Something was up with Matteo. He had a secretive smile on his face all morning and I didn’t trust the gleam in his eyes. Our kiss the night before wreaked havoc on my dreams. They’d been the most erotic ever. In my dreams, he had me up on the kitchen counter at the mansion and he was eating me like dessert.
It had been a while since I woke up with throbbing between my legs. I guessed Matteo and I were moving in the right direction, but there was still a barrier that was preventing me from taking that leap of faith.
But with each passing day, I saw how divorce was the best option. It removed the shackles from his lie and omission and reset the relationship that had spiraled out of control, so we could retrace our steps more slowly.
I paced the sitting room, waiting for Matteo. He had to take a call right before we left. Paintings from the masters were scattered around the house, including this Picasso in front of me. Luca and Nonno explained to me very early in life that art was recession proof and many billionaires including mobsters chose to invest in it.
“Ready?” Matteo asked behind me.
I turned, and my eyes hungrily devoured the figure he cut in his fine fitted suit. We were heading into the office after lunch at the café, so I dressed in a cream blazer with matching wool pencil skirt that hit at the knee. Heels that made me look five-five finished my look. Renz had a new special on the menu he wanted us to try. Instead of feeling offended that Matteo seemed to be taking over in the interest of his brother’s business, I was thrilled that the two were bonding more. No matter what happened to my relationship with Matteo, I was happy I was the catalyst that sparked his reconciliation with his brother.
“Baby, you look incredibly sexy,” Matteo murmured, going straight for my lips. Hmm, he was getting more forward.
“Well, sexy wasn’t what I was going for,” I retorted. “I was trying to look presentable for our meeting with Mrs. Mancini.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
“We’re meeting her today, right?”
He grinned, but it was one of his fake grins that didn’t settle well with me. I tried not to feel dejected that I was going to be disappointed in him again. I promised myself I was giving Matteo a second chance without the prejudice of the past. But if he tricked me again, that was it.
“Let’s go meet Renz.” He ushered me out of the sitting room into the large foyer to exit the grand threshold of the mansion. At the bottom of the marble staircase sat Matteo’s Jaguar in all its gleaming glory.
“Is this why you kept me waiting?” I teased. “You waxed your car again?”
“Stop calling it a car, baby,” he muttered. “It’s a performance vehicle.”
I rolled my eyes. “You should talk cars with my uncle.”
“I heard he’s got quite a fleet.” He helped me into the seat before he gently closed the door to round the hood. He stopped a bit to take a look at the tire, then he reached the driver’s side and slid into the seat.
“Buckle up,” he said. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
“It’s November and icy cold.”
“Blue skies.”
“Why are you in such a cheery mood?” I was somewhat peeved that he might be thinking I was a foregone conclusion. Was there such a thing as fond annoyance?
Yes. Yes, there is and his name is Matteo De Lucci.
He put on his reflective shades, glanced over, and grinned at me in that panty-melting way before revving the engine and screeching out of the driveway.
He was pulling out all the stops with his sexiness and I couldn’t help but swoon. Admittedly it was physical, remembering the dream I had of him last night, but was that so bad?
Suddenly, I was impatient to experience a Matteo De Lucci pounding. It had been weeks.
I stared at his fingers before I forced myself to look out the window. Those fingers that knew how to work me, had been deep inside me, and made me come over and over.
My phone buzzed. I was thankful to have something else to distract me from Matteo’s very fine points.
“Hey,” I told Ivy. “We’re on our way.”
“Yes, just calling to see how many minutes before uh, Renz prepares the stuff.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a surprise,” Ivy said.
“Were you in on it?” I glared at Matteo, who cast me an amused glance.
“Of course not. So twenty minutes?”
“You’re deflecting.”
“Okay, twenty minutes. Bye.”
I told my ex-husband, “You guys are up to something.”
If I didn’t know him better, I’d say he was wearing a stoic mask, but that telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth was a dead giveaway.
I decided to be patient.
We’d made this trip countless times, but the urge to link my fingers with his as he maneuvered the powerful sports car was in stark contrast with how I cringed at any physical contact with him directly after I discovered his betrayal with Daniel.
