•Nolani•
Viola keeps the conversation flowing easily while we eat. She talks about Italy, how life was there growing up and how she met Rafael Senior at University. He told her it was love at first sight but she rejected him repeatedly because of his reputation. She eventually decided she couldn't fight the attraction to him anymore and found out he was more than just the rumors she had heard. She asks about my parents and I tell her my Mom passed away and I don't know my Dad. She asks what I think about becoming a mother and I stumble through that one because honestly I'm not even sure what I think of it yet. Her and Alessia are already looking up baby shower ideas on Pinterest along with baby names and nursery decor. Leo and Nico chime in every once in a while but both Giovanni and Riot remain quiet, they look like two brooding bookends flanking Alessia.
I can feel the pair watching me throughout dinner but I try my best to ignore it. They're digging, looking closely as I talk, seeing if I'm being honest when I answer each question Viola asks. I am so neither of them butts in thankfully. I have no reason to lie to Viola and even if I tried everything I've done since I was eighteen can be found with a short Google search, it's not like I can hide anything.
Once we're finished eating Viola demands we leave the table untouched saying the maid will clear it and we retire to an expansive den. The room is decorated in gold, black, white and pops of royal blue. There's a large family crest in the same color scheme as the room mounted above the oversized fire place, a huge ornate rug taking up most of the dark polished wood floor and three Velvet couches surround an antique mahogany coffee table. The house practically bleeds old money and if I hadn't seen the exterior I'd think we were in a castle in the Renaissance era.
It really surprised me that Viola prepared dinner herself but during our conversation she said it was something her mother instilled in her as a child. It was a tradition in her family to prepare a home cooked meal at least once a week especially if you were having a new guest over.
"Your home is beautiful." I tell Viola as I take a seat on one of the couches.
The couch is comfortable and soft to the touch, I nearly sink into the cushions.
She gives me a smile. "Thank you but I can't take credit for it, this was Rafael's home. My home is in Italy, I haven't talked myself into going home since Raf passed. It's hard, I feel close to him here. Sometimes I wake up and I expect to walk down the hall and find him in his office with a cigar in his mouth and a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. I always check."
Her admission makes my heart ache but I also feel relieved knowing he brought me back to his house and his Mother was in Italy at the time.
"He'd have a coronary if he knew you entered his office, Mamma. One stray shoe impression on the rug placed in front of his desk and he'd fly off the handle like you puked on it." Alessia laughs lightly.
Her words bring back a happy light in Viola's eyes. "He just didn't want anyone messing with his things. He always liked things to be a certain way." Viola adds.
Alessia smiles, "He got that from papà."
Viola nods in agreement. "He did." Then she quickly exits the room.
"So do you want two boys or two girls or do you want one of each?" Alessia asks eagerly, taking a seat beside me.
I give a nervous laugh. "Honestly I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that there's two of them."
"I bet." She agrees. "I pray for girls. The last thing we need is more bossy men running around here."
Viola walks back in the room packing a thick leather photo album in her hand. She takes the empty spot on the couch beside me and places the album down on the coffee table in front of us. At the very top of the cover Rafael's name is stitched into the leather in gold cursive letters and my heart rate speeds up.
Alessia moves in closer on my other side as Voila opens the album. The first picture is of a chubby baby with a head full of dark hair swaddled in a light blue baby blanket sleeping peacefully.
"He was only a couple hours old there. The easiest newborn out of all of them, by far." Viola sighs wistfully, running her dark red painted fingernail across the baby's face.
Alessia snorts. "Then he got older and decided he needed to boss the rest of us."
"He was the eldest, cara. That's what they do." Viola says turning the page.
My eyes find a picture of a young Viola, a guy who looks like Rafael and a little baby bundled in blue. "Rafael Senior." Viola says pointing to the guy. Alessia could be her mothers twin in this picture except she inherited her father's amber eyes instead of Viola's gray. "He would be ecstatic you were continuing his legacy. Over the moon his little junior would have bambino's of his own."
Alessia smiles down at the picture, "Rafael was always Papá's favorite."
Leo takes a seat at the couch across from us, a tumbler of liquor in his hand. "No, no. We all know you were Papá's favorite, Alessia. His only principessa."
Alessia rolls her amber eyes but doesn't fight the notion.
"Your Papá loved each of you equally." Viola counters and Leo quirks an eyebrow in response.
He had said previously he was the black sheep of the family, maybe he and his father didn't get along as well as the others.
"Yeah, as long as you followed in his footsteps." He mumbles but
Viola catches every word, her head shooting up abruptly.
"Do not speak ill of your Papá, Leonardo. He just wanted the empire to continue." She insists.
Leo scoffs and knocks back the remainder of the liquor in his tumbler.
Viola arches an eyebrow, her gray eyes ablaze with contained anger. "You scoff in your Hermés loafers throwing back expensive Scotch like it's boxed whine while that same empire you curse paid for your tuition to become a surgeon. Where would you be without your Papá, hmm?"
Leo stiffens as does Alessia. I can practically feel the anger radiating off Viola in waves but you can't hear it in her steady voice. I'd probably be less intimidated if she screamed— just let it out but she's so calm on the outside.
"Apologize." Giovanni demands firmly and I jump in alarm, my eyes flying to his suit clad form standing in the entryway flanked by Riot and Nico.
Controlled anger is clearly a trait that runs in the DeLuca family except Giovanni conceals it even better than his mother. There's no trace of displeasure in his amber eyes just icy indifference as he stares his younger brother down. My mind goes back to the day he stormed in my house and screamed at me, his anger was most definitely not controlled that day so I guess he can't always conceal it.
