Chapter 21
Bianca
That’s not what I wanted him to say. It’s not even what I ever expected him to say. How did we lose our way from wanting to be together one moment and needing time the next? I thought Leo wanted me, wanted more between us, from us, with our child now in the mix. When Mattia told me earlier in the night that Leo was ready to marry me, I was surprised. So the “Marry me” he’d thrown at me in the Tribeca loft, he’d meant it. I’d thought it was an afterthought, an easy way out of our predicament at the time.
It would’ve meant a war with the Albanians if we’d gone ahead at the time, not to mention disgrace on my father and Mattia’s name.
But like Leo said, the war came and went anyway, and the stigma that can fall on my family now, it won’t be this bad. Because I bore a Don an heir—no matter what, nothing can change who Enzo really is in the scheme of things.
And this is what I have to recall today, now, as I stare at Leo’s hardened face just a few inches from mine. I need to think clearly, and this means thinking of my son. Our son. I’ve lived with this knowledge for years, ever since that pregnancy test confirmed his seed had germinated in my womb. Leo, he’s had no clue. It’s been four years—I can’t expect him to compute all this in forty minutes. He’s right to want space, to want time.
Everything I’ve done, it’s upended our future even more than the fact Leo killed Ardian. Just like I reckoned earlier when I stood and took his hand to show him Enzo, we need to put the past to rest before we can look forward. At that moment, I was ready to put the past behind us, to have all the secrets out. That’s why I got up and revealed my biggest secret to him.
It feels liberating to not be hiding anymore. I know the syndicate will be on our backs; I know the world will gasp when it’s clear I’ve returned. But the biggest load of all was keeping all this from my family and then from Leo. Hana is also off the hook, no longer needing to lie to her husband. Mattia took this harder than me disappearing, I think, and I hope the woman who has become my closest friend will find absolution for her selfless sacrifice.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “We shouldn’t jump into anything.”
He shrugs. “If it had been just us…”
I agree with what he’s saying. It’s not just us in the picture anymore. We both have to think of Enzo, of how to protect him in all this. I know I’m not going back to Tokyo again, which means we’re back here, where my son will now grow up. I did think of the logistics when we were traveling. I’ll find a French-speaking daycare for the time being, then slowly ease him into a bilingual setting before he has to start preschool in a couple of years. By this point, he should be more at ease with speaking English. The Japanese, it can be something we keep at home—it helps for a child to be multi-lingual.
A thought strikes me.
“Do you want him to learn Italian?” I ask.
“Make him learn another language?” Leo asks with a small laugh. “He speaks French with you.”
A chuckle escapes me. “And Japanese with Hana and Hiro.”
“So he’s bilingual?” Leo gasps.
“Tri-lingual. He also speaks English.”
“And you want him to speak Italian, as well?”
I shrug. “Kids are like little sponges at this age. Plus he’s shown he takes to languages very well.”
“I don’t know,” he sighs. “I think you’d know best.”
His words hit me right in the heart. I don’t like this feeling, the fact he’s clueless about his own son.
“It’s not you I was keeping him from,” I say softly. “I never would’ve hidden your child from you if I’d had a choice.”
His inhale is a sharp gasp. “I recall asking you to marry me before you left. I believed we could when I said it, but time has shown me what a clusterfuck we would’ve gotten embroiled in. To bring a child into that…”
His hand finds mine, and I take some comfort from his touch as his words shred at my hope. Mattia said Leo wanted to marry me, and now he himself is saying it would’ve been a bad decision. Where do we stand now?
I swallow hard and steel my spine. I didn’t come here to get married, to earn the security of a husband. I came for my son to get the protection of his father, and ultimately, his rightful family name.
“You did the right thing,” he says, squeezing my hand.
This brings me a small dose of comfort, and I smile, though I’m sure it’s not brightly.
“So all this time, you were pretending to be French,” he says.
I welcome the topic change, laughing softly. “I lived in Paris for five years, remember?”
He nods. “You do look like a French woman.”
“Mattia and my father didn’t recognize me, you know.” It makes me laugh every time I think back to their confusion now. Then a thought sobers me. “But not you. You recognized me right away.”
His gaze goes dark as he peruses my face with his eyes. “I’d recognize you anywhere. Even in another life.”
My breath hitches in my lungs. I can hear the longing in his tone, the caring and feelings in his voice. They are so much an echo of my own. Again, I’m reminded how much Leo is my person. Mine.
“As I would you,” I whisper.
My eyes meet his, and it’s as if time stops. His left hand clasps mine in my lap tighter as his right hand finds my jaw again, his palm molding to my cheek, his fingers brushing the shell of my ear and eliciting shivers down my body. I don’t know when he pulls me to him and his lips find mine, pressing and seeking a kiss, the warmth of his big body radiating out to me like sunlight calls to a dying plant.
