“One moment, missus,” a blue eyed giant lisped, holding up a finger.
Meanwhile, another was dialing on his cell.
I didn’t waste a second, marching straight to the vintage sports car to slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine. It purred to life like a dream.
The guard on the phone came to the window and rapped his knuckle against the glass. “Boss said you’ll ride with us.”
“Tell Liam that I’m perfectly capable of driving myself,” I said with a smile. “But if he wants me followed, you’re free to tail me in one of your SUVs.”
I began to back the car out of the garage.
The man’s face was the picture of desperation. He held his throat, lily white skin mottling with red as he spoke into the phone. They could jump behind the car and risk damaging the fender, but I wasn’t stopping.
Whatever that conversation decided, the men scrambled to their vehicles. The garage door fell closed as I backed into the street.
“I wonder what the neighbors think of all the muscly guys over here,” I said to myself to fill the agitated silence.
I lifted a hand and waved to the ladies standing by a glossy white mailbox as I passed.
Granted, the house sat back on the property, and there were plenty of trees in the spacious front yard. That, plus the high fence, kept nosey people from poking around.
I distracted myself as best I could with the radio.
What I was doing was unprecedented. Never in a million years would I have been this bold when it came to my parents.Something about Liam challenged me. Maybe it was the fact that he’d had opportunity to hurt me—and hadn’t.
It would be smart to tread carefully. We were married now, and while mobsters would bluster about protecting their women, they weren’t above keeping them in place by use of physical force when necessary.
Still, I felt like pushing.
And as I drove, merging onto the interstate for a few exits, the reason dawned on me. It would be easier to hate Liam if he was cruel.
I gulped and slowed the accelerator as I took the ramp onto the Morelli streets. I was in danger of liking my husband. Which made it hard to deceive him.
“No, I’m protecting myself,” I said firmly, battling down the rising flush of hormones at the thought of the intimacy. “I’ll never let a man use my body against me.”
That was disastrous.
The swirling clouds of memory squashed my hormones.
Pulling onto my parents’ street, I parked in front of their house. I didn’t live here. There was no reason to go through the back from the alley. But I wasn’t prepared how it would feel to walk through the front door.
A chorus of girlish squeals enveloped me like a warm hug as I entered. The Irish guards stayed in their vehicles—three of them. My sisters gabbed and pointed.
“Where’s Mama?” I untangled myself from the monsters clinging to my legs.
“In the kitchen,” Daniella answered, her six-year-old face scrunched in question, before she blurted out, “Does this mean you’re pregnant now?”
The older girls blushed.
My stomach flipped. Nausea crawled up my throat. “What? No. Why would you say that?”
“Papa said that women get pregnant when they marry,” the six-year-old said simply. The logic was plain to her. I was married, ergo, I was pregnant.
I wanted to tell her that wasn’t how things always happened.
But then I would be corrupting my sisters. Right now, I didn’t want to be banished from the house. Not when there were such few precious moments with my family before I said goodbye forever.
I ruffled her hair and pushed past her into the kitchen.
