Sneak Peek - Chapter Two

Surprise Baby for the Mafia Boss

Emelia

I see the jet plane coming in to land, and I imagine him sitting there. He may not be showing it, but I know his heart is broken.

His grandmother was everything to him, and he was everything to her. I just know her death is going to leave a massive hole in his life.

Ever since he came back from California three years ago, he's been different. Luca was always fragile, quick to rage, mercurial in his moods.

But then he left to try and become an actor, to get away from the family business. Enzo let him go, but he worried about him.

None of us heard from him for a couple of years other than the occasional call. He even called me once, but when I asked him if he was all right, he hung up on me.

He just showed up at the Baldini home again one day, thin, tan, and with a wild look in his eyes. Grazia, his sister, and my best friend, told me that he looked like a stray dog that someone had kicked too many times.

Nonna had taken him into the kitchen and sent the rest of the family away. Grazia said they were in the kitchen for hours and she heard Luca crying.

When she and Enzo asked their Nonna what had happened, she told them that Luca would tell them why he came home when he was ready.

It had been three years and he had never said another word about what had happened in California. Instead, he threw himself into business with Enzo with a fervor that bordered on insanity.

That was when the rages started to happen. He broke every piece of furniture in his room one night, beat a man half to death during a raid, crashed his car trying to see how fast he could drive.

Luca and I had been close as kids. Well, as close as Grazia would allow.

My silly, childish heart had always been set on marrying him. I had missed him every single day he was gone and been secretly hurt that he never reached out to me.

But then he had come home so…broken, and I had to admit that I grew scared of him. Not scared enough not to want to fix him, though.

Every cell in my body wanted to be the balm to his wounds, but he barely noticed my existence these days.

That's one of the reasons I thought it would be best for me to come get him from the airport, so that he knew there was someone to help him through this.

His siblings will be going through the same struggles, but I've been around this family long enough to know that competition often supersedes compassion.

Maybe I can get him to actually talk to me. I miss my friend.

As the plane comes to a stop and I see Luca step out, I make my way over to him.

He looks like he didn't get any sleep last night. But that doesn't change the fact that he still looks like a goddamn vision.

He might as well be in a painting with the way the sun is casting light on him.

I know that Enzo was on the phone with him late. I stayed over at the main house to help with preparations and was sitting in the kitchen when I heard the conversation. It didn't sound like it went as bad as it could have, but we all know Luca and how important his grandmother was to him.

Luca has always been the wild card of the family, never showing his hand and often making rash decisions that led to Enzo reprimanding him, which would usually just make the situation worse.

This massive shift in the family is something that has everyone on edge. They're all left wondering if this will slow Luca down or cause him to do something completely stupid.

"Luca!" I call out his name, he looks up and squints to make out my face in the sun that is shining directly behind me.

I walk up to him and throw my arms around his neck, standing right up on my tiptoes. "I'm so sorry." My voice cracks and tears fall down my face.

I don't have the same problem with my emotions that he does, and at the moment I'm carrying my own sadness.

Virginia, or Ginny as she always told me to call her, became an important woman in my life, too, especially over the last few months of her life. We shared tender moments and lots of time together. I feel her loss as well. While it's different from his loss, it's a heartbreak all the same.

Luca puts his arm around my back, pulling me in for a hug, but I don't feel any emotional connection from him.

He's comforted me before, when my pet rabbit was killed by my neighbor, when my mother and I got into a huge fight on my eighteenth birthday, and even once after a break-up.

He might seem cold and emotionless, but at least his strong, muscled arms know how to hold a crying girl.

I try to compose myself, but it takes a few more sobs into his chest. His scent is intoxicating — deep and earthy — I steal a deep breath and look up.

He looks confused at seeing me all alone, and stares behind me as if expecting someone else to appear.

I saw him just a few months ago, before he left, so it's not like he doesn't recognize me. But it's obvious, he did not expect his sister's best friend to fetch him, since it's not something that I've ever done before.

These are different circumstances, though, and I wasn't going to lose my chance to be there for him when he needs it the most.

"Emelia, where is my brother?" His voice is hoarse, and I can imagine him crying when he thought no one else could hear or see.

