Chapter 13
AVA
“So,” I say, as I move my spoon through the vegetable soup. “Did you always want to be a mobster?”
Rafe shoots me a look, his amber-gold eyes swimming. He looks devastatingly handsome in his sleek black suit, shirt open at the collar to hint at his sculpted chest. Now, there’s a hint of danger in him, a spark that could become a blaze.
“What?” I say. “Isn’t this what people do on dates… get to know each other?”
“Maybe you should ask me about my favorite color instead,” he mutters.
I laugh, and, like every single time we laugh together, a surreal feeling grips me. I’m laughing with a mafia Don. The father of my baby. The man who abandoned me.
“Go on, then,” I say.
“Red,” he says.
“The color of blood.”
He flinches, smirking. “You don’t give up easy, do you?”
“Would you want your baby’s mother to give up, ever?” I counter.
“No,” he admits.
“So…”
He sighs, then leans back. “I don’t remember a time when what I wanted or didn’t want mattered. All I remember is knowing that I’d have to take up the mantle one day. That’s why I want something different for Theo. I want Theo to choose. He can be anything, Ava, anything he can dream of.”
My body and my heart respond in a sizzling blaze, like they always do when he goes full Dad mode.
“Did you ever have… fleeting thoughts about what else you might be?”
“You know,” he says. “When I was very young, I went through a modeling phase.”
I laugh so loudly it’s a miracle I don’t wake Theo or scare the fish out of their enclosure. “You’re kidding.”
He smiles ruefully. “I wish I was. No, I had a little look book and everything. I got my mom to take photos of me doing various poses, all very cool… or lame, depending on how honest you want to be.”
“I’d pay to see that book.”
“Thankfully, I lost it a long time ago,” he says.
“You’re full of surprises.”
He nods. “I think I make a better mafia boss.”
“I don’t know…” I reach across the table, squeezing his hand. “I think you’d be a good model too. Especially with those eyes.”
“We’re going to have to keep a close watch on Theo,” he says, smirking. “Teach him to use these responsibly.”
I smile, pulling my hand away. We don’t talk for the next few minutes. I hope I’m not pouting or making my thoughts too obvious. But once we’re both done with our starters, I know I must’ve been wearing my emotions on my face. Rafe says, “You don’t like it when I reference the future.”
“There’s too much uncertainty for that,” I agree.
He nods, growing quiet when the waiter emerges to remove our plates. “Your main courses will be served shortly.”
“Thank you,” Rafe says warmly, which is a check in my book. I never trust someone who is rude or indifferent to waiters.
Once we’re alone again, he goes on, “I know it’s a bad habit. We agreed tonight was… tonight, nothing more. I get that. But I can’t imagine a world where I’m not involved in my son’s life.”
My heart glows, my belly tingling. I try to keep my face neutral.
“I know,” he says, sighing.
“Know what?”
“That we’re strangers as far as you’re concerned.”
“Well… it’s been a few days total, right? What else would you class us as?”
“You didn’t feel like a stranger to me, Ava,” he says, taking a small sip of champagne.
I take a sip too, just a little one. I’ve got bottled breast milk for Theo, and the champagne will be out of my system before it’s time to feed again.
We pause when the waiter returns, bringing my risotto and Rafe’s steak.
He looks at me intensely the whole time, then when we’re alone, he says, “Say what you want. Call it love-bombing or madness, but that night, time stood still. I forgot what I was, who I was. And now we have Theo? We’re connected, bonded, forever.
No matter what happens, we’ll always have a piece of us in the world, Ava. A piece of me. A piece of you.”
“Plenty of people have kids together,” I say. “But don’t end up together.”
“I’ve got no interest in what other people do,” he replies fiercely. “The fact is, I’m committed to doing the right thing.”
I wave my fork at him. “You’re getting ahead of yourself again, Rafe.”
“Maybe. But you like it.”
I glare at him. At least I try to. “I never said that.”
He smirks. “You didn’t have to.”
He’s so arrogant… and so correct. I focus on my food to hide the cacophony of emotions surging through me.
I’ve dreamed of this. During those long, lonely pregnant months, when I thought I was destined to be a single mother. I imagined him returning and declaring he was committed to me and our baby.
