregnant women being outlawed from doing the dishes,” I raise a brow at her while rising to my feet. While it’s nice to be cared for, I don’t want to be babied at all. Everything inside me rebels at the thought of being seen as weak and incapable.
She knows I won’t budge, so she just rolls her eyes with a huff. “Fine, I’ll rinse and dry.”
We gather up the dishes and Marco carries them into the house, the redhead and I trailing after him. My eyes can’t help but be drawn to the way his thin T-shirt tapers against his slim waist. My gaze drops down further to his firm ass in those jeans.
When I realize what I’m doing, I tear my gaze away, feeling like the biggest creep on the planet.
“So…” she drawls when we’re cleaning up the kitchen later.
“So?”
“Come on, don’t make me spell it out,” Sienna groans.
Confusion creases my brows. “Spell what out?”
“What’s going on between you and Marco?”
My eyes widen in shock. “W-what?! Nothing is going on between us. Did he say there’s something going on?”
“What? No, of course not,” she assures me. “Ugh, my least favorite book trope is slow burn, and this is why. It’s so frustrating watching you two run around your obvious attraction to him.”
I feel a little faint. “O-obvious?” I croak.
“You two aren’t fooling anyone,” she laughs. “And you think I didn’t notice you staring at his ass earlier.”
My face catches fire. “Oh god.”
