“They’re at the jewelers being cleaned.” What the fuck Gianni are you insane? She seemed relatively pleased by my answer and I got another one of her kisses. Only this time, I was the one to prolong it. I held her head in my hand and opened her mouth under mine with my tongue.
She sucked it in and pretty soon we were in a deep lip-lock, while the music played softly in the background and the drone of other customers’ voices flitted in and out.
By the time I came up for air, I was hard as a fucking rock, and she wasn’t doing too much better. She seemed to be happiest when I was touching her in some way, so I kept her hand in mine rubbing my thumb back and forth over her hand.
In the back of my mind was the thought that this was a bad fucking idea, but I squashed that shit. I had some hard choices to make, and there wasn’t any time to do it in.
I consoled myself and yes, justified my actions, by telling myself that rejection might be more damaging to her right now. Yeah right Gianni, that’s why you had your tongue half way down her fucking neck.
Life was a fucking mess to put it mildly. I was supposed to retire from the navy, grandpa was supposed to live for at least another twenty, thirty years, and then I could take over.
But none of that had happened and wasn’t about to change.
In between making calls to her all-day and trying to run down the fuck who’d set my family up, I’d done a little digging into her background.
I knew that she was an honor student at the Ivy League school she attended, that she spent summers with her dad and that her mother was gone. In essence I’d made her an orphan. I was all she had; why that thought made my heart trip like a little bitch was anybody’s guess.
Dinner was a fucking trial, between long sighing looks, and intermittent kisses over our dishes of pasta and Chicken Parmesan; I made the decision to let shit go as it may. We were both adults, at this moment she was interested. If that changed when her memory returned well then, I’ll just have to deal with it.
With the decision finally settled in my mind, I was free to relax and enjoy her. She was a talkative little thing; for someone who didn’t have much of a memory left, she was sure full of questions and chatter.
I answered all her questions, which thank fuck, were vague and had more to do with the mundane than anything really profound. In the car on the way home she laid her head on my shoulder and took my hand. I saw the look that passed between Damien and Antonio but I didn’t owe anyone any explanations, so they could speculate all the fuck they wanted to.
Chapter 9
Once back in the house she ran upstairs to go play with her new shit. I’d sent the nurse home before we’d left, so once again it was just the two of us in the house. I checked the monitors, to make sure the perimeter was covered, and that the men were doing their jobs and not fucking around.
Our place is backed by water, so that was another avenue the enemy could use to get to me. I wasn’t expecting any retaliation anytime soon; for one thing, they had no idea that the soldier boy was the one behind the hits, and they had no idea where my family was. That is, if anyone was even going to try.
As far as I could figure, from what I’d read in the files grandpa had kept, it was the commissioner and Villanova who were behind the drug trade idea. With those two gone, I should be done with this mess, at least until the next schism.
I sat in the big chair in the study contemplating my life and the drastic change it had taken in the last few days. I was no longer the man I had been when this week began.
At twenty-seven I am now head of the family. Something I hadn’t expected for at least another twenty years. I had no problem throwing off one mantle and taking on the other, though they were so vastly different. This is just something I always knew was part of my future.
What I hadn’t planned for, was the young girl that was now part of my life, or the way she made me feel. Was it just a physical thing, or was I suffering from the guilt of having killed her dad in front of her? Whatever it was, some fuck was going on with my heart where she was concerned.
I’m not gonna call it love, I’d be fucked if I know what that shit feels like, unless it pertains to family. But there was definitely something going on. Maybe it was like I’d told her dad, a life for a life. That memory had me thinking a whole lot of crazy shit, shit better left for another day. Maybe after a few days I’d feel different who knows?
She came down the stairs a few minutes later; I could hear her calling for me. I walked to the door of the study and almost had a fucking heart attack at the sight that met me.
Oh yeah, she’s getting fucked; there’s no two ways about it, and no use in even pretending anymore. I wasn’t even going to try to second guess myself or beat my conscience with a stick.