You’re Not Helping
You’re Not Helping
Fiona
No.
No.
No. I can’t believe I just said that. Hope trusted me, and I totally ratted her out in a moment of sheer terror.
After the word roared out of Max’s mouth, he went totally silent.
Eerily silent.
It’s like he’s a time bomb ready to go off.
Do I say something or wait for him to compose himself?
His nostrils flare. Any moment, I expect steam to pop out of them and his face to turn red.
Maybe he needs a few minutes—
Max turns and storms out the door.
What?
No. He’s going to find a boy to kill.
Or kill anyone in his path.
Not good.
I chase after him.
Down the steps.
Out the door.
Into the park.
He doesn’t slow down.
Thankfully, he’s got over a hundred pounds on me, and I prefer cardio to training on the mat with Dyce. Not that she lets me get away with it that often. I up the speed a little and catch up to him. “Max, stop.”
He completely ignores me.
This park isn’t very big. If I don’t stop him soon, he’s bound to run into a human being, and that won’t be pretty.
This might be stupid, but it’s the only way I can think of to stop this beast of a man from killing someone.
I launch my body at him, wrapping my arms and legs around him like I’m a monkey on his back.
Max slows down but doesn’t fully stop. “Get off.”
“No. You can’t go hurtling forward like a raging beast set to kill a boy who hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Anything wrong? Anything wrong?” Max’s hands come up and hold on to my arms so that I won’t fall off. “That boy looked at my daughter. My. Teenage. Daughter.”
“And he was the one who refused to date her.”
“What?” Max comes to a sudden stop, rocking us forward.
“He won’t date her. He’s such a gentleman, like you are, that he won’t even touch her.”
The sound of footsteps interrupts me.
Ace is jogging in the park.
“A little help over here would be appreciated,” I shout to him.
He stops for a second to look at the two of us, probably laughing a little in his head at the absurd picture we make. “It appears you’ve got everything under control. Have a nice one.” He turns and runs off in the other direction.
Does this really look like I have anything under control?
Seriously?
“Hop on down before you fall, Fea.” Max pats my arm.
“You wouldn’t let me fall.”
“True. But do it anyway.”
Should I? It seems like a ploy so he can make his escape. “Only if you promise not to kill the boy.”
“Fea.”
“Promise me, and I’ll get down.” That’s totally the reason and not that my tummy is filling with butterflies from holding on to Max.
“I promise that I won’t kill him today.”
“Ever.”
“I can’t promise you that, and I won’t ever lie to you.”
Close enough. All it takes is for me to relax my legs a little bit, and I slide down his body until my feet hit the ground.
Max twists around in the blink of an eye and wraps an arm around my waist. My back touches the brick wall that was a few feet away moments ago. “Never do that again. Never try to stop me when I get that out-of-control mad.”
“You weren’t out of control.” Or at least not that out of control. “You wouldn’t ever hurt me.”
His hand cups my cheek, and his thumb runs along my jaw. “Never. And where did you get the silly thought that I won’t touch you?”
Shivers run down my neck straight to my heart. “You won’t.”
“You’ve got that so wrong, tesoro mio. I plan on touching you as often as I possibly can. If possible, I would never let you go.”
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
“You don’t have a response to that, do you?”
There isn’t one. “We should talk about Hope.”
“That is the last thing I want to talk about at the moment. If I can’t kill him, I don’t want to think about him.”
“She’s a teenage girl. What did you think was going to happen?”
“That I was going to lock her up until she turned eighty and kill any boy that looked at her.”
I laugh. “Weren’t you married at sixteen?”
He growls. “And what’s your point?”
“You have one chance to keep this spectacular relationship with your daughter. Losing it because you flip out over a respectful boy doesn’t seem like a good choice.”
Max leans in until our noses are almost touching. “Are you always going to protect her and take her side?”
“This is me taking your side. You’re the man every little girl wants as her father.” He’s a man any woman would want in her life. A blush steals up my face.
“It seems to me that it’s time for us to finish that conversation we started in your apartment.”
I don’t wanna.
Nope. I’m good. “We could discuss the weather instead.”
“Have I told you how very cute you are?”
Please don’t. “Even though it’s a little brisk out, the weather is remarkably nice for this time of year.”
“Fiona, I’ve never met anyone so determined to stick their head in the sand as you.”
“Thank you?”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
Don’t I know it. “You’re going to break me.” The words come out barely as a whisper.
“No, I’m going to cherish you until the day we die.”
My whole-body shivers with the desire for those words to be true. To have a man like him love a woman like me…impossible.
“So, let’s go back to the truth.”
“Lies are safer.”
“I know it feels that way right now, tesoro mio, but I promise you’re safe with me. Are you dating Canyon?”
