Chapter 9: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 9

There are rules to being Ren Caruso’s wife, whether I want to play by them or not. The first, he tells me, is that we’re going to share a bed together—like a proper husband and wife. As if there’s anything proper about this arrangement. I am told to gut the tiny place I had carved out for myself in his townhouse and move it all into his bedroom on the topmost floor, the same as his office.

I swallow my objections. The truth is, I wouldn’t have a single scrap of any of this if it weren’t for Ren; I don’t know if I have the right to start making demands, but I sure as hell don’t have the leverage. Not with Harper in the mix.

With vengeance, I start ripping the brand-new clothes out of my closet and throwing them over my arm.

Harper isn’t old enough to understand exactly how much we struggled, at least not compared to other people. What you grow up with is just the norm. For Harper, the norm has always been being uprooted and strung along from place to place, putting things back in the store, and promises of “ Maybe next time .” I tried to make sure she never missed out on being happy, but I couldn’t give her everything she wanted or everything she deserved. Sometimes, it just came down to what she needed, and that was all we could manage.

Until now. In a matter of days, Harper has been showered in new clothes, given her own room, and set free in a real, multistory townhome. She’s fucking starstruck.

I brought her to Ren because I thought he could give her a good lifestyle with someone he trusted. I didn’t expect him to give her his lifestyle. But if that’s possible for her, if it’s something my little girl can have—then it’s up to me to make sure she gets to keep it. No matter what.

I make my way to Ren’s bedroom with an armful of new clothes and a bag of makeup. My thoughts are noisy, nerves frayed. How am I going to lie next to him again? Like lying next to a corpse, it will hurt and disgust me all at once.

Olivia passes me on the landing. She takes one look at the clothes and scoffs.

“So, what I brought you wasn’t enough?”

“Maybe if I only needed to dress myself four times a week.”

Her smile tightens at the corners, and she takes half a step in my way as I try to pass by.

“I know what you’re playing at, Nadia. You will not take advantage of this man, not while I’m here,” she whispers, her voice a low, cruel warning, “I will personally see to that.” Her gaze flicks to the clothes again, her smile tight. “Run out this little game while you can, but don’t get cozy. It won’t last.”

She marches past me, high heels tapping on the stairs.

…Me? Take advantage of Ren?!

“Are you out of your mind?” I call after her, but Olivia doesn’t turn back.

I don’t understand how anyone can look at me and think I’m the one in a position of power or able to take advantage of anything. My suspicion that she’s sleeping with him solidifies into belief, and I stomp up the rest of the stairs.

Ren’s room is right next to his office. I am struck numb by the same view from the window. The world outside isn’t gray and dreary anymore. The night has turned the water into a black mirror, reflecting golden lights, just the way I always remember it. I catch myself staring at the scene. For a few breathless seconds, I am seventeen again.

He sleeps in here.

I hate that he can stomach it. Ren walks around this house all day, oblivious and impervious, while this scene has haunted me for years. Does he even remember? I shove his clothes out of my way, taking up all the room I want. I hear him follow me from his office. He watches me, and I feel his eyes following my every move as I march back and forth from the bed to the closet.

“What?” I finally snap. “Am I not organizing them to your liking?”

He doesn’t answer, so I take his silence like another splinter under my skin and finish moving my things into his space. I turn to leave, but Ren stands solidly in my way.

“Get on the bed.”

The order shreds my expectations like tissue paper, tearing my thoughts in half. “What?” I breathe in answer, as if I haven’t understood him right—because there’s no way I have.

“Lie down,” he repeats, firmly.

“…I’m not tired yet. I’m not even changed, I still need to—”

“Nadia,” he repeats, firmly, as if he’s scolding a child. He backs me up with his sheer presence, striding forward with a confident step that crowds me back. I stumble backward to his bed and throw myself onto its edge, the mattress bouncing under the force of my indignation. Ren gestures his hand, a silent command to lie back. I do, stiffly. He stares down at me like that and says nothing. No orders, no ugly comment like he made in the dress shop. He just stares at me in his bed. My heart pounds, drumming in my own ears as I look up at him and play the awful guessing game of What Will Ren Caruso Do Next?

My skin grows flush and warm at the vulnerable position I’m in. The longer I hold the pose, the worse it gets. I punch down on that feeling in my chest and my belly, trying to smother it like a flame.

“You know, your girlfriend might have a thing or two to say about our little arrangement, Ren. Or have you not told her that you’re going to be sharing your bed with someone else out of sheer spite?”

“…girlfriend?”

“Olivia.”

“Miss Basham is my assistant,” he says.

“Oh, I’m sure she assists you with a lot of things—”

Ren steps closer, looming over me, leaning over with his hand curled around the headboard as he gazes down at me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Nadia,” he says. Slowly, he straddles me around the waist. My heart pounds as he lifts my wrists and pins them above my head, getting me just how he wants me underneath him.

I feel the juxtaposition of his hands—one all cold leather, the other warm skin.

And under him, with his weight on top of me, his steely grip and his cold face, I know he’s right. I don’t know a damn thing about the man on top of me, except what he wants. I can read that in his face.

“See, I’m not like you,” he continues lowly, “I don’t get the luxury of forgetting about you and moving on with my life until I don’t have a better option. I was reminded every day that I hunted you—”

“You think I wasn’t?” I snap, sitting up only to be forced back down by a strong hand on my collarbone. My chest heaves, belly fluttering and ovaries roaring at being pinned under the man I have wanted for years.

“—I know damn well you weren’t. Not the way I was.”

