Page 91 of Powerful Deception

Her voice flutters at the end. It’s as if the words she just said were the hardest she had to say.

I don’t speak. I don’t tell her that she has nothing to be guilty about. That yes Angelina died only ten months ago, but she would want me to move on. She would want me and the kids to be happy.

I should tell her that her guilt was well placed and that she should walk away from this job, from the kids, from me and live the life that every twenty-four-year-old is supposed to live.

There are a lot of things that I should tell her, but I keep each and every one at bay. Instead, I turn to face her completely, shifting Alessandra as I do, and let my fingers wrap around strands of hair.

“You should fear me. Every inch of you should be scared of even being within ten feet of me. Because I’m not just a part of the mafia, amate. I am the fucking mafia. Everyone answers to me and only me.”

I watch as she stiffens at my words, but I don’t address it as I continue speaking.

“That being said, I’m not going to force you to stay here if you don’t want to. I also won’t force you to continue with whatever was happening between us. You have every right to want to put distance between us and to feel guilt. I feel guilty too. Every time I look at you, every time I feel the need to be near you, I feel so much guilt that I fear that I will drown in it. But yet that guilt is not enough to stop me from wanting you. Wanting you in ways that I can't even comprehend.”

A small gasp leaves her lips at my confession. A gasp that I wish I was able to swallow as I press my lips against hers.

“You want to be with me?” She ask, her voice barely a whisper.

I can’t tell if it’s because the kids are asleep or because she has lost her voice to the point she can’t speak.

I give her a nod. “I shouldn’t, but I do. Just like you want to get to know me in different ways, I want the same with you.”

We both go silent for a minute, her most likely marveling at my words and me trying not to let the ghost of my dead wife fill me with even more guilt.

“Then where do we go from here?” she asks again in the same whisper.

There isn’t an ounce of hesitation in my voice when I answer. “We go upstairs, put the kids to bed and figure things out some more.

27

Arianna

I sink my body into the tub, instantly being surrounded by warm water and a lavender scent. The second I take in the lavender scent, every inch of my relaxes and I sink deeper into the water.

Letting my eyes close, I let my head lean against the edge of the tub and enjoy the moment of silence.

Never have I been much of a bath person. Maybe because I stopped taking baths when I was around five and my studio only had a standing shower. I never understood why taking a bath would appeal to people, but now I can see how relaxing it could be.

Especially when you have a man that is shirtless, barefoot and only wearing slacks in the same room, looking down at you.

This night has definitely taken a different turn than what I’ve expected.

I thought that I was going to watch the movie with the kids and then once they went to sleep I would be spending the rest of the night ignoring Dante. Just like I’ve been doing this whole week.

But then he popped into the living room, Alessandra made him sit next to me and my plan of ignoring the man went out the window.

Then everything continued to go to shot when he called me out for ignoring him and asked the big question. Why?

Why, indeed.

It was his persistence that made the words spill out in an uncontrollable way. So much so that I almost told him everything. I almost told him about Gallo and why I was really in his office. I almost let it spill out about what my plans really where when I accepted the job as his nanny.

What I told him was the absolute truth and I wanted to tell him even more of it. I wanted to tell him that my guilt ran so deep that after two days of thinking, I did something that I never thought I would do at the beginning of all this.

I wanted to say that I texted Gallo a few days ago and told him that I no longer wanted to be a part of whatever we set up. That I called a stop to the take down of Dante Rosetti.

But I didn’t let those words spill. I kept those inside, no matter how much I wanted to say them.

And when he told how he also felt guilty and how he felt, it took everything I had not to climb over his daughter and kiss him. Never did I think I would see this man be so vulnerable, yet I did and I loved it.