Page 4 of Secret Seduction

It would be my fucking pleasure.

I take my plate to the sink and then head into the living room, dropping onto the couch and looking around as I wonder what the hell I’m going to do. I went from wanting to find a woman to marry and spend my life with to being a single dad.

When I was growing up, my parents were up front with Dani and me. Their marriage had been arranged by their parents—something that was common in Italy between families who wanted to continue to increase their wealth and power. And while I have no doubt that they cared for one another, the romantic in me always wanted to marry for love. I once saw the way my dad looked at Maria—Joseph’s wife and the woman he was in love with before shit went sideways—and I could tell the difference immediately. The raw emotion in his features. The want and desire. The devastation of knowing they’d never be together.

Add to the fact that I’ve watched everyone in my inner circle fall in love—Peyton and Matteo’s older brother, Dominick; Matteo and Dani; and most recently, Kane and Brielle, Matteo and Dominick’s younger sister——and I told myself that I would have that one day.

My phone dings with an incoming text, shaking me from my thoughts.

It’s a picture of Leo grinning from ear to ear.

Dani

He’s so sweet.

I stare at the picture of my son for several minutes. Matteo always jokes that I wear my heart on my sleeve and let people in too easily.

And he’s not wrong. I not only let Hillary make a fool out of me once, but even after knowing the type of person she was, I let her saunter back into my life, only to make me look stupid again.

Well, that’s done.

Lesson fucking learned.

The only person I’m letting into my heart wears diapers, has a gummy smile, and won’t screw me over.

2

Lorenzo

One Month Later

“It’s three days. One day on the yacht. The second is the wedding at a beautiful resort in Bimini. And the third is back on the yacht to return home,” Dani explains as I shake my head.

“You need a vacation,” she argues.

“My son needs stability.”

“And he has that.” She juts her chin toward the play yard I created on the floor, where he’s crawling around and playing with his toys. “You’ve been working from home since he came into your life. And from what Kathleen’s told me, you barely go into the office anymore. And when you do, it’s with Leo in tow.”

“You’ve been talking to my assistant?”

“In case you forgot, she’s mine too. I might be on maternity leave, but I still own forty-nine percent of the company, and my name is on the door—Daniella Russo, Vice President. And”—she glares—“I’m planning to go back to work part-time soon.”

“You are?” This is news to me.

When she had Alba, she didn’t give a time frame as to when she’d be back, but I honestly assumed since her husband was protective and made more than enough money to support them and she loved being home with Alba, it’d be a while.

“No, she’s not,” Matteo chimes in. “And it’s Antonov, not Russo. Add changing her name on the door to your list of things to do.”

I chuckle, but Dani doesn’t find him as amusing.

“Don’t give me that look,” he says when she glares his way. “You’re not going back to the office until we catch that bitch, Leysa Santiago.”

Leysa Santiago … the twenty-year-old psycho who has been going after the Antonovs for the past couple of years.

When Dominick’s father, Andrey, died and Dominick took over, he put a stop to several of the illegal businesses in Harbor Point, including trafficking women in and out of the port his family owned. Carlos Santiago was pissed and threatened him, and Dominick ended his life to make an example out of him.

He thought that was the end of it, until shit started going down a couple of years later. Businesses that were under their protection were getting ransacked, shipments were getting fucked up, and several of Matteo and Dominick’s men were arrested for distribution.