Speaking of Daniel, Ivy’s brother was in town. I hadn’t seen a peep out of him since everything came to light. My crush on him crashed and burned so quickly. He and Matteo used me without my knowledge. As I’d had time to digest what went down with the fake dating in relation to Gustavo and the shares and the Archer Syndicate’s goal to stop the Galluzo from being too powerful, I could admit what they had done was for the greater good. I wasn’t too egotistical to wallow in my hurt feelings. I’d shared so much with Matteo, it was hard to simply throw us away. Plus, I felt like I could take an active role as his Lady Archer. For the first time since my induction ceremony, I preened at the title.
“You seem pleased about something,” Matteo said.
“What are you talking about?”
“That smile on your face.”
“I was thinking of Daniel and—”
“Excuse me?”
“Stop overreacting.”
That was also the wrong thing to say. A chill descended on the car and displaced the cozy warmth out from it.
“It’s not overreacting when my wife has this secretive smile and admits she’s thinking of another man,” he said tautly. “And just not any man but one she would have fancied being married to.”
“If you would just let me finish.”
He cursed in Italian.
That was damn sexy and I wanted to make him suffer a bit longer if I didn’t think I was being needlessly petty. “I was about to say…I was thinking of Daniel and you. Of your scheme to use me without my knowledge. Seeing what havoc Santino wreaked in Italy, I’m not too prideful to hold a grudge. And though it destroyed my crush on Daniel, with you…”
I let it hang. Obviously, I still had some pettiness in me.
His fingers gripped the steering wheel. “What about me?”
“You and me? What we have is worth fighting for.”
And just like that, the stranglehold of frigidness in the car dissipated. The rest of the trip to Manhattan was fraught with less tension, but there was still the unknown of what everyone was up to.
I certainly hoped it was not a surprise wedding. I wouldn’t put it past Matteo, but he wouldn’t do it with the way our relationship was at the moment. We were so close to being back to us.
When we turned onto the street where Jabbin’ Java was located, a bus with a gigantic lobster painted on its back was parked in front of the building. I looked closer. Wait, it wasn’t a bus, it was a food truck.
My mouth fell open when I realized what was happening.
“Bar Harbor Lobster food truck?” I shrieked at Matteo. “You brought in an entire food truck from Maine?”
He didn’t say anything, except he looked pleased and cocky as hell.
“Oh my God, Matteo.” My heart pushed against my throat. It wasn’t even about the money he spent on having this done. But that he even thought of it.
“If we can’t go to Maine, I’ll bring Maine to you.”
He turned the Jaguar into the alleyway while I texted Ivy.
The second he parked, I unbuckled my seat belt and flew into him, peppering his face with kisses. I was teary eyed. “Thank you, thank you.”
“Damn, baby,” he muttered, his eyes full of heat. “If I’d known this would be your reaction…”
“Everything that led up to this, Matteo.” My voice was garbled with emotion. “Everything.”
Then we kissed.
We didn’t care when the back door swung open and people spilled out. We didn’t care when we heard Ivy shriek in excitement the same way I did. We just didn’t care.
Our world revolved around each other.
“Looks like they made up,” someone said from outside.
“Hey!” Renz pounded on the windshield. “Save that for later. The natives are hungry.”
I pulled away, but Matteo went in for one more deep dive before letting me go.
“Later,” I breathed.
The slow smile on his face made me blush.
“I meant, later, we’ll talk,” I corrected.
“I know, baby,” he murmured.
When we came out of the vehicle, it made me rethink my impulsive gesture because we were surrounded by everyone we knew.
Ivy hugged me. “Oh my God! You have permission to forgive him now.”
“Over lobster?” I laughed. I was giddy. I was realizing how Matteo never did things by half measure. We had a popular lobster franchise in Manhattan, but he had to recreate everything we did before our vows as much as possible.
“Don’t you get it?” she was still excited. “He’s your lobster.”
“Are you referring to that episode of Friends where—”
“Who cares?” Ivy told me.
