Chapter 25 Isabella
Morning shouldn’t feel this soft.
Morning shouldn’t feel like warm sheets and the smell of pine and the faint hum of Christmas lights still glowing on a timer. Morning shouldn’t feel like being wrapped in Nico’s arms while his breath curls slowly against the back of my neck, his body heat soaking into every inch of me.
But it does.
And God help me, I never want to wake up any other way.
I try to slip out from under his arm with surgical precision. The man sleeps like a silent, coiled beast, and I fully expect him to snap awake at the slightest shift, but he only groans low and tightens one arm around my waist.
“Don’t move,” he mutters, voice thick with sleep.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I whisper.
He kisses my shoulder, a slow drag of lips that forces every muscle in me to melt. “I’ll allow it.”
I roll my eyes and escape, finding my hoodie tossed over a chair. When I come back, he’s sitting against the headboard, shirtless, hair mussed, looking like sin and Christmas warmth had a baby together.
It hits me again, the surreal way he makes me fit into his space. Like we’re not temporary. Like we’re not some doomed timeline.
And that’s the exact moment the guilt hits. Because it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow and I haven’t spoken to my mother yet.
I hover awkwardly near the bed and he watches me, eyes narrowing slightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie, then immediately fold. “Okay, something. It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow. I usually go see my mom. She’s… she’s been alone a lot these last few years. I always spend Thanksgiving with her.”
He absorbs that quietly. “Call her.”
“I will. I just…” I rub the back of my neck. “I don’t know how to explain that I’ve been living with you.”
His eyes sharpen, a warning. “Why would you need to explain anything? You stayed because you’re safe with me.”
“She’s my mother, Nico. She’s going to be worried, especially after the article I wrote on you and the fire, and she doesn’t know what really happened. Last she knew, you and your brothers were the enemy and now I’m sleeping with you.”
His lips twitch at that. “Not much sleeping last night, baby.”
“Nico, I’m serious.”
He considers that. His jaw works, then settles. “Tell her the truth.”
My heart stutters. “The truth?”
“That you’re safe. That I’m not letting anything happen to you. That we’re definitely not enemies.” His voice drops, all quiet promise and iron. “That you’re mine.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “Nico…”
He pats the bed. “Come here.”
I do, because of course I do. He pulls me between his legs, wraps those huge arms around me, and rests his chin on my shoulder.
“You’re not going there alone.”
I blink. “What?”
“You think I’m letting you walk into a house with an unknown threat on the loose? No. I go with you.”
I try to picture introducing Nico Mancini to my mother over turkey and mashed potatoes and nearly choke. “She’s going to think we’re… together.”
“We are,” he says simply.
My stomach does a somersault. “We are… fling-ing. Casual. No future. Remember?”
His lips graze my neck. “I lied.”
The room tilts.
Before I can respond, he continues, calmly, with zero shame. “Invite her here for Thanksgiving. Adi, Matteo, and Letty will be here. It will make security easier. She can see we aren’t the big bad wolf, ready to eat her daughter.” He waggles his eyebrows at that and I smile. “We’ll do it right.”
I stare. “You want my mom at your family’s Thanksgiving?”
He meets my gaze steadily. “She’s part of you. That makes her part of this.”
God. He says things like that, and it feels like my heart is squeezing too tight for my ribs.
“Nico… my mom thinks you’re a criminal.”
He smirks. “Technically, no one can prove that and, off the record, we’re reformed-ish.”
“Technically, that doesn’t help.”
“Call her,” he repeats, decisive. “Invite her. I’ll arrange transport. You won’t spend Thanksgiving alone and neither will she.”
I let out a slow, shaky breath. “And if she hates you?” I whisper.
His grip tightens around my waist. “Then I’ll make her love me.”
I laugh, startled, breathless, undone by the audacity of it. “You say that like you have a plan.”
He kisses the side of my throat, slow as sin. “Belle, I always have a plan.”
God, I’m falling.
I lean my forehead against his chest. He holds me there, warm and solid, the safest place I’ve ever been. “Okay,” I murmur. “I’ll call her.”
He nods once. “Good.”
“But, Nico?”
“Hm?”
“You’re going to have to tone down the mafia energy.”
He pulls back to look me dead in the eyes. “Define ‘tone down’.”
“Oh, God,” I groan, burying my face against him. “She’s going to panic.”
He chuckles, deep and smug. “Relax. I’ll be charming.”
“You don’t know what that word means.”
“I charmed you.”
“That was blackmail and lust.”
He shrugs. “Effective.”
I smack his chest lightly. “She’s going to assume you kidnapped me.”
“Then I’ll smile more,” he says dryly.
“You don’t smile.”
“You make me smile.”
Well. Fair point.
I take a breath. “Okay. But after I call her… can we dig into the research again? I feel like we’re missing something.”
His expression shifts instantly, darker, focused. “Yes,” he says. “After breakfast and your call.”
“Together?” I ask, softly.
“Always.”
I don’t know what we are.
I don’t know what we’re becoming.
But Thanksgiving is coming.
And somehow, in the middle of danger and desire and grief and glittering Christmas lights…
I think I might be walking straight into a future neither of us intended.
But both of us might actually want.
A few hours later I slip away to Nico’s office, closing the door with a soft click, my stomach tightening with an entirely new kind of nerves.
