And stop.
There’s a tall figure standing at my door.
Large feet in shiny black shoes that are beaded with moisture. A long expensive coat that probably costs more than six months of my rent. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Leather gloves. He’s holding a wide black umbrella that conceals his face, and for a moment, I can only see the outline of him, dark and still against the blur of rain.
Then the umbrella tilts back.
Amber eyes meet mine, and the world stops.
Cristiano Montoni.
He looks different. Older. The softness is gone from his face, replaced by sharp angles and a jaw that could cut glass, which is accentuated by the black turtleneck tight around his muscular throat. He’s bigger than I remember, broader, filling the sidewalk like he owns it.
He looks a lot like his father.
The thought sends ice through my veins.
Slowly, he extends his arm and covers me with the black umbrella.
The rain that was pattering on my head and running down my cheeks suddenly ceases. I stare at Cristiano, transfixed, as raindrops dare to splash among his golden curls. He still wears them carelessly, endearingly long, and even with fear thudding in my chest, I remember exactly what it feels like to stroke those curls, Cristiano’s head a warm weight in my lap, his eyes closed in bliss.
“Mina.” His voice is low and careful. Like he’s approaching a wild animal that might bolt. “I was hoping we could talk.”
My arms tighten around Leon instinctively, one hand coming up to cup the back of his head. I press his face into my shoulder. His eyes. Oh God, his eyes.
“Mama?” Leon squirms against me. “Who’s that man?”
“No one, baby.” My voice comes out strangled. “Just—just a moment, and we’ll go inside.”
He obeys, burrowing into me, and I hold him so tight my exhausted arms scream.
Cristiano’s gaze drops to the child in my arms. Something shifts in his expression that I can’t read.
“This is him?” he asks quietly. “Your son?”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
“Can I come in?” He gestures at the front door as the rain falls around us in sheets. “Just for a moment. I won’t stay long.”
Every instinct screams no. No, you cannot come in. You cannot be near my son.Myson.
But then I take in Cristiano’s expensive coat and his tailored clothes, and I want to laugh at myself. Every man I’ve dated in the past few years turns tail and runs when he sees the reality of my life. The cramped apartment. The toy boxes and the children’s books. The evidence of a child who needs me more than any man could. They take one look at my world and suddenly remember somewhere else they need to be.
Cristiano Montoni, the don of a crime empire, was raised in a mansion with marble floors and staff to clean up after him. He’s only ever seen me in his world. The grand kitchen, the sprawling gardens, the wealth that surrounded me that was all his and never mine. He has no idea how I actually live.
Let him see. Let him be horrified. Maybe he’ll finally realize that I don’t fit in his world and never have.
“Sure.” I shift Leon higher on my hip and unlock the door with trembling fingers while Cristiano shelters me from the rain. “But just for a minute.”
My apartment is a fourth-floor walk-up, and it’s small. I’ve made peace with it being small, but watching impossibly tall Cristiano Montoni fold himself through my doorway makes it feel tiny. A dollhouse invaded by someone too large to fit.
There’s barely any free space for him to prop his closed umbrella by the front door. He eases his coat from his wide shoulders with care so he doesn’t knock into the walls. His head nearly brushes the low ceiling. The paint seems more faded than usual. The cracks in the linoleum seem like chasms beside his perfect leather shoes. Everything about him in my apartment screams wrong place, wrong world. He doesn’t belong here.
I wait for his judgment and barely concealed distaste. The polite excuse to leave.
But Cristiano looks around my apartment like he’s stepped into a cathedral. His eyes move slowly, cataloging everything. The secondhand couch with its cheerful but clashing throw pillows. The bookshelf I rescued from the side of the road, filled with secondhand novels and knickknacks. The small kitchen with its mismatched mugs and finger paintings pinned to the refrigerator. Leon’s toys scattered across the rug. A plastic dinosaur. A dump truck missing one wheel. Building blocks in primary colors.
“Your home is lovely,” he says quietly.