Leo's Adam's apple bobs before he looks up to meet his mothers gray eyes. "I apologize Mamma."
Her anger instantly evaporates as her dark red painted lips tilt up into a smile. "Apology accepted."
Viola continues to show me pictures of Rafael adding little stories with each one. He was broody little toddler running around the house and bossing anyone in his path. His black hair was always kept nice even in the pictures of him at a playground. He liked to keep it on the longer side, never allowing it to be cut above his jaw line. All of the DeLuca clan attended private school. There was one picture of Rafael, Giovanni, and Riot together. Rafael stood between the two younger boys, all three of them dressed in the same uniform with a school crest on the jacket. Rafael only had a ghost of a smile gracing his lips but Giovanni and Riot sported naughty grins. Giovanni's navy tie was loose around his neck, hanging carelessly unlike Rafael's and Riots. Viola admitted Giovanni was her wild child from birth, she said even as a toddler he was always getting into trouble. His first day of preschool he cut off a little girls pigtails because she made a rude comment about Rafael Senior. Once we made it through the entire album Viola kisses each of us on the cheeks and makes me promise to visit her soon before retiring to her room.
"I need to speak to Miss Michaels privately." Giovanni says to his siblings.
After demanding Leo apologize to Viola, Giovanni and Riot had taken a seat on each side of him and remained quiet as their mother told her tales of Rafael while Nico was seated on the third couch by himself.
Alessia exchanges phone numbers with me before she leaves, Leo gives me a hug, Nico brushes another kiss across my knuckles and Riot just stares me down before exiting the room.
Once Giovanni and I are alone he sits up, bracing his elbows on his knees and levels me with an unreadable look. "If you don't want to be forced to stay at my house I suggest you start wearing clothes that aren't so tight. If the right person is paying attention they will easily guess you're pregnant, if not from your slightly protruding lower stomach then by watching your hand clutching it periodically."
His words light a fire in my veins and I want to scream at him. I want to tell him he can't control me, threaten to set up interviews with the most popular talk shows around and announce the pregnancy to the world but I don't. Instead I take all of that anger, shove it into a tiny jar in the back of my mind and put the lid on tight to save it for another time.
I take a deep breath and stand up, silently walking over to the fireplace. There's black and white family pictures placed on the mantle and I focus on them. The younger versions on the men in the family are filled with mischievous smiles but the most recent are stony and serious. Alessia is smiling big in every single one of them though.
"I'm not showing at all yet. I do have a bit of a stomach at the moment because I ate way too much of your mother's delicious food but regardless I will wear whatever I choose to Mr. DeLuca—" I look over at Giovanni still seated on the couch. "—No matter if I'm a few months pregnant or nine months pregnant and that's just something you will have to get used to. As for my hand coming to my stomach I honestly didn't even realize I was doing that, I'll try my best to refrain from now on. What I don't understand is how anyone will know who the father of these babies are."
Giovanni rises from the couch and slowly approaches me like he's a tiger stalking his prey. "One thing you will come to understand, Miss Michaels, is I don't tolerate disobedience." He doesn't stop until we're toe to toe, my heart is practically beating out of my chest having him this close. "In fact the last person that disobeyed me ended up at the bottom of the river." The last of his sentence is whispered against my ear.
I blame it on my pregnancy hormones when a shiver travels it's way across my body. I take a deep breath, inhaling a lungful of his rich cologne which is a big mistake because all it does is make my sex throb. Good god I'm too sex deprived for him to be this close to me.
"The bottom of the river?" I ask, trying to clear the horny fog from my brain but it's hard.
So hard.
Wow, wrong choice of words.
Wait. Did he just admit to killing someone or was that a joke?
"Mhmm." His warm breath caresses my ear and travels down my neck.
My flesh is pebbled in goosebumps. I had tossed my suit jacket across the back of the couch earlier while Viola went through the photo album so my arms and shoulders are completely bare. Giovanni brushes the tip of his nose across the shell of my ear and if I were in the right frame of mind I'd be embarrassed at my erratic breathing. My vagina is practically purring at the prospect of attention headed it's way.
"You aren't sleeping with your bodyguard, are you?" He questions quietly.
Sleeping with Angelo? Why would he even ask that? It's like a diving into a pool filled with ice cold water, I almost gasp as my head breaks the surface when I leap out of the lust induced haze but I bite my lip instead and slide my hands up his suit jacket. I wrap my arms around his neck and mold our bodies together. His hands remain tucked in the pockets of his slacks but I don't let that deter me. I glide my nose across his cheek, rising up on my tip toes until we're lips to lips but I don't kiss him.
"That's none of your damn business." I whisper the words slowly, dragging them out. His amber eyes burn bright with anger and I want to bask in it. I take a step back and walk over to the couch to retrieve my suit jacket. "I'll see myself out."
I fight the urge to toss my hair over my shoulder but with my back to him I don't bother hiding my smirk as I exit the room.
I won this fight but an uneasy feeling in my gut tells me the war isn't over yet, it's only just begun.
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Hey babe's, happy Friday!
So it isn't Viola's house, it was Raf's.
There definitely was tension between Rafael senior and Leo. Poor guy just wanted to be a surgeon.
There will be a discussion of Rafael juniors death in a future chapter
The puzzle pieces are slowly putting themselves together, I cannot wait to completely destroy it all 😈
Thoughts & theories?
Next update is Tuesday!
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Love youu🖤🖤
— Katy