by Sam Mariano
I need to get Carly out of here. We need to get home. I can already feel the toxicity rolling over me in waves, and for months, I’ve felt almost healthy.
Chapter Nineteen
Vince
Mateo sits at the head of the short table, even here at the restaurant where none of the tables even have a chair at the head. Mia sits at the end of the table in the seat to his left, just like at the house. Adrian sits across from her so he can keep an eye on everything, and through some evil twist in seating arrangements, Carly sits beside Mia, with me at the foot of the table—which, again, is not a fucking thing in restaurants.
Mateo wants me across from him, but with the ability to watch Mia and Carly while we eat. He’s such a fucking bastard. I’m already going over every possible motivation he could have for the way he’s seated us, and my drink isn’t even here yet.
“I love your ring,” Carly says to her new best friend, Mia.
I stab the fuck out of my salad. I somehow forgot he gave her that farce of a fucking engagement ring. Can’t be engaged to two people at once, asshole.
“Oh, thank you,” Mia says, brightly. “So do I,” she adds, a little more dryly.
“Is that Harry Winston? Wow.”
Mia flushes, but nods her head.
I make a note that Carly likes whatever Harry Winston is, though frankly, if we even survive today I will be impressed, so I probably don’t need to take notes like that.
I don’t need to look at it to see what style might appeal to Carly—now that they’ve brought it up, I very keenly remember that fucking ring; I looked at it much more than I should have in Vegas—but given an excuse, the masochist side of me can’t help looking over at Mia’s hand again. I wait for the stab of pain, but instead of pain, there’s shock. It’s not a single ring anymore; there are two.
There’s a wedding band on that finger now.
My gaze darts across the table, somehow unable to reconcile the fact. There can’t be a wedding band. Wedding rings are for married people. He had two fiancées. He can’t legally marry them both. He does a lot of illegal shit, but he wouldn’t mess with something as inane as bigamy. Maybe he bought them both wedding rings, too.
His hand is obscured from view when I first look, but he moves it so I can see the matching band on his left hand.
“You’re married?”
The table goes silent for a second once the words slip out, then Mateo answers, “Yes, we’re married.” He reaches for his drink, raising an eyebrow at me across the table. “We would’ve invited you to the wedding, but, you know.”
I feel hollowed out for about the millionth time today. I can’t quite wrap my head around it. Mateo isn’t the marrying kind. He loved Beth beyond reason and he never married her. I thought he fell hard for Meg, but that was clearly wishful thinking. It was the only way to explain the whirlwind—maybe he got swept up, but this isn’t swept up. This is deliberate. He spent years with Mia and never married her. That didn’t surprise me. He doesn’t trust people. It doesn’t matter if it’s been years; he’s always waiting for them to disappoint him. Then he creates these situations that make it almost impossible not to disappoint him, and when we inevitably fail his test, he gets to feel vindicated.
Carly told me what that was called, but I don’t remember. I call it being an asshole.
Mateo fucking Morelli finally got married, and he married Mia.
“Did you marry Meg, too? Are you a full-blown polygamist now?”
Mia’s nose wrinkles up in displeasure, but she lets Mateo answer me. “No,” he says, without answering any of the other millions of questions flooding my head.
The server finally arrives with our drinks. I don’t even let him set it down, I just take it, letting him know, “I’m gonna need another one of these,” then taking a sip.
Carly regards Mateo, pointing at the empty chair across from her, next to Adrian. “Could we move him over here? I feel like this seating arrangement is a little isolating and we might all be more comfortable if—”
“No,” Mateo says, easily.
Carly drops it, but she looks stressed. Just one more thing that makes me feel terrible. I shouldn’t have brought her. He’s going to fuck this up. We’ve only been together for six months and now we have to survive whatever torment Mateo has cooked up for me.
I’m not sure six years would be adequate time to prepare for that.
