Page 70 of Knocked Up by My Dad's Mafia Boss

“Actually, I can. That’s how this kind of thing works.” His voice goes colder and colder.

“So that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“This was just some… dalliance?”

“Worse. It was a mistake.”

A mistake.My chest feels empty.

He glances at me and scoffs. “Don’t cry. You’re just as unwilling to tell Elio about this as I am. You knew what this was when you started it.”

“WhenIstarted it?”

“You came on to me, remember?”

I blink as more tears stream down my face. I can’t seem to stop them. “This isn’t you.”

“Isn’t it?” He twists on the couch to face me, and the emptiness in his eyes makes the void in me even wider. “How much do you really know about me, Samantha? Do you know who I am? What I’ve done?”

“I–I?—”

“Exactly. So just… live your life. Go out with your friends. Fuck who you want. I won’t stand in your way.”

“Dante, I don’t want to–”

“Like I said, Samantha. It doesn’t matter what I want. What you want. All that matters is that this can’t happen again.”

He stands up and I look up at him with wide eyes, my bottom lip trembling. He tears his eyes away from me like it costs him something to do it, and walks up the stairs.

My feet want to follow him. I want to get down on my knees, beg and plead. But my pride won’t let me.

He doesn’t want me. Not enough.

That’s all there is to it.

And now I’m having his baby, and I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do about it.

Dante’s door closing sounds like the end of the world. I cradle my stomach as sobs wrack my body, rocking back and forth to comfort myself. After a long time—minutes, hours—I finally run out of tears. I slowly head up to my room and pause just outside his door. Put my hand on the doorknob.

I keep walking, disappearing into my room.

I barely make it to the toilet before I throw up all the fudge mint ice cream I ate last night. I spit into the toilet before flushing, straightening up with a groan and turning on the sink. I let the water run as I look at myself in the mirror. My blue eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, my face pale.

I look like shit, which makes sense, because I feel like shit.

I have to do this alone. I can’t tell Dante. Not now. Not ever.

Because if he doesn’t wantmeenough, I’m not going to try and trap him with a baby. I just have to get through the next few weeks, until everything with Ricci calms down. Once that’s resolved, Dante can go back to Italy or wherever the fuck he was, and I can focus on myself and my baby.

“We’re going to be okay,” I say brokenly, looking down at my stomach. It’s not quite flat anyway, because I like ice cream and cake too much, but I’m not showing. “Okay, little one?”

My voice breaks, and I groan as more tears spill down my face. I wash them away, rinsing out my mouth with mouthwash and spitting it into the sink.

I can still smell him on my clothes, so I strip them off, getting into the shower and letting the water wash away the tears and snot and vomit. I’m a fucking mess.

But I’m going to be okay. Because I have to be.