“Can I have my wife back?” Matteo said in a teasing voice. He linked our fingers together and bypassed the building, heading straight for the lobster truck.
I had trouble keeping my tears at bay when I saw the cotton candy kiosk spinning a pink magical nest for a line of young kids.
“Who are they?”
“Kids of the family,” Matteo told me. “This is open to everyone, but the first lobster roll belongs to you.”
Oh my God, this man. He truly is my lobster.
A man in the Bar Harbor shirt looked at Matteo. “Open for business?”
“Do it,” he said.
What followed was a joyous blur. Everyone was having a good time. There were enough lobster rolls to feed an army. Everyone I knew showed up. Matteo’s parents, the McGraths. There were several Arrows I recognized including Trevor. Dom and his crew. Others who looked familiar were soldiers of allied crime families.
I was chatting with Ivy when she looked past me and groaned, “What is he doing here?”
I glanced over my shoulder.
Daniel.
He spoke to an Arrow standing guard before walking up the sidewalk. Matteo spotted him and pushed through the crowd. When he reached Daniel, I held my breath.
He shoved his friend on both shoulders.
“Dammit.” But something else caught my eye further past the crowd at the end of the block. A man in a leather jacket was rounding an Escalade and opening the second passenger door. It blended with the rest of the black SUVs that brought in the De Lucci mob family and their associates.
Tony?
Why is my uncle’s soldier in Manhattan? He casually nodded at one of Dom’s soldiers who waved in return.
I whipped out my phone and called Luca as I walked toward Tony, a feeling of unease rising inside me. He answered on the first ring.
“Sera?”
“Why is Tony here?”
“You see the Escalade in front of him?” he said. “Go there.”
“What’s going on, Luca?”
“If you don’t want to become a widow,” he said. “You will tell me in your own words and to my face what your husband has done.”
“How did you—” I glanced over my shoulder at Ivy’s brother who was in a heated exchange with Matteo. “Did Daniel tell you?”
“Does it matter how I found out? I’m very disappointed in you, Sera.”
“My marriage, my problems.”
When I was five feet from the Escalade, Ivy yelled, “Sera!” She was craning her neck amongst the sea of the Hell’s Kitchen lunch crowd.
Matteo whipped around from his argument with Daniel.
“Get in or I will end him.”
“Wait a damn minute.” I got to the open door, lowered the phone and glared at my uncle. I hadn’t seen him since the hospital and we had spoken very little in the last two weeks. He’d been occupied with Santino as the shakeup of the Galluzo mafia affected Chicago more than it did the New York Five Families.
Scuffles and shouting erupted behind me.
“I’m fine. Don’t I look fine?”
“Sera!” Matteo shouted.
A force shoved me into the Escalade. The slam of the door and engaging locks sounded ominous.
“What the fuck, Luca?” I shouted as the SUV skidded out of the parking space.
“Damn traffic,” my uncle growled at the driver. “Just plow through it.”
“Sure thing,” a man I didn’t recognize said.
I straightened in my seat, grabbed the handle, and tried the door just in time to see Matteo punch Tony who intercepted him.
He threw himself against the SUV.
“Moretti, you son of a bitch!” He slapped his palm on the window, trying the door with futility.
“Go! Go!” Luca shouted.
I lunged in between the console to hit the locks, but my uncle held me back and hissed in my ear. “You want your husband to live?”
I’d never heard that tone of voice directed at me, but I’d heard him use it countless times against associates I never saw alive again or had gone missing. It gave me pause and a chill.
“It’s time for you to make sacrifices for the family, dear niece.”
Matteo kept pace with the vehicle and punched the window in a rage. I flinched. Tears blurred my vision, and I started sobbing. I couldn’t bear to see him hurt. I’d never seen his face this feral with fury.
The vehicle shot forward when there was a clearing in the traffic. It was total mayhem around us. I couldn’t tell which ones were Arrows, De Lucci soldiers, and Luca’s men.
I turned in my seat to see Matteo’s stricken face. He yelled my name in an anguished roar, and all I could do was watch helplessly.