When a man like Massimo Vincenti is determined to make something happen, there’s no point in resisting. Let’s just hope I survive when he realizes who I truly am. “No.”
A smile lights up his face like I’ve never seen before. His thumb comes to a stop a hair’s breadth from my lip. “Did you ever love him?”
“No.”
“This one is going to be hard, but once you say it, you will realize just how easy it is. Do you love me?”
“What? I thought you were going to ask me if I wanted to date you. No one said anything about love. That’s not a fair question to ask. How can you ask that?”
“When it comes to the woman I love, I don’t fight fair. You need to know that, Fiona. There is nothing in the world that can ever stand between the two of us. Not even you. So I’ll ask you again.” He leans even closer so that his face is right next to mine.
Our eyes connect to one another like magnets that fight against every other force to be together.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.” Even though it will probably end up killing me. “Yes, I love you, Massimo Rage Vincenti.”
“See, the world didn’t end. We’re both right here together forever.”
For now.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, Fiona, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. You just tied your life to mine forever.”
Forever only lasts until you know. Then you’ll look at me and see the filth that’s hiding behind the pretty exterior.
“You don’t believe me.”
“No.” The truth burns its way out.
“That’s okay, for now.”
The ‘for now’ sounds ominous. I don’t want to think about that. I certainly don’t want to think about having to tell everyone in the world… “We can’t do this. We can’t. It’s too hard.”
He practically rolls his eyes. “What is making you lose your mind now?”
“We have to tell people.”
“So?”
Does he not get it? “We have to tell everyone. Do you have any idea what that’s going to be like? It was bad enough when Canyon and I were fake dating. It’s going to be a thousand times worse explaining all of this.”
“Fake dating?”
“Max, that isn’t the issue at hand.” Even though it sort of is.
His hand slides down my face until it’s resting on my neck. “This is really worrying you.”
Duh? “Yes. You don’t know how bad it was. How guilty I felt.”
“I can fix this.”
“No, you can’t.”
The irritating man grins. “Watch me.” He steps back, picking up his phone and dialing.
“Nonna…That’s what I’m working on right now…
Yes, she’s here with me.” He pushes the phone to the side and says, “Nonna says hi and that she’s glad you got your act together.
” Max turns back to the phone. “No. I’m not telling her that.
She’s skittish enough as it is…I called to ask you for a favor…
Yes…Fea doesn’t want to have to tell people we’re together.
I was wondering if you could take care of that for us…
Yes, I know they’re probably already talking about us, but could you please make it official…
Thank you…Yeah, I’m taking care of Dash. ”
Actually, Hope is right now, but Emilia doesn’t need to know every detail.
“Thank you. See you later…At dinner.” He smiles. “Love you, Nonna.” Max hangs up and turns back to me. “Give her twenty minutes, and it’ll all be taken care of.”
“Twenty minutes? That doesn’t seem like enough time.” Gossip travels fast, but not that fast.
“She’s enlisting all the nonnas. I doubt it will take half that time. Whatever will we do until then?” There’s a glint in his eyes that I definitely don’t like.
That’s not true. I like it very much, but it scares me. “We could go wrap your hands again.”
Max takes a step forward. “We can do that later.”
What else can we do? We need to do something else. Anything but what that sparkle suggests. “We should go get Dash.”
Max takes another step forward.
I back up until I bump into the stone wall.
Ruh roh.
Not good.
Not good at all. “We could—”
“No more excuses. You know it’s time.”
Maybe if I play dumb, he’ll give me a pardon. “Time for what?”
“Time for your first kiss.”
What? No. He has to know…
How could he not know? “Max, this is hardly my first—”
“There you go again. What happened before doesn’t count. Those weren’t kisses, and you know it.”
My heart knows that what’s about to happen will be nothing like anything that I’ve ever experienced before. But my head—
“I can see you’re overthinking things again. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to tell you that I love you. Then I’m going to kiss you until you can’t see straight. After that, when you can speak again, you’re going to tell me you love me.”
“You sound awfully sure of yourself.” I love that about him.
“It’s the way things are going to go.”
Part of me wants to wipe that smirk off his lips. The other part of me wants to duck under his arm and make a run for it.
The coward in me loses, and I reach up and grab him by the collar of his shirt. “What if we do it this way instead?” I plant my lips on his.
His lips are surprisingly soft for such a strong man. He tastes like coffee and a hint of sugar.
It only takes him a half a second to join in on the kiss and then take over.
The man makes good on his word to kiss me until I lose the ability to speak, but then he has to take it one step further and make it impossible for me to think about anything in the world but him…
A long time later, he leans his head back and says, “Now you tell me that you love me.”
Speak…he wants me to say words? My mind, body, and heart reject that thought. Instead, I pull his head down for another kiss.
“Fine, we’ll work on that later.” His lips meet mine full of joy.