Checking my watch, I realized I was only a few minutes late for Mia’s class. Scarlett came because she felt something was wrong—with me or with the situation, only she knew.
“My children,” I said in Italian.
She responded in the same language. “The boys are with their grandfather, getting hot chocolate. Mia is with her grandmother and her teachers. Most of the guards are with them.” She smiled at the two sitting across from me. “What’s up with them? And who is she?”
That was going to take some fucking explaining.
Peter got up from his chair and kissed Scarlett’s cheek. I didn’t miss the scalding look Sue gave my wife. She didn’t, either.
“You look familiar,” my wife said to the woman, returning the narrow stare. “Have we met?”
Scarlett knew damn well she hadn’t met the woman, and she knew exactly why she looked familiar.
“No,” Sue said, her tone picking up volume. “We haven’t. But you know my cousin. Jane.”
“Ah, yes,” Scarlett said, a polite smile on her face. Her hand slipped over my shoulder. “I do. The resemblance is uncanny between the two of you.”
“It is. She’s more like an older sister.”
Peter might have been young, but he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t miss the sudden tension in the room, threatening to tear through the polite fakeness and let the lava of hell flow out.
I was about to speak, but Peter took the opportunity to introduce Sue to Scarlett, the proper way.
“Your what?” Scarlett whispered, but to my ears, it sounded like a screech.
Sue seemed to have picked up on it too. The smug look on her face lit her up, and she reached up a hand, pulling Peter’s finger to her mouth.
“She is, Auntie Scarlett. My fiancé. It’s official.”
“Howofficial?”
This time I squeezed my wife’s hand. She was dangerously close to sending Peter running for the door. He came here to avoid the wrath of Violet, not incur the temper of his aunt. I took her point well enough, but Peter was skittish. He didn’t want anyone to treat him like a boy in front of his…betrothed.
My lips twitched and Scarlett flicked my earlobe, not finding anything amusing about the situation.
In all seriousness, Peter had to be contained and talked to until I could talk to Mitch. If anyone could talk some sense into him, his Pop could. Or Luca. But I wouldn’t even go there. I wasn’t usually the kind of man to deter any man from marrying the woman he loved. There was something about Sue, though, that struck me as…snakelike. She’d definitely boil the bunny, then swallow it whole. She’d probably wave the crapped-out bones as proof after.
A shiver ran over me and I emitted a lowugghnoise.
Scarlett seemed to come to the same conclusion but was going about it more vocally. Her face masked nothing.
I wondered if I was right about Sue, or if it was the age difference that bothered her the most. Whatever it was had her almost vibrating.
Peter lifted Sue’s had. “I asked. She said yes.”
The breath that left Scarlett’s mouth was felt more than heard. He hadn’t gone through with anything—anything but the consummation. In our home. Which led me to the next point.
“How’d you get here?”
“My bike. I parked it out back—” he gestured with his head “—in the new garage.”
I thought about this for a moment. I called Silvio over, told him to take her home. Peter’s eyes grew wide at this. He had some of the language after spending time in Italy. He went to protest, but I held a hand up, stalling him.
“I need to talk to you.” I gestured to myself and then to him. “Man to man.”
“But—”
“Are you a man or not?”