We’re all quiet for another minute. I consume some of the whiskey. Thankfully, it does its job, somewhat soothing my ragged nerves. I feel a little more like a person—as opposed to a bundle of exposed nerves—by the time the first glass is gone, but the waiter is too slow in bringing a second. This one I’ll nurse, I just needed something to calm me down.
This feels more manageable. It’s just dinner. I’ve survived a million of these over time. Granted, not with Carly here, but I need to keep it together. She’s told me before I give Mateo more power over me than he could ever take for himself, so I try to remind myself that.
By the time dinner is served, I have enough of a handle on things to reach across the table and take Carly’s hand. She and Mia have mostly been carrying the conversation, chatting about clothes and shoes and Carl Jung, for some fucking reason. Once Mia found out Carly was a psych major, she told her she had been, too, and they started talking about that shit.
None of the men at the table have anything to say to one another that should be said at the dinner table, so we just let them go and eat in relative silence. I don’t talk, Adrian doesn’t talk, and Mateo just observes everything.
When he observes my hand on Carly’s, he must interpret it as a show of strength, evidence that he hasn’t adequately crushed me beneath the heel of his loafer. He steeples his hands for a moment, lost in thought, then he bends down beside the table where Mia was fiddling with her purse before we sat down. I imagine him pulling his gun out and aiming it at me, telling me it’s been fun catching up, then firing a bullet into my chest as Carly’s blood-curdling scream becomes the last sound I ever hear.
That doesn’t happen.
Mia stops talking to Carly to see what he’s doing. Mia and Mateo exchange a look. She looks reluctant. He gives her a push without saying or doing anything, just by looking at her.
Mia sighs, then turns and bends over to reach in the floor beside her chair.
I hear a noise. Then another noise. Then Mia lifts a baby in a little suit from the space, settling him against her chest and placing a kiss on his forehead.
“Hey, little guy,” she murmurs, quietly, before kissing his head again.
The toothless baby grins up at her and touches her face.
She smiles down at him like he’s the light of her life.
Mia is a mom.
Mia has a baby.
Mia and Mateo have a baby.
“Oh, my God,” Carly says, looking at the baby. “He’s wearing a little suit!”
Mia looks over at Carly and grins. “I know, right? Dom, say hi.”
The baby, apparently named Dom, shoves his fist in his mouth and looks around. His gaze settles on Carly. She looks the most like his mom, so he pulls his fist out of his mouth and gives her a big smile.
Carly clutches her heart. “I can’t handle it. He’s too cute.”
Mia glows. “He is. I’m not even modest about it. He’s the cutest little person who has ever been a person, I’m pretty sure.”
Carly smiles and leans over to wave at Dom. “Hi, cutie. I’m Carly.” Looking over the baby, Carly then looks at Mia and says, “Wow, he got nothing from you.”
Mia chuckles. “He got my disposition. Trust me. Mateo’s son—Mateo’s other son, Roman, he’s much more demanding. Dom is a sweetheart. He’s all smiles and giggles—except when he’s trying to steal stuff, but he’s so cute about it, you can’t even be mad.”
Carly grins at Dom. “Are you a little thief?”
He squeals at her, still with his gummy little grin.
“That’s okay,
” Carly assures him. “I’ll give you whatever you want. You’re adorable.”
I finally tear my gaze away from the baby and the only two women I’ve ever loved long enough to look at Mateo. I expect him to be watching them, to be watching Mia with his son, as in awe as I would be, but he’s watching me. I frown, not bothering to hide my confusion.
He turns his attention to Mia and the baby.
What’s the point of bringing his baby to dinner? Mateo doesn’t allow little kids at dinner unless it’s a special occasion. Does he really want to crush me all at once? Why bring the baby when he’s making me go back to his house after we leave here? Wouldn’t it have been more natural for me to see the baby at home, in its natural environment?
