Authors: Bethany-Kris
Paulie nodded. “I’ve met Cecelia. She’s a sweet person. Fuck, nothing like Kate, anyway.”
“Did she threaten to shoot you, too?”
“Nope. You’re just the lucky bastard tonight, I guess.”
Antony grinned. “I’m going to marry that girl, Paulie. Watch me.”
Paulie laughed darkly. “You gotta get through Vinnie first.”
True.
He also had his own family to deal with.
How would his grandfather feel about him going after a boss’s daughter?
Shit.
“Marcello!”
Antony turned sharply on his heel at the barking tone of his boss. Vinnie stood with his fists clenched at his sides and a scowl marring his features dark.
“Yeah, Boss?” Antony asked, ignoring the curious stares of the guests who were preparing to leave like he was.
“A word, Marcello?”
Paulie sucked in air through his teeth, hiding his frown by looking away. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Yeah, it never was. But it didn’t matter.
Antony nodded. “Sure, Boss.”
Vinnie led Antony back through the house until they came to the darkened, quiet kitchen. The traveling voices of the remaining guests barely filtered in to their spot as Vinnie rounded on Antony.
“My daughter said you accosted her earlier in private.”
Antony choked on his fucking air. “What?”
“You heard me. She said you cornered her in an upstairs hallway and acted like a goddamn fool. Where in the hell do you get off—”
“I did
what
?” Antony interrupted.
That probably wasn’t the best move, either.
Vinnie all but growled under his breath, taking a threatening step toward Antony. “Between us, Tony, you know I’m the one who makes all the calls. I thought it’d be nice for you to see my home, meet my family now that you’re a part of it. Your grandfather assured me you knew how to act like a proper man, but apparently he lied, too. If I hear about you bothering Kate again—”
“Kate,” Antony said faintly.
What had she told her father about him?
Christ, she really was a lying little bitch.
Good
God
.
Did she not realize spreading nonsense like that could get a man killed? Did she not even care?
“Yes, my daught—”
“
Kate
?” Antony asked, still disbelieving.
Cecelia, he would understand, even if that had been innocent and a mistake. Kate, not so much.
“Interrupt me one more time and—”
“Daddy, I was right there when Kate passed by Antony in the hallway. He didn’t say a thing to her. He asked me where a bathroom was, I told him, and then he came right back downstairs to join the guests.”
Cecelia’s quiet voice seemed to take away all the fight Vinnie had. The boss turned to face his oldest daughter who stood in the kitchen entryway.
“Cecelia,” Vinnie said, a warning coloring his tone. “Now, Kate told me what happened.”
“Kate lied like she always does. I was right there, Daddy. And I followed him back downstairs after he used the bathroom to make sure he didn’t get lost again. Kate was with me in my bedroom for most of the night before she went down to join the party so he couldn’t have run into her before that, either.”
Vinnie didn’t look away from Cecelia as he said, “My apologies, Marcello.”
“No need, Boss. I get it.”
“Sure, sure.”
Cecelia glanced over Vinnie’s shoulder at Antony. “I’d like for Antony to take me out on a date.”
Vinnie’s head cocked to the side. “I beg your pardon,
principessa
?”
“Antony, I want to go on a date with him. He meets every single one of your standards for someone I’m allowed to see, doesn’t he,
Papà
?”
Standards?
“He does,” Vinnie confirmed gruffly. “If you’re going to insist on it, you’ll have an enforcer with you as a chaperone.”
“I’m twenty-one-years-old.”
“And you still live under my roof, Cecelia. Follow my rules or don’t. We both know what will happen if you don’t.”
“Fine, whatever. Tuesday for dinner, then?” Cecelia asked Antony like her father wasn’t even in the kitchen.
Antony was stunned. He felt as if someone had just picked him up and dropped him into the Twilight Zone. How could one of Vinnie’s daughters be like she was while the other was the complete opposite? Besides that, how did Cecelia manage to say a few short sentences to her father and not only get Antony off the hook for Kate’s lies, plus got her father to agree to a date?
No, Antony didn’t know what the fuck to do. His mouth worked, though.
“Tuesday for dinner,
bella
.”
Antony’s boss glanced over his shoulder.
Yeah … calling her beautiful in front of her father probably wasn’t the best idea if the expression on Vinnie’s face was any indication.
• • •
Antony had quickly learned in a short couple of hours that Cecelia Catrolli was a ballbreaker with a sinful smile, a ruthless attitude when she wanted something, and an angel’s face any other time.
He’d picked her up around four for dinner, received a very terse hello from his boss in the process, although Cecelia acted like Vinnie didn’t say a thing, and then proceeded to take her out.
“I like this restaurant,” Cecelia said, glancing around. “It’s quiet and cozy.”
“Thank you.”
Cecelia winked. “Well, you did pick it, I suppose.”
“That, and I own it.”
“Own it?”
“Not all my business is the bad kind, Cecelia.”
She regarded him for a moment like she was taking his words in. “What else do you do?”
“I have a hand in some businesses, I own a couple of other restaurants besides this one, and I never sleep in-between. I didn’t waste my family’s money as far as that goes. My great-grandfather didn’t work his ass off for nothing.”
“You’re only twenty-five, Antony.”
He shrugged. “It’s good to have goals, Cecelia.”
“It is.”
Someday, Antony wanted to own half of New York in one way or another. He didn’t bother to tell Cecelia of that particular aspiration.
“You shouldn’t have lied to your father for me,” Antony said.
Cecelia flicked off all the little cherries from the top of his cheesecake. “I didn’t lie. I might not have witnessed you two in the hall, but I would have heard something. I know what could have happened if my father believed Kate.”