I melt into his touch, my lips parting under his, welcoming his tongue as it seeks mine, as it probes the depths of my mouth, as he strokes and teases and takes and gives and brings me back to life again.
His hand tightens along my jaw, and I relish the possessive touch, the feel of him taking from me all that I am willingly giving, all I have to give him. No one but Leo can make me feel this way, like I’m an open book and all the words on the pages make sense, complete each other, string along to make a masterpiece he yearns to devour over and over again like he’s coming back to me for the first time every time, the wonder still as palpable and something to be ultimately cherished as much as it’s to be relished.
I moan against his mouth, angling my body closer to his, seeking to be as near him as possible, with nothing between us preferably. My skin is burning for his touch, for his fingertips grazing it ever so softly that it brings chills wracking all through me, every nerve ending standing at attention.
I must’ve triggered something in him because his kiss becomes even more ravenous, his mouth slanting over mine ever more so to enable him to plunder some more, to drink in my every sigh, my very breath.
When my breasts press up against his chest, Leo moans into our kiss. It’s a feral sound that makes every feminine part of me sing with joy. I am the woman doing this to him, wringing this helplessness from such a big, strong, powerful man. My hands are now clutching at his shirt, wanting to feel the heat of his skin more closely, yearning to burn from his perpetual warmth. And Leo? He seems to want the same thing from me.
One hand is still cradling my cheek, but the other, it’s on my neck, brushing down my collarbone and shoulder he’s exposed with his touch. I’m in one of Bérénice’s flowy boho-chic caftans, so it’s not hard for him to run his hand farther down, to press his palm to my heavy, full breast and start to mold the plying flesh to his grip. I can’t believe my breasts grow even more sensitive as he touches one over the clinging fabric of my bodysuit. My nipples have pebbled into hard points ever since his hand landed on me, and the one so close to his thumb is hurting, craving his touch.
I gasp when he flicks his thumb against the hardened nub, a low moan keening out of me as my thighs clench of their own accord, squeezing my pussy that’s already tingling and begging to be filled.
He’s sitting right next to me. It will take just a small slide to angle closer, to open my legs and press my throbbing sex against his knee.
I’m about to do just that when I recall where we are. Oh my God, why does everything we do that’s so pleasurable have to happen in a place that reminds me of my brother? Forget the interlude in Tribeca—we weren’t going to get it on there. But our first time? Mattia’s wedding suite. Our second time? Mattia’s living room.
I shudder and break away, panting heavily as I stare into Leo’s lust-painted face.
“Not here. We’re in Mattia’s house.”
I don’t add that he can come down at any minute. Hana’s out for the count, but Enzo can also get up and find us, his mother with a stranger and in such a compromising position. He’s too young to comprehend what it means, but still, I don’t want to scar my son. Or my brother any further.
Leo’s Adam’s apple bobs a few times, then he nods. Without another word, he stands up and turns away. I’m sure he’s adjusting his pants, just like I’ll need to adjust my panties that are sticking to my folds right now.
“I should leave,” he mutters.
I glance at the clock on the mantel. “It’s already almost morning.”
He walks to the front door, and I follow him, uncomfortable with the satin of my panties wedged between my thighs.
In front of the panel, he stops and turns to me.
I bite my lip when I see his face. Lust is clearly still visible on his taut features, in the hooded lids over his dark eyes blazing with passionate fire.
“Leo,” I whisper.
He’s on me in the next second, his mouth crashing onto mine, his body pressing me against the wall. Heat charges from him and jumps to me, suffusing me, the flames I just saw in his eyes lighting me like a match touched to gasoline.
I press into him, too, my breasts crushing against his hard chest, my legs parting so he can insert a knee between them, the evidence of his erection pushing into the soft flesh of my belly as my sex finds a home against his thigh, a bit of pressure to relieve the tension in its folds, in its core.
Leo’s the one who breaks away first this time. I’m gasping when he unsticks himself from me.
“Can I come see you later?” he asks.
Aside from the raspy voice, I have no idea how he can be functioning so clearly.
“When you’ve all woken up?” he continues.
When Enzo’s awake… Leo needs to meet his son. We also need to see each other under the clear light of day, talk things through, make a plan for the future. This better be done with other people around us, and I can count on Mattia and Hana being here at breakfast, or brunch the way things stand, with the jet lag and the time difference we need to adjust to.
However, all I can do is nod, my vocal chords still under the thrall of the raging fire Leo lit up in me just now.
It seems to be all the answer he was looking for, though. He bids me goodnight then leaves, closing the front door softly behind him.
I take a minute to gather my breath, then start up the stairs. Mattia brushes past me on the threshold of my room, and I think I can detect a small smile on his lips. Heat burns my cheeks—did my brother just see me and Leo making out like cats in heat in his foyer?
