Page 12 of Surprise Baby for the Mafia Boss

As my best friend for most of my life, Grazia is the person I would usually spill all the details of my night to. There have been so many times when I’ve left a guy’s house and come straight to this mansion to giggle and gossip with my friend.

Tonight is different.

We won’t be giggling about this, because when she does find out, she’s going to be outraged.

“Buona notte!" I call as I slip out the door. I don’t wait for her to reply. I get in my car and sit for a minute before I make my way home.

I smile to myself again, knowing that what just happened is monumental for my plan. I wish there was someone I could safely speak to, but no one in my life right now knows just how much this night means to my future.

My thoughts land on Grazia and how she’ll feel when she learns how close Luca and I got tonight. I’m not sure if I’ll be the one to tell her, but how long will it be before she finds out anyway? Especially if I’m planning to make this a recurring event.

I know she’ll be angry, probably with both of us, but more so with me for breaking my promise. That’s just something I’m going to have to deal with, though, for the sake of my plan.

When I get home, I go up to my room as quietly as I can. Waking my father is the last thing I want to do right now. I don’t want to lose the vivid feelings and images in my head that I captured tonight. Not just yet, not until the morning.

Sitting on my bed, I take out a photo I’ve had since I was seventeen. It’s always in my bedside drawer. The photo is of me and the Baldini siblings. Luca is standing right next to me, his arm around my shoulder, with Grazia on the other side of him.

He’s smiling in this picture, which is so rare I think it makes the photograph a collector’s item.

It had been a good day. We spent it with Ginny at the family mansion, swimming and gardening and cooking. It was summer vacation and the boys had been home for a week.

I had spent quite a few hours already talking to Luca about everything we could think of before the picture was taken. Grazia was scowling slightly in the photo because she was already feeling left out, but my smile couldn’t get any bigger.

When I found this photo printed out at the mansion, I took it for my own. I wanted something to look at every time I missed Luca, but now it just helped to bring his face back clearly in my mind.

I kiss photo-Luca and put the picture back into the drawer, laying down on my bed and closing my eyes to images of naked, sweating Luca above me.

Chapter Seven

Luca

I walk down the garden path that Emelia and I had walked down barely an hour ago.

My mind is less chaotic than it was when we left the house, but my thoughts are still racing about what just happened. Not that Emelia was a bad lover. In fact, she was better than most of the girls I’d slept with, but that could also be my emotions talking.

Today had been such a clusterfuck of sadness and grief and I had gone and added in lust and pleasure. Now shame and regret have joined the party. For someone whose goal is to steer clear of emotions, I was doing a pretty terrible job.

I do feel better now, though. The heavy weight that’s been on my shoulders since I left Mexico seems to have lifted almost completely.

I still miss Nonna, and wish I had been here to say goodbye properly, but it does feel easier to breathe now.

I’m still torn about what I allowed to happen—shit, what I made happen—in the lookout, but it’s not like I forced myself on Emelia.

If anything, that little crush we all know she had on me when we were kids seemed to come out in full force tonight.

We all knew that Emelia liked me, and Grazia had even threatened me a few times not to take it anywhere. I had never even thought of it before tonight. She was like a sibling while we were growing up.

She wasn't a kid anymore, though, and life had changed for us. Maybe I’m overthinking what happened. Maybe things would go right back to normal after tonight. Well, normal without Nonna, which was a whole new normal for all of us.

I run into Enzo on my way into the house. “Hey, man, didn’t you go home?” I ask him.

“Luca, I swear to God, I know you have a hard time controlling your impulses but I thought today, of all days, you’d do better.”

“What?”

“Emelia? Your little sister’s goddam best friend? That’s who you decide to fuck right after we’ve just said goodbye to Nonna?”

My mind races trying to figure out how he knows. Could he have seen us? Did Emelia tell him before she left? But also, why the fuck did he care so much?