“What about you?” he says after a long pause. “I know you’ve always loved art, but did you always want to be a collector?”
I look up, smiling. Okay, so he’s trying to stick to the rules, at least.
“I… wanted to be a painter once,” I murmur. “I mean, maybe I still do. I was painting quite a bit before I got pregnant with Theo. But then I got the job at the gallery and now with Theo… it’s tough.”
“You never mentioned it,” Rafe says with a sort of wonder in his voice. “That night, you talked about loving art since you were a little kid. You lit up with it, Ava. But you never said you wanted to be an artist.”
“It was just one night,” I tell him.
“No,” he says seriously. “It wasn’t just anything.”
“Well, my point is, I couldn’t mention everything that night,” I murmur.
“What sort of things did you paint?”
“Uh, surrealist portraits,” I say, my cheeks heating up. “I’d look at a person or an animal and ask myself what I saw when I looked at them, then paint that.”
“Maybe you could do one of me,” he says, winking. “With devil’s horns and blazing red eyes.”
He’s not far off the direction I would take if I painted him, honestly.
“You deserve the time and freedom to paint,” he goes on, tone becoming serious. “I could give that to you.”
My heart leaps, and I almost tell him yes. Yes, Rafe, forget what I said. Forget the fact that we hardly know each other and our main bond is one magical night and the child that came from it. I’m ready to commit right now, right here. Forever.
“Rafe…”
He holds his hands up. “I know, I know. You’re right. I’m sorry. I just think you deserve it… deserve everything.”
We eat quietly for a while. I’ve never experienced silence like this on a date before. It’s not awkward or forced. It’s more like we’re both just comfortable enough to switch off without feeling the usual pressure to perform.
“So,” I say finally. “You know what I do with all my time. What about you?”
“Work.”
“Just work?”
He nods. “I work. I exercise. Then I keep working. Finally, I crash. Pass out for a while.”
“Some might call that sleep.”
He laughs. “Yeah, then I work some more.”
“Is that… fulfilling?” I ask.
He shrugs. “If I didn’t do what I do, someone else would. And this other person, whoever he’d end up being, would be far worse than me, believe it or not.”
“How do you de-stress?” I ask. “Do you date?”
“I haven’t dated in years,” he says, pinning me in place with his golden eyes.
“Let me guess,” I say, voice growing breathy. “Until me, you didn’t even want to date?”
“Say that cynically if you want, angel, but it’s the truth.”
“But I’m just so special and so unique and, yep, I just came along and changed something inside you, huh?”
He looks at me sincerely, ignoring my sarcasm. “Yep.”
“It was one night.”
“One night that changed everything for both of us,” he snarls. “One night that stopped everything, Ava, for the first time in my life. A night that gave us Theo.”
“It was… a good night,” I say carefully.
I’m doing my best to keep my shields up, but the fact is, I agree with him.
Everything he’s saying, I felt it that night too.
I remember the sense of adventure and excitement that blossomed inside me, the certainty that finally, finally, I got to experience what seems to come so easily to everyone else.
“It was better than good,” he says fiercely.
His eyes swim with meaning. My heart hitches. Under the table, I press my legs together. He’s taken off his jacket, and his arms are on full display, tight against his shirt, huge and powerful.
“Do you think about it often?” I ask.
“All the time,” he says.
“Me too,” I admit. “I…” I bite down. Has the champagne gone to my head? Impossible. We’ve had barely a glass each.
“You don’t just think about it,” he says, his voice heavy with awe. “When it hits you…”
I nod, trembling slightly.
“Fuck,” he whispers, staring like he’s going to leap across the table and devour me instead of his steak. “How many times?”
Tingles dance all over my body. My defenses and my lofty promises seem meaningless as he savages me with his gaze.
“I don’t know, Rafe. It’s been a year… quite a few.”
“Me too,” he groans. “Several times a week, Ava, I think of you. I think of your curves and I remember the way you moaned. I remember how… how right you felt in my arms. I remember your taste, Ava, your fucking taste.”
My body flushes with liquid tension, bubbles that have nothing to do with champagne pumping through me.