Antony frowned. “She’s … something else.”
“A spoiled mafia princess with a daddy complex and too many other issues to name, you mean.”
“You said it,
Tesoro
, not me.”
Cecelia’s gaze flicked up to meet his, stunning him in one simple action. Her eyes always seemed to look straight into him, like she could see right through his quietness and aloof attitude.
“Treasure, huh?”
Antony smirked. “Fits, I think. You’re something precious, Cecelia.”
“Even after I threatened to shoot you?” she asked coyly.
“Especially because you threatened to shoot me.”
“You’re so strange.”
“No, I just like my women …” Antony trailed off, unsure of how to finish that sentence.
“How do you like your women, Antony?”
“Everybody calls me Tony, you know.”
“I like Antony.”
Well, he liked the way it sounded in her mouth.
Antony supposed she didn’t really know Tony, anyway. Not like everybody else did. He was the volatile one—a Capo with a take-no-bullshit prerogative and violence as his middle name. Cecelia didn’t need to see or know Tony at all.
“How do you like your women?” Cecelia asked again, softer the second time.
“You. I like them to be like you.” Cecelia’s mouth opened, but Antony beat her to the punch, adding, “And I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody like you,
Tesoro
.”
“Smooth talker.”
“I try,” Antony murmured. “And I don’t have a lot of women, Cecelia.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t ask.”
“You wanted to.”
He could see it written all over her face.
Cecelia shifted in the booth, watching him under thick lashes. “None at all?”
“Currently, no.”
“Never?” Cecelia pressed.
“I’m not a saint, if that’s what you’re asking, but I am a one-woman man.”
“Just one woman?”
“Just the one sitting beside me and you’re not really mine,
Tesoro
.”
Not yet, anyway.
He was working on that, though.
Cecelia’s hand found his thigh under the table, making Antony stiffen all over. “What if I wanted to be?”
“Be careful, Cecelia. Your guard is listening. And you don’t really get to make that choice.”
She seemed to pick up on his unspoken question.
“My father has rules,” Cecelia said.
“Standards was the word you used, actually.”
Cecelia snorted an indelicate sound before poking him in the chest. “And you meet all of them.”
“Should I even ask?”
“Italian, connected, a good family, status within the family, and he should come from old money. The man should have a solid reputation and be in good standing with
la famiglia
. Would you like me to continue?”
Anton laughed under his breath, sickened already. “There’s more?”
“There’s more,” Cecelia confirmed like they were talking about the weather. “As long as I follow the rules and pick someone he deems appropriate, I can date who I want.”
“And Kate?”
“What do you think?”
“She didn’t follow the rules,” Antony murmured.
“Something like that.” Cecelia leaned over close enough to Antony that he could smell the sweetness of her perfume and feel the heat of her body. “My nephew would be three, now.”
Antony froze. “What?”
Cecelia nodded. “Three, do the math.”
Antony did, quickly. That put the time right back to about the period when the arrangement between Vinnie’s family and John’s was made. “Would be?”
“She lost the baby at six months,” Cecelia said too low for the guard down the way to hear. “Before she got too big and before anyone could really start gossiping. Convenient, don’t you think?”
“The father?” Antony dared to ask.
Cecelia refused to look up from her plate. “She wouldn’t say. And that time gap before she gets married? Yeah, that’s not so Kate can finish school. It’s so she’ll keep her mouth shut about why he’s marrying her off in the first damn place.”
Antony didn’t know what to say, but something awful welled in his gut. “Cecelia—”
“So, I follow his rules, Antony. Because I don’t feel like being sold off to the highest bidding family with the most to gain. But I get to choose, okay. And right now, I’m choosing you.”
“You didn’t seem all too pleased with me the other night when I was in your bedroom,” Antony noted.
“I was embarrassed.”
“
Dio
, why?”
“I’m guessing you heard the conversation between Kate and I. That’s not embarrassing enough for you?”
No.
Antony shrugged. “She’s a bit vile, that’s all. You handled her well.”
Cecelia passed him a look he couldn’t decipher. All over again, his heart kick-started hard. “I meant the
topic
, Antony.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. It’s embarrassing.”
Antony chuckled. “Maybe from your point of view. For me, no, I appreciate that, actually. You have values and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Cecelia glanced away again. “I’m not frigid.”
“I know you’re not.”
“I like you a little bit,” Cecelia said.
“I’m good with that.”
Cecelia simpered him with a smile. “Yeah, I am, too.”
Antony soaked in the sight of her joy, pleased that he’d been the cause of it. While he’d messed around with girls on and off, he’d never been serious with someone and he never really wanted to be, either.
Something about Cecelia drew him in like a moth to the fucking flame.
“What did they do, forget the ‘H’ when they spelled your name on the birth certificate?” Cecelia asked, a teasing smile lighting up her pretty features.
Antony chuckled, holding out his fork full off cheesecake for her to take. He waited while she drew the sweet bite from the utensil, her lips wrapping around the fork in a way that had his darker urges rising. He quickly reminded himself of the enforcer two booths away, readjusted his position in the seat, and cleared his throat. Yeah, he needed to get as far away from those fucking thoughts as he possibly could.
And fast.
Cecelia was innocent. Antony needed to keep that forefront and center. He sure as hell wasn’t, but she was. Why she wanted anything to do with him, he wasn’t sure.
“No, they didn’t forget to add it in,” Antony finally replied.
Cecelia used the tip of her thumb to wipe away a bit of cream at the corner of her mouth. Antony’s gaze instantly zoned in on that innocent gesture and she didn’t miss it. Cecelia’s smile turned into a knowing grin.