Of course it would. Maybe he wants to fully test me before he brings me to the house. Maybe he still has lingering doubts that I would try to take Mia, so he’s throwing every card down on the table. Telling me, “Hey, remember when you kidnapped Mia? Yeah, well, I married her and put a baby in her as soon as she got back, asshole.”
Actually, wait a minute. I don’t know how old that baby is, but he really didn’t waste any time. Pregnancy takes nine months. Mia wasn’t pregnant in Vegas.
“Mia, how old is that baby?”
It’s the first time I’ve addressed her—we’ve been attempting to pretend we can’t see each other—and I realize the question came out more aggressively than I intended.
Mia’s stricken gaze meets mine. She looks like she wants the floor to open up and swallow her. I know that look, and I know it well: guilt. “Uh, Dom—” She pauses and clears her throat. “Dominic is almost four months old.”
Almost four months. So three months. Plus nine months.
I kidnapped Mia a year ago.
All the blood rushes to my head, raging through my ears until it’s all I can hear.
It’s not possible. It’s not fucking possible. There’s no way.
I push the chair back and Adrian stands, staring me down.
“I want to look at the baby,” I state.
Mia darts a look at Mateo, clutching Dominic closer to her chest. He grabs a fistful of her hair and tries to eat it.
I don’t even really think about what I’m doing, or who’s watching, I just walk over and take Mia’s hair out of his hand, pushing it back over her shoulder so it’s out of his reach. He looks up at me, the new face in his line of sight, and my own brown eyes look back at me.
That could be wrong. They could be Mateo’s.
But are they? Mia wasn’t allowed to get pregnant prior to Vegas because of Meg, she already told me that. So I had the first shot at her open womb, then possibly Rafe, then Mateo.
Fuck, Rafe has brown eyes, too. He’s blonde, like his own mother. This baby isn’t blonde, but his hair is much lighter than mine or Mateo’s. More Adrian’s shade. Mia is blonde though, so maybe…
Dom offers me a toothless little grin and kicks his legs at me. A faint smile tugs at my lips. I reach a tentative finger toward him to see if he’ll grab it. He does. Tries to eat it. I shake my head at him.
“That’s not gonna taste very good.”
He squeals at me in response. Then he babbles, like he’s telling me a story. I nudge the car seat out of the way with my foot and kneel down by Mia’s legs. She has him sitting on her lap now so he can look at me. His little tongue sticks out. He’s drooling like it’s his job, but he’s not worried about it.
Mia clears her throat, then points at the seat I moved away from her. “Can you give me the little cloth there so I can wipe his chin?”
I turn back to look for it, but it’s like I’m seeing a baby seat for the first time. It hits me that this is the seat he sits in every day, the seat Mia buckled him into to bring him to this dinner. The little giraffe toy left behind in the seat belongs to him, and the cloth printed with little zoo animals… all belong to him.
Who does he belong to?
Dominic.
I shake myself out of it and grab the cloth, turning back to give it to Mia. She murmurs a thank you and dabs at the baby’s mouth, but her “thanks” sounds a little thick. I look up and see tears shining in her eyes. Why is she crying?
“Did I do this?” I ask her, softly.
Mia swallows, but doesn’t answer. I think she’s afraid to move. I can feel her wanting to look at Mateo. I don’t know what she needs—his protection, his permission, his interference, but I can feel her needing him and it pisses me off. Even as it pisses me off, though, this cheerful baby looks at me with brown eyes he may have got from me. If this baby is mine…
Mia hasn’t answered me, but that feels a little like an answer. I ask, “Can I hold him?”
This time Mateo answers with a hard, cold, “No.”
I turn my head to glare at him. I’m kneeling here like an asshole and I don’t want to be, so I rise up so I can look down at him. “Why not?”
“With your track record, do you really have to ask?” Mateo returns. Dismissing me with a look, he flicks a look across the table. “Go sit down, Vince.”
“Is that my baby?” I demand.
“That’s my son,” he informs me, fire igniting in his eyes. “My wife. My son. Mine.”
