Page 104 of Ruthless Savior
Fuck, I want her.I want her to stay. I want to find out what it would be like to have a wife who trusts me, who wants me, who looks at me the way she does. But all I can see is history repeating itself—but this time, Leila instead of Siobhan dead on the floor, our baby dying inside of her.
If not Rocco, there will always be someone else. She will always be in danger because of the life that I live.
I can bring a woman into that who knows the stakes. Who was raised with them. But Leila wasn’t. And it’s not fair to ask her to put herself in that position.
Over the next two days, we find a rhythm that feels dangerously close to a domesticity that I enjoy more than I should. For the first day, I avoid the topic of the pregnancy when Leila and I cross paths for meals and in the shared spaces, especially because her mother is often there as well, and Leila warned me that she hasn’t said anything yet. With her mother’s condition being what it is—still sick but thriving here—I agree with her that it’s best not to say anything yet, especially since Leila hasn’t said for sure that she wants to keep the baby.
The thought of her doing anything else makes something cramp in my chest, the desire to keep both of them here almost painful when I let myself think about it for too long. But I force myself to ignore the feeling, and I don’t say anything else to herabout it until the second day, when we’re eating dinner alone in the smaller dining room, and Leila finally speaks up.
“What color would you paint a nursery?” she asks out of the blue, and I nearly drop my fork, staring at her for a full thirty seconds as I swallow my bite of lamb.
“I’ve never thought about it,” I tell her honestly. The question once again starkly brings up the difference in the lives we’ve lived. In my world, something like that isn’t a concern for a man like me.
She looks at me curiously. "Why not? You were supposed to have a child in your first marriage, right? You said you tried, before…" She breaks off, clearly worried that she’s brought up something too painful.
“That’s not something Siobhan would have asked me about,” I say finally. “She’d have figured it out herself. Or more likely, hired an interior designer who would have made all of the choices.”
“Oh.” Leila bites her lip. “Well, what about names? I think?—”
“Leila.” I cut her off, feeling my chest tighten. “We don’t need to talk about this right now. You haven’t made a decision about the baby, and our arrangement is still?—”
“I’m not making a decision without your input.” She sets her fork down, too. “And we need to talk about this, Ronan. Right now is as good a time as any, while my mom isn’t here for dinner and it’s just the two of us.”
I let out a heavy breath. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want to know if you want to be a father. If you want to be part of this child's life."
Of course,I want to say.Of course, I want that.“We made an agreement, Leila. This wasn’t intentional. There’s no reason to think this changes anything.”’
She stares at me. “I know you don’t really think that. How can it not change things? Ronan?—”
“Because I can’t change the life I live, Leila. And you ended up here in the first place because of the danger you were in from a mafia boss. There willalwaysbe danger. I can’t ask you to agree to live a life like that. That’s not the life you’re supposed to live.”
Her lips tighten. “I can decide what life I want to live, Ronan. And whycan’tyou change it, anyway? Why couldn’t you just… I don’t know, let your father have it all back and leave? I don’t think it makes you all that happy.”
The way she says it almost makes me wish that were possible. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?” she challenges. “You have your own money, right? I’m sure you have businesses that are legitimate, things in your name that your father can’t take away. Why not leave and do something else?”
She doesn’t saywith me, but I can hear it in her voice, and it hurts.
"Because I can't." The words come out sharper than I intended. "Because I'm the heir, Leila. This isn't a job I can quit."
"Says who?" She shrugs. “Why can’t you choose your own life, Ronan?”
My jaw tightens. "Says three generations of O'Malley men who built this empire. Says my father, who's counting on me to carry it forward. Says—" I stop, breathing slowly to calm myself. “There’s a lot of weight on my shoulders, Leila. I have a responsibility to not let all of that die with me. To keep it going, better than it was before, if I can. My father is an arsehole, yes, but he’s sacrificed and bled like the rest of the men in this family to make the O’Malley name what it is. That’s not something I can walk away from, and still be who I am, deep down.”
She swallows hard. "What about your brother? Tristan?"
"Tristan runs our interests in Miami. He's good at what he does, but he's not… he doesn't have the temperament for thiskind of leadership. And he doesn’t want it. He’s happy where he is."
"And your sister?"
"She’ll marry eventually. Her husband would take the O'Malley name, but he wouldn't be blood. It matters in our world. And women don’t run mafia empires. Some of them have influence, yes. But they don’t run things the way the men do."
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can see the judgment in her eyes. "That's very archaic."
I sigh, feeling a headache pinch at my temples. "Maybe. But it's reality. I’m not going to change it in my lifetime, even if I wanted to.”
