Page 57 of Knocked Up by My Dad's Mafia Boss

More hurt settles over me like a shroud. It feels like someone’s twisting my stomach from the inside. “Is that what you want?” My voice goes soft and quiet. Small.

She whirls around to face me, and tears stream down her cheeks. “It’s whatyouwant, isn’t it? To be done with me?”

“I never said that.”

“You never sayanything!” she bursts out, sniffling, wiping angrily at her face.

“Tesoro,” i say softly. “Please don’t…” I trail off, not sure how to finish.

“Please don’t what?”

“Don’t hate me,” I rasp out, my eyes searching her face.

Samantha’s face crumbles and she puts it in her hands, sobbing, her shoulders shaking. The shell around my heart cracks even further. I want to run. Want to hide from this.

I step forward, reaching out to touch her shoulder, and trace my finger along the scar from the bullet graze. Samantha leans into the touch, dropping her hands from her face and drawing in a shaking breath.

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“Wanting you is the problem, little one. You know that.”

“You don’t want meenough.”

I let out a breath through my nostrils. “Don’t tell me what I feel.”

“Then tellme, Dante. Please.”

I draw her into my arms, my thumb brushing across the skin of her bare arm. She’s dressed in pajamas with cookies on them and a black camisole, barefaced, just the way I love to see her. Tears track down her pretty face, her brown eyes red-rimmed. That shell around my heart is like a windshield, spider-cracking but not shattering.

It’s only a matter of time. And I can’t fucking stay away from her.

I press my forehead to hers. “I do want you.” It’s not what I want to say. It’s notI love you. I need you. I don’t know how to let you go.But it’s something.

I wonder if it’s enough.

She looks up at me with her bottom lip trembling. “You mean that?”

I let out a dry chuckle. “Samantha, if I could choose not to want you, I would.”

“Me too,” she says shakily, smiling slightly.

I brush my nose across hers, pulling her even closer, her chest bumping mine. “I’ll give you your phone back if you delete Derek’s number.”

Samantha laughs thickly at that, sniffling again and wiping the last of the tears from her face. “Alright. Deal.”

“We have to be smart about this,tesoro.We nearly got caught, and you know what that means.”

She nods slowly.

“So you can’t touch me in public, especially not around your father. You can’t flirt with me like you have been.”

“And you can’t ignore me,” she shoots back, wrinkling her nose.

I smile. “Alright, little one. I won’t ignore you anymore, and you won’t push me.”

“Not much, anyway,” she says with a little grin, almost looking back to normal, and then I do kiss her, briefly on the mouth. She melts against me, whining into my mouth, and I swallow it down, kissing her deeper.

My hands have just gone around her waist when I hear Elio’s voice and freeze. She jerks apart from me, and it stings, even though it shouldn’t.