Page 120 of Be With Me
That had shut me up.
The rest of the drive had been tense. Not because we'd fought, but because we'd both known what had happened in the last eighteen hours.
The unspoken rules had been broken.
He wasn’t treating this like just sex. And the part of me that still believed in self-preservation wished he would. Because the alternative was a ten-letter word.
Heartbreak.
Since then, I’d seen him three more times.
At a thin-walled brownstone he owned, where he'd kept me quiet with his palm over my mouth.
At a hotel in Brooklyn, where steam had curled around our bodies, and we'd left handprints on the shower stall glass.
At a cabin upstate, where we'd made lo—I mean, fucked—under a canopy of stars.
And every time, the lines had blurred a little more. The breathless excitement, the sensation of falling…it all lasted for precious seconds at a time before the dread swooped in.
November 8 was just around the corner.
“We’re excited to see how the new ads perform,” Corine continued, drawing me back to the conversation. “They’re hard-hitting. Great storytelling. We're hoping to win over the last holdouts in the suburbs.”
“Let’s monitor the comments closely,” Dad said. “I want to see early—” His voice cut off as his gaze snapped to something behind me.
The table went silent.
“Is that who I think it is?” Corine whispered.
I glanced over my shoulder, and my stomach filled with shards of glass.
Romolo and his family had just walked into the restaurant.
Our table wouldn’t have been more tense if someone had announced a bomb threat.
“Should we leave?” Mike, one of my father’s aides, asked.
“No.” My dad stared at the group on the other side of the restaurant as he wiped his napkin over his mouth. “That would make it look like we’re intimidated.”
I barely heard him. My senses had locked onto Romolo, who was oblivious to my presence. He stood near the entrance in his dark-green wool coat and a scarf wrapped around his neck.
Behind him, Cosimo looked tired. According to Fabi, he’d finally agreed to meet her, then rescheduled because he was constantly traveling. Alessio—the third Ferraro brother—stood beside Cosimo, tattooed and unreadable.
Ahead, at the reception desk, were their parents.
I’d seen photos, but seeing them in person was different.
Romolo’s mother—statuesque, with sleek silver hair and crimson-painted lips—had a smile that was meant to put people at ease, but the regal way she carried herself radiated quiet authority. It was her—not her husband—who'd dreamed up the ridiculous theory about my dad’s funding. I could tell just by looking at her that she didn’t sit on the sidelines. She was an active player in their game.
Her husband’s presence wasn’t loud, but it was impossible to ignore. Gino Ferraro was in his late fifties, and like his wife, he had a head full of silver. The fact that neither of them did anything to try to hide their age felt like a deliberate statement.
They were the top dogs. They hadno oneto impress.
This was a high-end restaurant, the kind where business deals were whispered over polished silverware. The Ferraros’ entrance turned heads at nearly every table. As they followed a server toward their seats, whispers rippled across the room.
I swallowed hard.
My father was fighting for power. The Ferraros already had it. They were feared. Respected. Revered. And they wouldn’t go down without a fight.
