a hand to stroke her hair.
“Mmm.” She smiled, snuggled closer, sliding one of her bare legs between his. “I loved last night. Thank you.”
“My family was delighted to meet you too.”
She giggled against him. “You know that’s not what I mean. I was referring to us. Making love. It felt really good. It felt like it used to.”
Vittorio continued to slowly, lazily stroke her hair, his hand running from the top of her head all the way down to her back. “It was good.”
She felt like a cat beneath his caress and she arched a little with the pleasure. “I did like meeting your family though. And I adored your grandmother, as well as your father. You look so much like your father. Do you hear that often?”
“I do,” Vitt agreed.
She pictured his father and the wheelchair with the ventilator tucked beneath. “Where was he shot?”
“He took a bullet in the back. Well, five actually, but the one that severed his spinal column was the one that nearly killed him.” He paused. “Thank God it didn’t. But he was in and out of hospitals for the next two years. Sometimes he still gets very sick.”
She struggled to process what he’d told her. “But who actually shot him?”
“A member of the cosca,” he said, using the Italian word for a Mafia clan or association. “As I told you last night, he wanted out. I was seventeen, the age many men join the brotherhood, but he made it clear that I wouldn’t, nor would any of my children.”
“I didn’t think you could just walk away.”
“You can’t.”
She heard the pain in his voice and moved closer. “What happened?”
He tensed. “My father announced he’d no longer be part of any criminal activity. He made it clear he would no longer extort money or provide kickbacks.” Vittorio paused, stared up at the ceiling, deep lines etched next to his mouth. “We were all at dinner one night in Catania. My father and mother, my grandparents, my uncles, their wives, a few cousins and me. They called all the men out of the restaurant. My father knew what would happen. After all, he’d been a member for years, just as my grandfather had been. He told everyone to stay put, that he alone would go out. My grandfather and uncle refused to let him go alone.
“They shot them all,” Vitt said bluntly. “My father threw himself over Giovanni, his younger brother, to shield him but it didn’t matter. One of the bullets that struck my father, passed through him and killed Giovanni instantly. My father alone survived. It’s a miracle he did.”
“And then your family was finally free?” she asked, her voice husky with emotion.
“There was a huge public outcry. Everyone knew us in Catania. Everyone knew what had been done. People were livid. Even members of the association were uncomfortable with what happened. I think the taking of two lives, and the maiming of my father, satisfied the clan’s need to make a statement. Enough blood had been shed. We were left alone.”
She pushed up on her elbow to look down on Vittorio.
“Your father saved you.”
He swallowed roughly. “He did.”
His face was etched in such hard lines of pain that it made her heart ache. Gently she kissed his jaw, and his chin, and then his mouth. “I wish your father was my father. He’s such a brave man.”
Vitt reached for her, drew her up onto his chest and kissed her back. “But he is your father now, and you are part of this family now. We are one. You must believe that.”
They kissed and then made love slowly, leisurely before falling back asleep for another hour. But finally they rose and showered together before collecting Joe from the nursery to take him to have breakfast with them.
They were in the middle of having breakfast when Theresa appeared, dressed in tailored cream slacks and a gold knit tank with a rope of crystals, pearls and small gold beads around her neck. She looked polished, wealthy and very angry.
“You had a phone call, Jillian,” Theresa said shortly, “on the house phone. I wasn’t about to chase you down so I took the number. You’re to call him back. He said soon.”
She handed Jillian a piece of paper. “It’s not anyone working on the wedding. I know, because I asked him. Who else did you give our number to?”
Jillian shook her head. “No one.”
“Must have been someone, because he called.” Theresa smiled but even that was chilly.