“I’m not sure I want to go back,” I groaned.
Matteo hauled my suitcase into the trunk of the Jaguar. Two weeks had passed since our arrival in Maine. The high alert had been lowered after the Galluzo agreed to put a leash on Santino, so our guards were relaxed. Trevor and the rest of his crew remained for a few more days before returning to Manhattan.
Matteo and I stayed on.
“We’ll come back and you can have your fill of lobster rolls.” He straightened and slammed the hood of the vehicle.
“There’s a good one in Manhattan,” I said. “It’s the place and the view.”
I waltzed over to him and linked my fingers around his neck. I barely could reach it since I was in flats. “You’re such a wonderful boyfriend. Thank you for taking me whale watching yesterday even if you’ve done it a gazillion times with your sister.”
“Hey, if I can pamper Bianca, I can pamper you.”
“Aw.” I beamed. “You’re so sweet.”
He lowered his head and kissed me. “But we need to leave.”
He was not wrong. We’d been summoned by both sides of the family. Luca wouldn’t tell me what it was all about.
We were on I-95 when the phone on his dash rang.
“Dad,” Matteo said. “You’re on speaker.”
“Hi, Mr. De Lucci.”
His parents, Bianca, and Aunt Carlotta arrived from Italy the other day. So much for bliss. Reality was about to hit us in the face.
“Hi, Sera.” I detected a strain in his father’s voice. Shit.
“We just got on the road an hour ago,” Matteo told him.
“Sera, do you know what time Luca is arriving?”
“He won’t be in until later tonight,” I said.
“I thought I’d let you know, Gustavo is here.”
“What?” Matteo barked. “Why?”
“He’s not saying. According to Luca, he doesn’t know either.”
“Gotcha,” Matteo clipped. “Anything else?”
There was a pause and then, “We’ll discuss later.”
Matteo ended the call. A muscle pulsed in his jaw, while his knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. Finally, he said, “I hate this.”
“Me too,” I whispered.
“Sera.” His voice was controlled. “I want you to know, whatever happens, I want to be with you.”
“I know,” I said with conviction.
“You also know what this meeting is all about, right? What our family expects. That we see this through to marriage.”
“I wonder if that’s why Zio Gus is here.” As godfather, maybe he was going to give advice.
Matteo’s reply was a terse, “Yes.”
The Jaguar started moving. He kept his eyes forward while I stared outside my window. Each landmark that we passed, and each mile that erased our distance from Manhattan, felt like a march to the gallows.
“This is not what I should be feeling,” I said after twenty minutes of silence. “Do you even want to get married?”
“Do you?”
“I asked you first.”
“Not this way,” he said.
“Like we’re being forced.”
“Yes.”
I was staring at him now. The strong column of his throat bobbed and he grabbed his travel mug of coffee and took a sip. “This was not how I wanted to tell you about how I was feeling.”
My heart pounded. “Tell me anyway.”
“I’m obsessed with you. I’m fairly certain…I’m falling in love with you.” He slapped the steering wheel with his palm. “This wasn’t the way I wanted to tell you, dammit.”
A relieved breath gusted past my lips, a lightening of the weight in my chest. “I’m fairly certain I’m falling in love with you too.”
He glanced at me briefly, a rueful smile on his lips. “I thought I had more time. I should have told you when we were in the middle of the ocean yesterday, but I didn’t want to compete with the excitement of the whales.”
I laughed. Matteo was cute when he thought he fumbled in his attempts of trying to be a perfect boyfriend. I never told him that though. One would just look at him, and “cute” was never a word to describe him. He made me feel things. I didn’t want to label them yet. I had built myself to deny a forever love because of my future in an arranged marriage. I dared not hope that I would marry for love instead of duty. This should have been perfect. So why wasn’t I giddy with joy?
Because love and duty were oxymorons. Because one tainted the other.
“I guess, as long as we know…”
“I don’t want people telling us what to do,” he growled.
“I think it’s too late for that. Luca is on his way to New York. If someone spots him, our engagement will be splashed on Page Six by midnight even if we say no.”
“Are you going to say no, Sera?”
“What?”
“Are you going to do as your uncle commands?”
“He cannot command me to do anything.”
I was baffled by his sudden change in tone.
“Let’s just say fuck you to all of them,” he said.
“That’s an idea. How?”
“Let’s elope in Vegas.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I screeched. “How is that the solution?”
He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “Hold that thought. This is not a conversation to be had in the car.”
“A proposal is not to be tossed out while driving in the first place,” I retorted. “Way to burst my bubble with that proposal.”
“It was a suggestion. Not a proposal.”
I yanked my hand from his. “Well, sorry to misunderstand, but weren’t you asking me to marry you in Vegas?”