A chair scrapes the floor. Mateo’s gaze moves to where Carly’s seated.
Looking back at me with a raised eyebrow, Mateo adds, “I suggest you take better care of what is yours, before you lose that, too.”
Now my gaze snaps to where Carly should be, but she’s walking away.
Aw, fuck.
“Carly, wait.” I jog after her, but she shrugs my hand off when I catch up.
“Just give me a minute, Vince. No one told there was a baby.”
“Well, I didn’t know there was a baby. I still don’t. I don’t know—”
She spins around to stare at me. “But it could be. That could be your baby. And… it’s not like it was a hook-up, Vince. If that’s your baby….”
We haven’t directly referred to what I did to Mia in Vegas, but there’s an unspoken understanding that we both know. It’s too fucking awkward to really talk about, even though Carly is good at talking about sticky things, but that’s something even she hasn’t touched. We’ve talked about the kidnapping part, she assumed worse happened, I let her assume and never verified.
A baby sort of verifies the unspoken.
A baby sort of makes it hard to gloss over.
But it might not be mine. It could be Mateo’s. It could even be Rafe’s, I assume. He took her back to his house that night. I didn’t want to think about it, because frankly even that’s my fault. I’m the one who dragged Mia onto Rafe’s radar. He didn’t even know who she was or that she existed until I dragged her ass across the country and kept her a prisoner in my home. Mia needed a helpful friend and Rafe was the only option—but Morelli men do not make harmless friends.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Just let me go to the bathroom and get my head together,” Carly says, shaking her head and walking away.
I feel like my head is going to fucking explode.
I need to get out of this restaurant, out of this city, away from these people.
And yet, if that’s my baby, how the hell am I supposed to walk away from that? How am I supposed to go back to Connecticut, knowing I have a kid out there being raised by the worst fucking person in the world?
Twenty four fucking hours ago, my life was good.
You’d think it’d get easier, Mateo blowing my life all to hell. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
I turn back to the table, to the site of my fucking destruction. We aren’t going to make it through this week. Carly has hung on for my bullshit, but she’s going to fall off if Mateo’s bullshit is added to the mix. Now she’s not just here to see the ex I was obsessed with, the cousin who plays mind games, the fucking hitman who will probably kill me, but also the baby I may have raped into my ex-girlfriend.
This is a lot to deal with. I only had to deal with ironic coffee mugs,
newspapers covered with craft glue, and a history in prostitution. That’s all easy compared to what she has to deal with.
This isn’t going to work.
She’s going to realize I am not worth all this.
Carly was right. Mateo did find me, probably a long time ago. He gave me an inch, he gave me this time to give my heart away, just so he could yank my chain and crush it all over again.
Chapter Twenty
Mia
I lie back on the bed with my knees up, Dom balanced on my legs while Roman snuggles up against my side, clutching his blankie and yawning.
My husband eyes up Roman as he approaches the bed, raising an eyebrow to let him know he’s not impressed with his spot being filled by the smaller Morelli. “You were right; we should have only had girls.”
I smile faintly, but I’m not really in the mood tonight. “The girls love me, too. Sorry to burst your bubble.”
“Yes, but they don’t hog you in bed,” he states, sliding under the blankets as he scoots closer to me.
I rub the small hand Dom has wrapped around my thumb, absently holding onto me while he chows down on his toy. “We have a huge bed. There’s plenty of room for family cuddles.”
“You’re off tonight,” Mateo states, reaching over and running his fingers lightly up and down my arm.
“That was cruel. At dinner,” I specify. “I told you I didn’t want to take Dom. That would have been hard enough on him with just us. You could have given them one night to settle in. We could’ve brought Dom out tomorrow.”
Sighing, Mateo scoops up Roman and settles him in his lap so he can take his place, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into his side. “It’s not a test if you go easy, Mia. The point of a test is to hit people with everything you have and see what happens. I invited Rafe to Easter dinner, by the way. He said yes.”