Page 135 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

He swallowed hard. “He’s into guys. Well, at least one guy.” He shrugged. “Me, in particular. And I have a video of him…doing some things…”

I covered my mouth with my hand. “Of you and him having sex?”

He flapped a hand at me. “Fuck, you’re loud. Secrets are supposed to be whispered! Not full sex, but of him blowing me. Yeah. It didn’t get any further—”

I suddenly needed all the juicy details. “Did you want it to?”

He leaned back against the wall. “Have you seen him? Fuck, yeah, I wanted it to. His uncle caught us, and Luca freaked out. Apparently, Carlos is a massive homophobe, and him finding out about us would be the worst thing in the world.”

I nodded. “Carlos is old-school, like my father. My brother owns a gay club and is very certainly into men, but my father won’t hear of it. As far as he’s concerned, it’s a business venture, and my brother is fucking women every night. Even still, my father keeps him out of his business circles and parades my older, very straight, very cut-from-his-cloth brothers around, while Ric is hidden behind closed doors doing accounting and tech work so as to not draw attention to him. Men in those circles, of that generation, aren’t exactly very accepting of a lifestyle that isn’t ‘dominate a woman, fill her with babies, raise the next generation to walk in my footsteps.’” I gave a gruff “grr” to emphasize the point.

Lynx snorted on a laugh. “You’re cute when you’re trying to be a gangster.”

I flipped him the bird, but we both sobered, staring at each other.

Lynx sighed. “Now is the ideal place and time to sleep with Luca. The cabin staff will know what’s going on.”

“Luca will pay them to be discreet.”

“Maybe, and that will probably work in the short term. But at the end of the day, when it all comes out that you’re pregnant, and you say it’s Luca’s, there will be at least one witness to back up your claims that you slept together. I get the impression the staff here is familiar with the family and that they’ve probably seen some stuff. And yet Carlos has kept them on, so he must trust them. He’ll trust them when they confirm they saw you and Luca going at it.”

“A DNA test is going to prove this baby isn’t his.”

He grabbed my arm, his gaze steady. “Luca will say the baby is his and refuse a paternity test, or I’ll deliver the video of him and me to his father.”

I muffled a groan and gripped the bathroom sink. “This is blackmail! We’re bad people, Lynx!”

“Are we the bad ones, or are they?”

He was right. I’d been happy, living my dream life with a man I loved and our baby growing in my belly. I hadn’t asked for any of this. All I was trying to do now was survive and protect the life that hadn’t chosen to be born into this world of violence and lies and secrets.

The only person I felt bad for was Luca.

He hadn’t asked for any of it either.

But I was running out of time. And running out of options.

I stared at Lynx. “Get me my bag. And the fucking underwear.”

42

LUCA

Dear Diary,

He should have just let me call the peacock Pinocchio.

Fuck, I hated my father. With every bone inside my body, every breath I breathed, every beat of my damn heart, I wanted to hurt him. I’d barely recovered from the beating he and my uncle had given me; the final traces of the bruising still yellowy-green across my ribs.

And now this. Not even bothering to let us know the plans had changed and that MacGregor had requested us there earlier. I knew exactly how the big Scot would take my late arrival, and not well was putting it lightly.

It would be taken as disrespect.

Just another way my father was punishing me. Whether this one was still for taking Isabella away or if it was for taking Nyah’s punishment, I didn’t know. It didn’t matter, the outcome was the same. I didn’t know why I was surprised. My father had done this my entire life. Set me up to look bad, leaving himself as shiny as a mirror.

I knocked back another drink, and eyed Lynx scurrying about the plane, getting Nyah’s things and then eventually coming to sit back beside me. I sucked in a deep breath, trying not to inhale his scent, but it was impossible not to when he was sitting so close.

I didn’t have the willpower to move farther away.