Page 20 of A Son Hidden from the Sicilian

If only. If only she didn’t remember the afternoons they’d spent in art galleries, hand in hand, arguing about different artists, the emotions different pieces should evoke. Elegant dinners where he’d spoken of the places he’d traveled, and she of the places she wanted to go. She had only realized in retrospect how cagey he had been about his own family, but she had told him everything about hers. And he’d asked questions. Remembered things.

He had been attentive. He had beenthere. And yes, there had been pockets of secrets. The kind of information he’d kept from her were the kinds of things that should have been a red flag, if she’d been more experienced, more worldly.

She should have known, yes. But in the moment she’d only been dazzled. That a man so handsome could find a not-so-special woman from New Jersey fascinating. That any man could listen, engage like he did. That they could be together as equals,adults.

He dressed carefully, saying nothing, until he stood there, a disheveled, gorgeous man with a frown on his face and the haze of lust in his eyes.

It hurt to look at him. To want him. Because one thing she knew for certain wouldn’t change.

“What I want for myself is a real relationship,” she said, forcing herself to maintain eye contact. “Built on love and respect and honesty. Not just for myself, but for Gio. I don’t think you want that.”

There was a strange beat of silence. He didn’t look away. There was no guilt, no offense in his expression. Just a dark, unreadable intensity. “Love is a lie,dusci. A fairy tale. Love does not function in the real world.”

She found it oddly comforting he thought so. Because he’d never said he’d loved her. So she’d never said it either, but shehadloved him. So much it had scared her enoughnotto tell him.

But if he thought love was a lie, well, it was better than him just not lovingher.

Maybe? God, she needed some rest. First she had to extricate herself from this without compounding a mistake. “I don’t agree, but I don’t need to. What I need is to make certain we’re on the same page. We can co-parent. Hopefully as friends. What I cannot do is engage in this sort of behavior that threatens to put us at odds. We have to be on the same page for Gio, as much as possible. Having sex complicates things.” She sucked in a fortifying breath. “We can’t muddy the waters with a physical relationship. So we’ll agree to work together to parent Gio, to determine how that works with our individual lives and his protection and safety. For our son. And everything from before...and this little blip... Well, we’ll leave that behind. Do you agree to these terms?”

He was very still and very intently staring at her for a minute or so, then nodded. He even held out his hand, like they were shaking on some business partnership. She supposed, in a way, they were.

She moved forward, took his hand and shook it. Very professionally, she liked to think. But as she moved to pull her hand back, he held tight.

“We will indeed parent Gio together, come to a mutually beneficial conclusion as to what a future looks like with us both in his life,” he said.

Her heart was tripping over itself, though she couldn’t say why. Just because he was holding her in place? Just because the brown of his eyes seemed dark and endless. Just because her body still throbbed and yearned for more—specificallyhim, deep inside her.

“And while we do that, you may remain as distant as you wish. I will not pursue you. I will not seduce you. But I will not pretend, Brianna. When I want you. When I’m thinking about how you feel under my hands, how you sound when I am deep within you.”

She let out a shuddering breath.Oh, dear.

His grip on her hand tightened and he drew her near, his mouth dipping close to her ear. “And I will not say no should you come begging to finish what we’ve started,” he said, his voice a low scrape close to a whisper but not quite.

Not quite.

Luckily the idea of begging gave her just a shred of backbone in the moment. She jerked her hand out of his. She tried to tell him it’d be a cold day in hell, but her mouth wouldn’t form the words. Or her conscience wouldn’t let her say them. All she managed was a very ineffective “Fine.”

And then she scurried away like prey escaping a predator. Because that wasexactlywhat she felt like.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LORENZOWATCHEDHERleave his office. She hurried. She looked back once over her shoulder. Much like when he’d first seen her again at the art gallery. But instead of fear this time, there was something else.

She wasn’t running away fromhim.She was running away from what her bodywantedfrom him.

He quite enjoyed that.

But once he turned back to his office and tried to remember what he’d been doing, what needed to be done, he was met only with his brain reliving that moment her mouth had touched his again.

Two years. It should have erased this grasping, painful thing inside of him. The kind ofthingthat tore people apart. That destroyed them...or worse, gave a person the tools to destroy themselves.

He could admit, now that he was alone and had a few moments to collect himself, that this had been...ill-advised. At best.

He did not relish having lost his control, or her being the one to find it first. It was an affront to acknowledge that his sharp mind had been lost to the taste of her and the feel of her and the noises she made as he made her fall apart in his arms.

I think we should chalk that up to some form of insanity brought about by lack of sleep.

He grunted irritably. She was notwrong, and this was why he’d said that last bit. He’d needed to get a shot in too. She could claim it was about Gio, but it was aboutthem.

---