Page 44 of The Don's Secret Heir

I am over him. I am. This is just... stupidity. I’m stressed and I’m scared and he’s... familiar.

That’s all it is.

But then he’s kissing all over my face and I can’t stop grinning, pecking him on the lips as he pulls away.

“I should go,” I say quietly, not looking at him. Dario makes a distressed sound in the back of his throat.

“Not yet,” he says, voice slightly hoarse. “Just lie here with me for a while.”

Why?I want to ask. I want to push back, but so much of me feels safe for the first time in a long time.

He pulls out of me, plopping down on his back, and I cuddle up to his chest just like I used to nearly every night.

He kisses the top of my head and that’s familiar, too. My heart hurts.

God, what am I doing?

I just had sex with the man I’ve hated for five years. The man who most likely killed my father.

I need fucking therapy.

Especially since I’m already starting to get drowsy.

Before I know it, I slip into sleep and I dream about that night. The night everything changed.

Dario wasn’t answering his phone and I was annoyed. We had planned a date, and I was hoping we’d actually leave the house instead of just having marathon sex at his penthouse.

Things were getting more serious or... at least I hoped they were. I’d started seeing a future with him. Started to think about what he’d look like in a tuxedo at our wedding.

I blushed just thinking about it, and decided to go to his place to look for him.

I knew he was a busy man, after all. My father was always busy and he didn’t have the responsibilities Dario had. He was learning his father’s business and would one day take over as don.

I had to admit the power was a turn-on, but Dario was so sweet underneath all that bravado. The pillow talk, the way he kissed along my skin like it was something precious.

I was madly in love with him. I just hadn’t told him yet.

Mostly because I was afraid. Dario had a reputation for being a ladies’man, and I wasn’t sure that he was ready to settle down. But we’d already had a conversation about being exclusive.

He had frowned when I asked him about it.

“Exclusive? Belissima, there’s been no one but you since the moment I laid eyes on you.”

I smiled at that, but I wasn’t sure I believed it.

“We’d better be exclusive,” he’d mumbled against my skin, biting down on my shoulder. I’d giggled, and we’d made love, and that had been the end of it.

Or so I thought.

I pulled into the apartment complex, using Dario’s code at the gate, which he’d given me after our fourth or fifth date.

I knew he was home because I saw his flashy car in his spot and I grinned, anticipating seeing him. I looked up in time to see the door opening. My hand was on the door handle of my car when I saw... her.

A leggy redhead with curves in all the right places, wearing an evening gown with a plunging neckline. My eyes trailed behind her to see Dario coming out behind her, one hand on the small of her back to lead her out of the apartment.

Tears flooded my vision and instinctively, I put the car in reverse, squealing out of the apartment complex before he could look my way.

That was the beginning of the end.