Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Then, without even deciding to, I’m leaning across the table. So is she. We meet in the middle, collapsing into the kiss like we’re starving, and we finally get to eat. There’s so much passion in her kiss, so much hunger. Surely, this means she can’t be too freaked out about what I told her.
“Do you remember what I said?” I breathe frantically between kisses. “You’re mine. You belong to me. Every part, Emma. You and me, forever.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Emma
He moves his chair up to the table, getting close enough to grab my leg, the shimmers dancing up my thigh, teasing at my sex.
“You look so damn perfect in that dress,” he says huskily, then kisses me again.
“F-forever?” I whisper.
He smirks, his face close to mine. Every breath causes warm air to tease across my cheeks.
“I shouldn’t be saying any of this.” He squeezes my leg even more possessively. “But when I saw you, I knew it right away. I knew you were mine, Emma. You’ll be my woman forever—just me and you, nobody else. You’re my virgin. If another man ever touches you, I’ll kill him. Your curvy, young body was made for me. To give me children.”
“Children?” I whisper, heart pounding, tears touching my eyes.
They’re tears of pure emotion, the conflict clashing inside me, telling me this is too good to be true.
“Do you want it?” he growls. “A life together?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
He leans back as if shocked, tilting his head, studying me. “I’m talking about having children together. A family. A marriage. I’m talking about looking at you once and knowing I want all that.”
I return his gaze bravely, I hope. “I felt the same. So don’t act like you’re super weird because of it, okay?”
His smirk melts into a smile. For a second, I get a preview of what Leo Esposito looks like when he’s unashamedly happy, with none of the darkness of his life returning. This is a big step. Major. Life-changing.
“You mean it,” he says fiercely, not a question.
“I do, and you do, yeah?”
Mine can’t help but be a question.
“More than anything.”
We hear footsteps outside. Crap. Here comes the guilt. I wipe my eyes quickly, and we return to our original positions. I wonder if my lips are red from the kissing or if I’ve got a dorky smile on my face from the absolute atom bomb we just detonated in here. If I were smiling, it would fade the second I see Rosa. It’s like somebody’s died, her eyes red, her expression bleak.
Instinctively, I stand and rush over to her. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to go.”
“Why?” Leo asks, voice grim.
He’s thinking the same thing I am. Rosa knows, but when she takes my hand, I know it’s not that. She’s pissed at her dad, though.
“You know why,” she snaps. “We’re leaving. Dad, call the car, please. We’re going right now. Maybe I can forgive you. Maybe, but I never will if you don’t let me leave or at least give me that. Okay?” She screams, “Okay?”
Rosa breaks down in the back of the car, sobbing into my chest. I embrace her, hating that I didn’t get to say goodbye to Leo. After all we shared, I wanted to kiss him and ask if it was real a few more times. I wanted maybe to inch even close to the L word. All bad. All wrong. All betrayals.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Everything has turned to crap.” She sobs. “It’s not fair. Why does life have to be like this?”
“I don’t understand.”
She leans away from me, her eyes raw, red pits of pure agony. I know this isn’t about me and Leo. She wouldn’t be looking at me for support if that was the case, but I’ve got to remind myself that this isn’t about us.
“M-Mom,” she whimpers.
“What about her?”
“Dad never loved her. It was an arranged marriage as part of some Family business to link their families. Mom’s parents wanted Leo because he was the firstborn, the oldest, and the up-and-coming leader, but they were never in love. They only stayed together because it helped the m-m-mafia.”
She trembles and clutches onto me, pain pouring out of her. All I can do is hold on as though this is some twisted natural disaster, offering her whatever comfort I can and—oh, this is wrong—try not to be happy. Leo never had a deep love. He’s experiencing this for the first time, too, this insane, beautiful, wrong adventure we’re on together.
“It gets worse,” Rosa goes on. “Mom and Dario, they were together. When Dario was nineteen, they fell in love. That’s how I know all this. Dario told me. He was drunk. Maybe he wouldn’t have otherwise, but he told me everything and was crying, Emma. Crying, but not because he felt guilty or because of what he was telling me about my mom. No, I could tell he was crying because he was reliving the love and missing her.”