toward a quieter corner of the room. Over her shoulder, I spotted Mr. Carelli take Mateo and bounce him on his knee.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, moving my gaze toward the back of the room where Luca sat with her brothers.
The three men kept to themselves, speaking behind their balled hands and bent heads, like there was business they had for each other and didn’t want anyone else to hear. If the months in this town, around Smoke’s family taught me anything, it was not to worry what happened between men in small crowds. If there was business between them, it was safer for me not to know.
Toni looked over her shoulder, glancing toward where the men sat but didn’t turn around completely. “Never mind about that,” she said, grabbing a glass of wine from one of the servers as he passed. “Tell me what happened with you and Dimitri.”
“Oh.” My stomach burned as the flash of that night in his office and the long, late conversations with him reran like some Hallmark movie in my head. “He…took care of me. Said he wanted to talk to me but then…Dino…”
Toni nodded, her expression open, as she watched me. “He’s…different with you.”
“How so?”
Again, she looked over her shoulder as though she wanted to make sure no one heard her. Then the tall woman tugged me to the back of the bar where only a few servers milled around stacking empty plates and glasses. “Normally, that brother of mine is an asshole, I swear. Always barking orders at everyone, telling everyone what to do with their lives…where to live…who…who to love…” Antonia licked her lips, her breath hitching as she shot a glance across the room to where Luca sat. She gripped my wrist like she wanted to make sure I listened to her. “But for all his bossing and annoying bitching, he can keep you and that baby safe. It’s why I told you to go to him.”
“Yes, I know what you told me,” I said, taking Toni’s glass to have a sip of her wine. “But do you think he could ever…”
I tried to be strong. Brave. I tried to convince myself I didn’t need anyone but my son.
But it was hard closing yourself off when all you wanted was to be protected. To be loved. I’d seen the way Luca and Toni watched each other. What she wanted from him and couldn’t have was written in every long, sad look she gave him. Of anyone, she’d understand what I wanted.
“Do you think Smoke could ever…”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking down. “My brother is…hard. Always has been. Since I was young, he’s been hard.”
I took another long drink, trying to drown the disappointment I felt until Toni pulled on the glass, holding my wrist. “He makes me mad. He frustrates me, but what I see when he looks at you, what I see when you look back at him? Maggie…it feels different. It feels real.”
Toni’s grip on my hand tightened and a soft, slow smile twitched over her bottom lip. There was something that reminded me that she didn’t have the hope I did when she looked at Luca. I knew that was tied up in the business he had with Smoke. I meant to ask. The question was on the tip of my tongue. I opened my mouth, began to speak, but then shut it as Paris walked behind us, frowning as she looked between the two of us.
“Why are you here?” Toni asked the blonde before the woman ran off.
I took Toni’s fingers, hoping she could see in my expression what Smoke meant to me. I hadn’t told anyone what I felt. Not even him. The fear was too real. Hope was a drug that tasted too sweet to me. I wasn’t sure I could trust him. Toni would know if I should risk it.
Not seeing him, the ache in my chest had grown tighter with each passing day. There was just too much I wanted, and I was scared he wouldn’t give me everything he had of himself. If he was even capable of giving me what I needed from him.
“Toni,” I said, knowing if anyone would understand, it would be her. “If he…isn’t all in… if he can’t…” The explanation stuck in my throat, weighed down by the realization of how much being burned by the person you loved could sting. “I don’t know if I’d…it would do me in.”
From the look she gave me, from