32. Mallory #2
At least if they were shouting at each other, no one could point fingers at me. I had no idea what Maddox had told his family about me, and I didn’t want to know. If I thought too hard about it, I wouldn’t be able to sit through this dinner without throwing up.
We stepped into the dining room, and the space opened before us. A long table of polished, dark wood stretched under soft overhead lighting, an artistic fixture that undoubtedly cost more than our car. Place settings were laid out, perfectly arranged plates, crystal glasses, and gold silverware.
It was clear Donovan Corvo had money. Is that what Mom liked about him? Or did she genuinely like him?
Mom stood near the head of the table with Donovan, her hand resting lightly on his arm, laughing softly at something he’d said. Her head was tilted back, throat exposed, her smile unguarded in a way I rarely saw.
They looked…good together, which made everything worse, made this whole situation more real and complicated.
Everyone started filing in, chairs scraping lightly against the flooring as they took their seats. I ended up between Mom and Kaylor, and I realized my blunder when I glanced across the table at Maddox and Mason. I had to stare at them through the entire meal.
No escape.
No reprieve.
Just a constant visual reminder of everything that had gone wrong.
Shit.
Donovan took his place at the head of the table, and while everyone was talking all at once, I took the opportunity to lean over to Mom. “You’re dating Maddox Corvo’s father.”
She blinked at me. “Is that a problem?”
I stared at her. Is that a problem? My brain short-circuited, thoughts fragmenting into useless static.
Was it a problem that my mother—my serial-killing, body-wrapping, we-moved-six-times-in-four-years-to-stay-ahead-of-consequences mother—was dating the father of the guy who currently hated me? Who was a crime boss?
Did she know what Donovan did? What this family was involved in? Did she have any idea what kind of world she was stepping into? What kind of world she was dragging me into?
This was a deeper conversation better had later.
Food started moving around the table, dishes passing from hand to hand as plates filled with food. I scooped a pile of buttery mashed potatoes onto mine as another guy sauntered into the dining room. Based on his bone structure, he had to be yet another Corvo.
They just kept popping up.
The new addition looked more like Maddox and Mason than Kreed with the same devastatingly good looks. “What did I miss?” he asked, dropping into an empty chair.
I focused on my plate, cutting food into smaller pieces I had no intention of eating.
Mason caught my eye across the table, mischief sparking in his features. “Dad’s new girlfriend’s daughter is shagging Maddox.”
Several people around the table coughed, including Mom beside me.
My cheeks burned, heat flooding from my chest up my neck and into my cheeks.
Seriously?
Beside him, Kreed kicked Mason under the table. I heard the thud of the impact. Mason flinched but was otherwise unfazed with the pot of shit he was stirring. “What? Raine asked,” Mason defended as if he hadn’t done anything wrong, or embarrassed the hell out of me.
“Well, maybe you should make sure you know what the hell you’re talking about before you open your mouth. Mallory and I are not hooking up.” Maddox gritted out the last bit between clenched teeth.
“Anymore,” Mason muttered loud enough to make sure everyone heard.
“Mason,” Raine rumbled from the head of the table opposite his father, who had a hand pressed to his temple.
“How would you know? Were you there?” Maddox shot back to his twin.
I dropped my gaze immediately, stabbing my fork into my food, and wanting to morph under the rug. I fully understood Kaylor’s warning.
The strain at the table was building with every passing second. I could feel it accumulating in the air like atmospheric pressure before a tornado. Thick. Oppressive. Dangerous.
Kaylor’s gaze and mine connected, and she gave me an I-told-you-so expression. Mom sat still beside me, taking it all in but seemingly unbothered, the twitch of her eye telling me she and I would have a conversation once we got home.
“Enough!” Donovan’s voice cut clean through the noise. Forks paused midair, suspended in the act. The chaotic arguing died. He exhaled, slowly standing from his seat at the head of the table.
I braced myself for a speech because he gave off the vibe. I wasn’t sure what about. Perhaps his frustration with his boys had reached its end.
“Before someone starts bleeding,” he said dryly, an undertone of a warning as he met each one of his boys’ gazes, “I have something I want to say.”
Mom blinked up at him, clearly not expecting this turn, her wineglass frozen halfway to her lips.
He reached for her hand, his fingers closing around hers with a tenderness that seemed at odds with everything I knew about him. Donovan Corvo wasn’t a gentle man. Not with his business. Certainly not with his sons. But I couldn’t speak about what his relationship with his dead wife had been like.
A tight knot wound deeper in my gut.
Donvan’s thumb stroked across the back of Mom’s hand. “I wasn’t looking for someone. After my wife passed, I never thought I would open my heart to another woman. To find love, or if I was still capable of loving.”
No one moved.
No one breathed.
“I made peace with that,” he continued. “With being alone and focusing on my family. My boys. Building my business. It felt like enough. And then you walked into my life, and I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
I didn’t want to spend another day of my life without embracing what I found with you. What we found together.”
Oh God.
No.
No, no, no—
This wasn’t—
He couldn’t be—
Donovan reached into his pocket with his free hand, pulling out a small black velvet box. Then he did the fucking unthinkable. He dropped to one knee beside her chair.
The room drew in an audible gasp, but I went numb, my world tilting as gravity shifted. I clutched my chair arms, clinging to them tightly.
“I want you,” Donvan confessed. “I want this. I want us. I want to build a life together, a real one. I want Mallory to be a part of this family”—his gaze flicked to me briefly, including me in this declaration—“—I want her to have brothers who’ll protect her the way mine protect each other.”
Brothers?
My eyes caught Maddox’s for a second, but it was long enough to see the tautness in his entire body and the fierce scowl etched on to his lips.
Donovan opened the box to reveal the biggest rock I’d ever seen, a pear-shaped diamond. It glittered brightly. “Move in with me. Build something real here. Something lasting. Something neither of us has to run from or hide.”
My heart started pounding. So loud I was sure everyone could hear it, could see my panic written across my face. Don’t ask the question. Don’t ask her to—
“I don’t want to wait. Mara…will you marry me?”
Total.
Complete.
Fucking.
Silence.
She couldn’t say yes. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t make such a monumental decision like marriage without talking to me first. This was too fast. They’d only known each other for a few months. How could they think about getting married?
Please say no. Or I need to think about it.
I stared into the back of Mom’s head, projecting her denial so hard I wasn’t sure if I was screaming it only inside my mind.
Mom’s fingers grazed over the small velvet box. Her face was partially obscured, but I was sure she was smiling. And then my worst fucking nightmare came true as the words I dreaded left her mouth. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
The consent pierced my heart, echoing through the dining room. My shoulders slumped. Disbelief crashed over me in a wave, drowning me.
Across the table, Maddox’s eyes found mine, and I saw the same realization dawning. The same disbelief morphing into horrified understanding.
The same oh, fuck no screaming through my own head.
We couldn’t escape each other now, even if we wanted to. We were going to be living together…in the same house…in this house. Probably down the hall from each other. I’d see him when I woke up. Before I went to bed. How the hell could I avoid him if he was everywhere I turned?
No. This was absolutely not okay.
Things just got a hell of a lot worse. If they got married, if Mom went through with this, Maddox and I were going to be stepsiblings. We were about to become family.
I was going to be sick.
Fury blazed in Maddox’s eyes. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”
My thoughts exactly.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Thank you for reading!
Mallory and Maddox will be back in
YOURS
xoxo,
Jennifer