Page 45 of Knocked Up by My Dad's Mafia Boss

“You’re in a good mood.”

“I am.” She plops down next to me. I put down the sandwich, glancing over at her.

“Listen, Samantha. Last night…”

She holds up a hand. “Don’t say it. Don’t say it was a mistake.”

“I wasn’t myself, little one. I shouldn’t have?—”

“Stop!” she nearly shouts, and I shut my mouth. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t say anything wrong.”

“I… I didn’t?”

“No.” She leans her head against my shoulder. “Maybe I’m smitten by you, too.”

My heart swells, but my stomach is still in knots. I crack open the can of soda on the tray and take a sip. I shift around to place myback against the headboard and she sits crosslegged across from me.

“And maybe someday soon, we could go public,” she continues.

I choke on the soda, nearly spurting it out of my nose. I cough and Samantha pats me on the back, frowning. “You okay?”

I cough again and shake my head. “We can’t ever go public, Samantha.”

She frowns. “Why not?”

I stare at her. “There’s a million reasons, little one.”

Samantha huffs out a breath. “I know, but…” She trails off. She knows as well as I do that this can never work. That it can’t go anywhere. My heart drops into my stomach just thinking about it.

“Have you ever heard the name Roberto?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Roberto?”

I nod. “He was one of your father’s men, a few years back.”

“Was?”

“Yeah,” I say gravely, and she leans toward me, interested.

“What about him?”

“I only met him once,” I start, remembering with a shudder that trails all over my body. “It was your twenty-third birthday, and you went out with your hoodlum friends.”

She snorts but doesn’t protest.

“Roberto kept staring at you, and when you left, he made some kind of comment about your thighs in the dress you were wearing.”

Samantha’s mouth pops open. “In front of Papa?”

I nod solemnly. “He learned how to whisper in a sawmill, I guess. I was across the room and didn’t hear, but Elio did.”

Samantha’s rapt, looking at me with amber-brown eyes. “Don’t tell me…”

“He didn’t kill him.”

She sighs in relief.

“Elio lunged at him, punched him in the throat, and while Roberto was sputtering, Elio ordered me to hold him down.”