He glowered at me before returning his eyes to the road. “Look, in ideal circumstances…”
I gave him the hand. “Don’t talk to me.”
“God, you’re a pain in the ass.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not marrying you.”
“Oh, you will.”
“Oh my God, stop. Now you’re making me a forgone conclusion.”
And then he had to do that sexy chuckle that made me want to melt into his leather seats.
“Don’t do that.”
He gave a disbelieving sound. “I’m not allowed to laugh now?”
I did a circling motion with my finger. “That thing you do with that deep rumbling chuckle makes me forget that I’m mad at you. So don’t do it.”
He did it again, and then said, “Hmm…”
“Hmm what?”
“You find it sexy?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but it explains why your eyes flash with heat whenever I chuckle that way.”
Shit.
I looked out the window.
Ten minutes later, we were taking an exit to the rest area.
“I sure hope this is not where you plan on proposing.”
“The proposal has been rescinded.”
My mouth gaped, but I was more outraged than hurt because Matteo was grinning. The man was up to something. Well, I wasn’t stepping out of this car, and I was childishly going to put my hands over my ears if he even attempted another one of his proposals.
He coasted into a space and grabbed his phone off the dash. “You can use the ladies’ room if you want.”
Matteo exited the Jaguar. To take my mind off my boyfriend’s weird behavior, I dug my phone out of my purse. I wanted to call Ivy and complain about Matteo, but my friend would hold out advice until I filled her in about all the sex I’d been having with him. She said she was having a dry spell, and therefore, she wanted to live vicariously through me. Incidentally, she mailed a box of clothes to Maine which Matteo insisted on paying for. We did an “Away in Maine” segment for Donateka. Instead of calling her, I brought up her Pixygram. And there we were. Oh my God, I looked so happy in the video and pictures. Matteo and I flew a kite on the beach and the smile on our faces…we weren’t faking it. And when he took the selfie of us staring into each other’s eyes, there was no mistaking the expression on both our faces.
Love. We adored each other.
Matteo was still talking on the phone. He tried as much as possible not to hide conversations from me, and I never held it against him when he did.
Marriage made a lot of sense.
Our feelings were influx. We were hitting that dopamine high of love. If I had to choose to marry for convenience and Matteo was an option, it was a no-brainer.
I would say yes.
When he returned to the vehicle, I kept that epiphany to myself. I was still pissed at him for suggesting Vegas out of the blue, as if we hadn’t spent an idyllic two weeks in Maine.
I was a needy girlfriend apparently.
“You didn’t use the restroom?” he asked, sliding behind the wheel.
“I’m fine, and if I need to go, I can just ask you to take the next exit.”
He raised a brow. “I’m anxious to get to New York.”
“Anxious to face the firing squad?”
His brows furrowed. “Is marriage to me that unpalatable?”
“Maybe I’m finding you unpalatable at the moment.” Oh, God, make me shut up. Since when had I become this petty? I didn’t do petty. Well, classy petty maybe but this was bitchy petty.
When we were back on the highway, I said, “I’m sorry. No, I didn’t want to go. I can hold it until lunchtime.”
“You’re forgiven. It’s been a crazy past few days.”
I side-eyed him. “Who did you talk to?”
“Two calls. Nico and Liz.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Just wanted an opinion for a lunch stopover.” The way he tossed me his charming gaze made me suspicious.
“Did you have to step out of the vehicle to do that?”
“No. But I had other things to discuss with Nico.” His tone turned serious, evasive even.
An instinct that he was withholding something important formed a knot of anxiety in my gut. Our relationship was at a point where something had to give. This was why many arranged marriages in the mafia had short engagements. The uncertainty of loyalties made everyone nervous. I’d only picked up bits and pieces and I’d concluded this: Matteo might not be directly involved in the De Lucci crime family, but he was a huge player in a sub-culture of the underworld. That he could request protection from the don so quickly and without question, not to mention Luca not having an argument about my security, spoke to the branch of power that originated from Matteo’s father.
I thought about the expectations Matteo was facing as the oldest son. From what I’d learned about Cesar De Lucci, Matteo had big shoes to fill. His father was well-respected in business circles and feared in the underworld. No one dared to cross him. Of course there were outliers like the Galluzo. Chicago was neutral when it came to that organization. A long time ago, Carlotta, who was the most sought-after mafia princess at that time, chose a De Lucci instead of one of the Galluzo capos, Gustavo included. If I married Matteo, that would be a double slap to the Galluzo.
My duty to my family and the one I’d prepared for myself all my life flashed before me. It was better than I’d expected, which brought me back to my epiphany that Matteo was perfect for me.
“Where are we stopping?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise.”