My breathing is still erratic, and I know there’s no way I can calm down without attending to the arousal surging through me. After a quick glance to make sure Enzo is sleeping soundly, I duck into the ensuite bathroom and sit on the edge of the tub. My fingers find their way between my legs, and as suspected, my panties are drenched, my pussy soaking wet. After being in Leo’s embrace, this is not how my body wants its completion to happen, but it will have to accept my ministrations tonight because I won’t function without release right now.
So I stroke and caress, imaging Leo’s hand on me, his long, thick fingers doing the taking, dipping in and slowly fucking me, his thumb pressing against my clit long and hard then swift and light as I bring myself to a shattering orgasm.
I get into bed, my eyes tracking the yellow-orange-pink stars the nightlight is casting on the ceiling. A sigh leaves my body, my weight sinking into the mattress as I let go of the tension that’d been holding my muscles hostage all through the evening. I’m here in New York now, with my family, and Leo knows I’m alive. He knows he has a son, and he and I, we seem to be on the same page where our feelings are concerned, at least bodily-speaking. Can there be more? I don’t know, but that’s not for me to tell. Not just yet. For now, I’ll let time do its job.
Sleep finds me, though it’s erratic and fitful. When I wake up, the sun is already high in the sky, as evidenced by the amount of light making it into the room from the gap I left in the curtains last night when I checked the window after someone started knocking loudly.
Enzo’s still asleep. It’s not unusual for him to be out for twelve or more hours. It worried me at first—did this need for extra sleep mean he was lacking something developmentally? But it turns out I just have a kid whose internal dynamo powers at full throttle and he thus needs to rest a lot to recharge it back to full.
I clean the ravages of sleep from me and get changed, then start out of the room, the baby monitor in my hand. I’ve opened the curtains a bit, so Enzo won’t panic when he awakens. It’s nighttime that’s full of monsters for my little one, though with all the kaiju myths Hiro has told him, he’s not afraid of the creatures themselves. Just the dark.
I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear male voices drifting from below. My step falters for a second. Leo’s already here. Silently, I make it down, peeking into the kitchen. Indeed, he’s here, sitting on a stool with Mattia standing across him at the island.
“We need to announce this,” Mattia’s saying.
I pause to listen, though I don’t make myself conspicuous. I don’t want them to think I’m eavesdropping. Engrossed as they are in their conversation, they haven’t noticed me yet.
“The syndicate won’t be happy,” Leo says with a sigh. “I’m thinking how to broach the subject.”
“But you’re coming up blank,” my brother replies. “Same here.”
Leo straightens then, and he turns my way, as if some sixth sense of his figured out I’m in his periphery.
“Bianca,” he says.
I give him a small smile. “Good morning.”
He smiles, and it softens his harsh face. I realize now I met a boy all these years ago at my brother’s wedding. Now, Leo is a man. Fully so. A Don.
“Slept well?” he asks.
I shake my head softly. I don’t want to make small talk. Not after what I just heard them discussing. I’m the reason Leo killed Ardian Abrashi, because he thought I was dead. Hana and I made it look like my fiancé had gotten rid of me, down to the last detail. I was carrying a pouch of my own blood the night I ran away, using it to make it appear like a left-handed person had cut me with a knife near the entrance of the alley and then letting the blade drip-drip-drip droplets until an intersection of dark alleys farther in the darkness. I stopped the trail by stashing the plastic pocket and the weapon in my handbag that I later abandoned in the car that took me to the airport.
Thinking of the spot Leo now finds himself in because of me, between a rock and a hard place, I recall one of the reasons why I came back.
“I have something that might help you with the other Dons,” I tell him.
His eyebrows meet as he frowns, and I know he’s weighing his words before he speaks. It’s something he used to do, even more so now in his position of power. It’s only with me that the barrier between his brain and his mouth seems to short-circuit usually. With me, he’s impulsive and spontaneous.
He’s about to speak—I saw the inhale, the soft nod as his lips pursed—when a sound catches all our attention.
“ Maman ?” a small voice asks. Then comes the sound of little feet rushing down the carpeted stairs toward where I stand at the bottom. “ Maman !”
I laugh as he throws himself at me, his arms wrapping somewhere around my hips as he’s still on the last step. I catch him and pull him into my arms. “ Bonjour, mon c?ur .”
His head lands on my shoulder, and he’s now looking toward the kitchen.
Silence has fallen in the other room, the two men still, Leo looking almost frozen.
Enzo asks me who the man with Uncle Mattia is in French.
My gaze catches Leo’s. He’s doesn’t speak French, but what I’m about to say next, he’s bound to understand.
Without breaking eye contact with him, I press a soft kiss to our son’s head and smile.
“ C’est ton papa. ”
It’s your dad.
There. The bombshell has been dropped. I wonder how both father and son will react now.