“True,” Thomas agreed. “They’d use Hailey to get to us.”
“So, even if we wanted this woman as our wife, there is no way to have that normal Italian family where we come home at the end of the day to homemade pasta and family laughter like when we were kids. It’s just not the same anymore.” I playfully shoved Thomas in the arm. “And we can’t exactly both marry her. What you and I have done is far from normal. Mama’s rolling over in her grave right now.”
Thomas chuckled. “And Pops would be lecturing us about family values and telling us to keep our cocks in our pants.”
“He’d be proud of us, though. We built the business even stronger than he did and Grandpa did before him. We’ve honored his memory,” I said with a smile. It was something I took pride in.
Why were we in the mafia? Because it was in our blood. It was all we ever knew. Generation after generation, but Thomas and I had made the operations more streamlined and profitable. We were CEOs of an empire far greater than many enterprises. True, our hands weren’t clean. We broke laws, but we followed our laws. There was an underground government that we abided by. I never once felt shame, and never would. I was who I was.
“They both would be proud,” Thomas agreed. “Although Mama would want us each having our own wife and own children.”
“Yeah, well… who needs that right now?”
“No doubt. That woman upstairs is keeping our hands full as it is,” Thomas said with a smirk.
“Hailey may think she knows what she wants. But she has no idea.”
“We need to stick to the plan,” Thomas said as his eyes never left Hailey.
“I’ll work on Florence,” I said, liking the fact that I now had something to focus on other than Hailey and her idea of an impossibility.
“Fine. But let me ask you something first. Be honest,” Thomas said in a deep voice.
I didn’t say anything but sat down next to him.
“Do you have feelings for Hailey?” Thomas asked, taking his eyes away from the screen and staring at me directly.
“Do you?”
Thomas looked back at the television, leaned back in his chair, and sighed. “Yeah.” He ran his hands through his hair again. “Fuck.”
I glanced at the screen but fought the urge to study every single curve of Hailey’s body, which I often did. “I do too.”
Thomas studied me and then said, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
“It makes things messy. Complicated. And if she’s carrying our baby, I think our feelings are only going to grow more for her.”
“Florence,” Thomas said. “Distance. We need it. She needs it.”
“It’s the only way. We need to focus. Stay on course.”
We both sat back and continued to watch Hailey sleep peacefully as our minds told our hearts lies.
Stay on course.
Stay on course.
Chapter Fourteen
Hailey
I sat and watched Stefano eat. Waiting for him to look up at me. Hoping that maybe just once he would acknowledge my presence in any way except to punish me. Was it possible for Stefano to feel anything toward me? Could he ever be anything but an authoritative disciplinarian? Did I not have any hold of his heart at all?
Thomas had to run into the city to take care of a situation, and it had left me and Stefano alone. I doubted that Thomas had the chance to speak with Stefano yet, so I decided that I needed to approach him with my wants just as I had with Thomas.
Thomas was correct in assuming I may be pregnant. I hadn’t gotten my period, and though I didn’t know for sure, there was a part of me that knew I could very well be pregnant. My time in the manor was limited. Once they knew I was pregnant, this wicked game of keeping the princess locked away in the tower would be over. Reality would set in.
Though I knew there was a connection between Stefano and me, I knew he would be a harder sell. He had punished me several times, sometimes severely and other times with a lighter hand. He tolerated very little and had zero patience. Some of the times were deserved for acting out due to boredom or raising hell because I felt like the walls of the manor were often closing in on me. But there were times that he would pull the belt from his pants and take it to me simply because he could.
I wondered if he knew how much I liked it. I did. His dominance. His power. The bite of the leather against my flesh. The act of being punished nude before him. I loved it all. Craved it even. Maybe it was my soul craving the punishment for never being happier when I should be miserable. Or maybe it was simply the fuel I required to light the fire within. Regardless of why, I waited in anticipation for the next strike of his hand.