I plan to show him that he can cry in front of me, that I won't think him weak for it. I pull out a tissue from my bag, dapping at my eyes, sniffing and barely holding in the sobs.

"I offered to come and meet you. They're all at the main house, gathering the family and making phone calls." His family actually has no idea that I'm here, and if Grazia, Luca's younger sister, had any idea I decided to pick Luca up, she'd probably be pissed at me for butting in.

The Baldini family and mine have been friends for generations, but that doesn't mean that Grazia doesn't feel competitive with me. She always wants her brothers focused on her. She has never liked to share them with anyone, least of all me.

Grazia had made me swear I would never go after Luca, claiming it would be weird and ruin our friendship. I did pinky-promise her then, but we're adults now, and Luca needs a strong woman by his side.

One day, Grazia will realize that too, I'm sure. Plus, we'd be sisters, which is a major upgrade from best friend.

Another person who will benefit and be very glad about a union between Luca Baldini and myself is my father. He's never asked me outright, but we both know what a marriage with a Baldini would mean for our family.

"I have a driver," Luca says as he lets go of me and walks towards the car. Of course he has a driver, that's who drove me to come get him. His driver isn't going to be the one to hold him at night while he releases his grief and looks for comfort.

I follow him to the car, my heels clicking with the quick steps I need to take to keep up with his long strides.

"I know, I just think it's important for us to be there for each other right now."

He doesn't respond, nor does he look back at me. It hurts a little, but I try and be understanding. He's just had a significant shock.

The car cruises through the familiar streets, the engine humming, and inside, we're wrapped in a thick silence.

Luca has his head buried in his phone, which is pretty typical for him, but I can't imagine how he's managing to get work done at a time like this. I'm here, drowning in my grief, itching to crack through the wall he's put up.

The Baldini's private airstrip is only a few miles from the mansion, which limits my alone time with Luca. I've got ten minutes, at best, before we get there. I know his attention won't be on me once we're surrounded by his family, so I decide to break the quiet before it's too late.

My voice comes out shaky. "Your grandmother, she loved you so much." Ginny did keep talking about Luca and how much she loved her grandson, as well as the hopes she had for his future.

She also sometimes spoke about how much she worried about him due to his impulsive decisions and his desire to prove himself, which sometimes clouded his judgement.

She had mentioned how he needed a strong-willed girl to be by his side and keep him focused, and I had a feeling she was talking about me.

I put my hand on his knee, trying to bridge the gap that has always been there between us. Luca, still glued to his phone, looks up and glances between my hand—now resting on his knee—and my face, like he's trying to decode some secret message.

His blue eyes are the kind that seem to pierce through to your soul, but today, they look cold and flat. It's like he doesn't even know me. He's treating me like a stranger.

"What?" he asks, and I push on.

"Your Gran...Nonna…she kept talking about you while you were away. When she got sick, I spent a bunch of time with her, reading to her and hearing her stories. She had some incredible ones to tell."

He still doesn't reply, and I pull my hand back, feeling awkward.

"Grazia was so busy with her studies, it just made sense for me to share the load of taking care of Ginny. I wanted to make sure the nurses were doing a good job." That's probably all news to Luca.

I did spend a lot of time at the Baldini's home in our childhood. But even now as an adult, I still do. They were more tightly knit than my own family, and Ginny had happily taken me in as more than just a friend for her granddaughter. Plus, the more I got to sneak a peek at Luca, the better.

My visits to the mansion had increased in the last couple of months, though, drawn in by the heavy reality of Ginny's fading health. Even so, her passing was a shock. She had seemed okay just the day before she died.

"You read to her? I know her eyesight had been getting worse lately…" His thoughts seem to trail off and so does his sentence.

"I did. She loved The Secret Garden , especially," I say.

"We got really close in the last few months. She became the gran I never had growing up." I check Luca's face for some sign he's catching on, but he stays quiet, lost in his thoughts.

Just as I'm hoping to break through to him, his phone pings again, cutting our interaction short, and the last few minutes of the ride slip away in a heavy silence.

I give up and brace myself for whatever's waiting for us at the family mansion….

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