Facing mafia hitmen? Researching corporate conspiracies? Questioning my sanity?
Easy.
Calling my mother to tell her I’m living with a suspected Mafia Don, and inviting her to spend Thanksgiving with us, not so much.
I brace both hands on the edge of the desk and take a deep breath before pressing her contact.
She answers on the fourth ring. Tired. Guarded.
“Bella?”
Hearing her voice loosens something in me I didn’t even know was clenched. “Hey, Mama.”
Silence stretches, five seconds, ten, weighted with unspoken things. Fear. Guilt. Anger. Love twisted around it all.
Then: “Are you still okay? You’re recovering?”
There’s a wobble there she tries to swallow. My heart pinches. “I’m okay. I’m safe.” I hesitate. “Actually… I’m more than safe.”
A pause. “You sound… different.”
“Different good or different bad?”
“Different worried-me-for-a-second-now-I’m-relieved different.”
I laugh quietly. “That sounds like me.”
But she doesn’t laugh back. She exhales, shaky. “Bella, I don’t know what’s going on, but I need you home. I need you here with me. I—”
“I’m not coming home,” I say softly but firmly. “Not yet.”
Silence again. Not angry silence, scared silence. “Bella… they burned your building down.”
I close my eyes. “I know, and it was only my floor, not the entire building.”
“They could have killed you. They would have killed you.”
“I know.”
“I’m your mother. I’m supposed to protect you. And I couldn’t. And I…”
“Mama.” My voice cracks. “It’s not your fault. And I’m protected now. I promise you that.”
She sniffles, trying to pretend she isn’t. “Protected by who?”
Deep breath. “By Nico Mancini.”
Another silence, longer this time, then deadly calm. “Isabella. Are you with the criminal you wrote the story about?”
It shouldn’t sting, but it does. “He’s not a criminal and it turns out someone manipulated me into writing that story.”
“Isabella.”
“He’s complicated,” I say finally.
“Complicated is code for dangerous.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What do you want me to do?” she demands, voice rising in panic. “How do I help you if I don’t even know what you’re involved in?”
“You help me by trusting me.” I swallow. “I know what I’m doing. And I’m okay. Actually, there’s something I want to ask you about.”
“God.” She sighs like she’s bracing for disaster and I envision her making the sign of the cross. “Okay. Go.”
“Thanksgiving.”
“What about it?”
“I want you to spend it with me.”
A beat of stunned silence. “You want me to come to Manhattan?”
“Yes.”
“With… him?”
“Yes.”
“Isabella, how can you expect me to break bread with that man? He’s dangerous and he’s a stranger.”
“He’s not a stranger,” I interrupt gently. “Not anymore, and he’s not dangerous to me, to us.”
“So, what is he?”
My heart stutters. I search for the right words. “He’s… someone who’s been taking care of me. Someone who protects me. Someone I…I trust.”
Another long silence. She’s processing. Weighing. Trying not to jump to fear.
Then, sharply: “Are you in love with him?”
The question hits like a punch. “I…I don’t know,” I breathe. “It’s fast. It’s messy. But it feels… right.”
My mother exhales like she’s just aged ten years. “Bella, if I meet this man and he’s dangerous, and if I think he’s lying to you, I’ll drag you out of that place myself.”
I smile a little. “I’d expect nothing less.”
She grumbles under her breath, the emotional equivalent of waving a white flag. “Fine but I’m not staying in his home. I’ll go home early.”
“Mama, I don’t want you to go home early.”
“I’ll stay in a hotel. I may be foolish, but I’m not suicidal.”
I laugh weakly. “Deal.”
“Okay,” she sighs. “Send me the details. I’ll be there tomorrow morning to help with the cooking. Heaven knows what we’ll be eating otherwise. Probably some nasty takeout food.”
My heart lifts. “Thank you.”
“I’m doing this for you, not him,” she warns.
“I know.”
“But I hope, for your sake, that he’s everything you believe he is.”
A lump forms in my throat. “He’s… more,” I whisper.
“We’ll see,” she says, but softer this time. “Call me again tonight. I want to know you’re okay.”
“I will.”
“And Bella?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you. Even when you scare me.”
“I love you, too.”
When the call ends, I stare at the screen for a long moment, chest tight, emotions swirling, heavier than before but steadier too.
Because I just made a choice.
A big one.
I walk back toward Nico, heart pounding far too fast, and the moment his eyes find mine, warm, watchful, steady, and I know it was the right one.
“How did it go?”
“She’s coming and she’ll be here bright and early to help cook. So, I hope cooking was in your plans because if we order in or cater, she’s going to blow a gasket.”
Nico wraps his arms around me, dropping his forehead to mine. “It’s gonna be fine. Matteo always cooks a turkey and all the trimmings. Though we do buy in the pies.”
“I can bake some pies.”
“I’ll help.”
“You’re offering to be my sous chef?”
Nico smirks. “Matteo calls it kitchen scut, but yeah, that’s essentially what Adi and I are when Matteo takes over the kitchen. The man is a drill sergeant.”
Laughter spills from me. “Oh, this is gonna be fun. Two cooks in the kitchen.”
Nico kisses me softly. “Stop worrying, it’ll be fine.”
I realize something: For the first time in weeks, I’m not afraid of where any of this is going.