His hand trembles as he runs it down my body. He skips my breasts. His fingers slide against the thin fabric of my shirt, his warm touch carving down my belly and blunt nails dragging against the fabric. His lips are slightly parted, eyes lidded as he almost gasps. “Six goddamn years I’ve waited to see you like this again.” He lifts his hand before he can reach the V of my hips, fingers curling into a tense fist. His shoulders draw taut, his expression pinched, like he’s holding himself back from really doing something.

I swallow my anger and look past it, trying to read him. He looks hurt, somehow. He’s in some pain that I can’t see. That old tenderness for him flares up again, much as I try to ignore it, but the atmosphere sizzles like a live wire. I feel it all around us, the air charged, the emotion between us magnetic.

“Well, now you have me right where you want me.”

I reach out to him, but he knocks my hand aside and pins them down again.

“Don’t,” he threatens darkly, “Don’t act like you want this, Nadia.”

“I’m not the one acting like they don’t want this,” I challenge right back. “You made me lie down in your bed.”

“So that I could see you in your proper place.”

The word draws a dark shiver through my belly. My proper place, apparently, is not just in Ren’s bed. I am under him, sprawled beneath him. I stare up at his broad chest and his hollowed face, the way his expression smolders with such haunted intensity.

That humming electricity in the air feels like it’s going to blow—and it will either burn bright and blinding or plunge us both into darkness.

With no warning, Ren starts to get up. I don’t let him. I can’t let him. I reach up on sheer instinct and pull him back down, begging him to come back to me.

“Wait, Ren,” I say, still trying to understand, desperate to know why he wants to see me like this.

Maybe the obvious answer is Ren Caruso really just wants to hurt me—but if that’s true, then why hasn’t he? I’m right here . He could hit me, choke me, scream at me. But he hasn’t. Our bodies crash together as we come face to face, the moment suspended. Our lips are inches apart. I run my hands over those rigid shoulders then up to cup his face.

“Ren,” I beg. I want so badly to find some part of him in there still. I feel the stutter of his breath. Hear the low growl against his clenched teeth. He leans in, and I’m certain he’s going to kiss me.

“No!” Footsteps come flying at us. Harper launches herself into Ren like a little torpedo. “Get off my mommy!” she yells, pushing and hitting him as best she can with a tiny, angry fist.

“Harper!” I cry, scrambling to sit up under him.

Ren beats me to it. He swings off me, whisks Harper off the ground and up into his arms.

“Ren, wait—” I beg, terror choking my voice as I scramble to my feet. But he just holds her, stares into her furious, red little face. Her chest heaves.

“Leave her alone!” she says again, in the same stern tone I use when I tell her to stop misbehaving.

“Did you think I was hurting her?” he asks.

“You were on top of her.”

Harper trembles, and it breaks my heart. I thought she had bounced back so well from the other night, like kids do sometimes. That she had just moved on like she didn’t see me get attacked, like we weren’t violently run out of our own apartment. But she hasn’t. She so clearly hasn’t.

“Baby, it’s okay—”

Ren holds up a hand to silence me. He sets Harper down on the edge of the bed and drops to his knees in front of her.

“Your mother and I were playing. That’s all.”

Harper glares at him, that face saying she does not believe him for a moment. She turns to me, those eyebrows so serious. It’s one of those looks that remind me of him.

“He’s right,” I say, Ren and I locking eyes. “He didn’t hurt me, Harper.”

I won’t tell her that we were just playing, but I can give her that much truth.

“Well, you shouldn’t roughhouse,” she scolds, her voice still wobbly and eyes welled up from her fright. “It’s not nice, and—and you could still get hurt.”

“Harper,” Ren says, drawing her eyes back to him. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

My jaw drops, my silent rage and shock playing out cartoonishly. I have to snap my mouth shut before Harper can notice.

She glares at him for another moment, as if considering his apology very carefully.

“You have to promise you won’t hurt her,” she says, and then, as solemn as the grave, Harper holds out her pinkie finger. “Swear.”

Ren’s gaze drifts to me, our eyes meeting.

He studies her outstretched little finger with equal seriousness, as if making a blood pact. Finally, Ren hooks his pinkie around hers.

“I won’t hurt her. I swear.”

“…Okay.”

I feel like I’m losing my mind as my six-year-old daughter and my mob boss ex-boyfriend arrive at a pinky-swear truce about my well-being. Ren offers to escort her back to her room and tells her to bid me goodnight. Harper slings her arms around my neck and tells me not to play rough anymore, that we all need to go to sleep.

I squeeze her tight, grateful and so, so worried about her.

I feel a faint unease as I watch them go, Harper leading him by the hand out of the room.

My thoughts swarm like vultures, brutally picking apart every kind gesture Ren offers us, trying to dig down to the bone hidden deep under all the soft tissue, getting to the hard truth of it all. I’m overthinking, overanalyzing, certain there’s some cruelty hiding just out of sight. But what? The room is silent, but my thoughts are so loud.

I sit alone on the edge of his bed. My eyes wander to the window as they leave me behind, voices echoing from the hallway, as if I am not even there. A cold sense of loneliness creeps into my stomach.

I’m the one who looks after Harper. Who puts her to bed. Who reasons with her, through her outbursts and wipes away her tears. Is that what he’s going to take from me, too?

I shut down the thought.

When Ren returns up the stairs a minute or so later, I want to pick up where we left off. We were so close to—to something . Maybe another fight. But maybe something else.

I listen to each of his sharp footsteps in the hall approaching. He veers into his office. The door shuts. I wait, holding my breath—but it doesn’t open again. With a furious sigh, I throw myself back onto his bed, put a pillow over my face, and fight the urge to scream.