Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) (19 page)

“This is my home away from home,” he said.  “I heard it was a blood moon tonight and I wanted to share it with you.”

“You know, this boat is a real pussy magnet,” Jessica said later that evening, instantly realizing the words she’d just said were way too
Jessica Borgia. 
She could almost see Chet shaking his head.

“I didn’t bring you here for pussy,” he said, eyebrows leaping.  “Although, that would be wonderful.”

She took in his smirking lips, and rolled her eyes. “So why did you bring me here?”

Leo frowned.  “I wanted you to see this moon.  I wanted to feel you in my arms again.  To kiss you again.  I want to know everything there is to know about you.”  He shrugged.  “I can keep going…”

“Everything about me?” Jessica swallowed, for the first time accepting what a mistake it was to come here.

“Everything,” Leo said.

She couldn’t conquer her smile, and she played her toes against his where they peeked out from the heavy outdoor blanket draped across their legs.  He’d given her one of his plush cashmere sweaters so they could lie out on the deck of the yacht and look up at the moon.  The pool chair they shared was deeply cushioned, and the size of a queen bed.  After adding throw pillows and a blanket, Leo had made it so comfortable out there Jessica was on the verge of falling asleep.  They’d even been forced to kick the blanket off their bodies, letting it bunch and settle around their calves as their body heat permeated and assumed the job of keeping them nice and toasty.

They spent the next few hours curled up, deep in conversation, emptying champagne bottles like the liquor was going to rot.  Two bottles later, and Jessica knew she’d given Leo too much of herself.  By the time she changed the subject, she’d already spilled her best childhood stories, and all her hopes and dreams.  She could already hear the grief Chet was going to give her once she got home.  As much as she hated it, she still had a job to do.

She watched the red moon, hardly able to croak her next words.  “Tell me more about your brothers.”

“What do you want to know?”

She wondered if she should go straight for the kill, or ease her way in.

Then, it hit her.

He’d brought her to this beautiful yacht, a red moon was shining down, sultry music was wafting out of the stereo system, and he’d yet to make a single pass at her.  She no longer had to worry about asking too many questions, or jumping in straight for the kill.  He would give her a kidney if she asked.  Their boundaries were obliterated.

“Val.”  Her heart hurt the moment she breathed the name.  She recognized the feeling, and every second she spent looking at him, it deepened.  “Tell me more about Val.”

Leo ran the beds of his fingers along her arm.  A buzz had come to fruition for both of them, so his honesty spilled out in a heartbeat.

“I love him sometimes.  I hate him sometimes.”

The wire strapped to her chest itched the way it always did when Leo let new information slip.  “Of course you love him,” she whispered.  “And of course you hate him.  Sounds like a sibling right of passage to me.”

“When we were kids, I was outrageously jealous.  He was always better.  Faster.  Stronger.  Smarter.  Always.  We both knew it.  Even at home.  Him and Pop always had a deeper connection.  I lost count of how many nights I’d walk in on the two of them having these conversations… You know,
deep
conversations, the kind that make you forget that there’s still a world spinning around you?  They’d always be immersed in those kind of conversations, and they would stop talking the moment I walked in.”

Jessica cuddled her head deeper into his chest, looking off into the water and taking a chunk of his sweater in a fist.  Their legs tangled together.  His voice hummed through his chest and tickled her cheek.

“It got to the point that I actually started testing it,” he said.  “And it kept happening, time and time again.  Silence when I walked in, and the conversation would pick up the moment I walked out.  They have a connection, as father and son that I never had with Pop.  I try to connect, but… He just isn’t as into me as he is Val.  I guess he doesn’t love me as much.”

Jessica’s head shot up, and she cradled her arms on his chest as she met his gaze.  The pain she saw there almost sent the truth spilling from her lips.  She almost told him Val and Tony only had a connection because of a terrible thing they’d been involved in
together
.  A terrible thing that would never taint Leo the way it had tainted them.

“Maybe he believed I was as inadequate as I always felt,” he said.

“Oh, Leo…” Jessica breathed.  “You are beating the absolute shit out of yourself right now.  You can’t do this to yourself.  You will go
insane.
”

“One time,” Leo smiled, as if he hadn’t even heard her, “in high school, Pop called the house and said he was picking up some KFC.  It was just me and Val in the house that day, and he asked Val if I wanted anything.  I was asleep in my room. Val didn’t bother asking me, even though he knew I hadn’t eaten all day, and he told Pop I didn’t want anything.  So Pop came home with just enough food for him and Val.  I woke up starving, came downstairs, saw them throwing down, and hit the fucking ceiling.  I was
starving
, Val knew it, and to this day I think he did it on purpose.  I think he knows… he’s always known… how I felt, and I think he wanted me to feel it.  To remind me of my place.  Where I stood.”  Leo’s eyes filled.  “It’s stupid.  So little, so insignificant, so
stupid,
but I actually cried over that shit, because it started fucking with a part of me I’d never really addressed.  The part of me that hated Val for being… so much better.”

“I get it.  And it’s not stupid,” she said.  The story he’d just told her wasn’t about chicken.  It was about love.  Why hadn’t Tony brought home enough food for
both
brothers, just in case Leo woke up hungry?  Just to drive the point home that he loved all of his sons the same. It left Jessica wondering how many other ways Tony had slighted Leo, perhaps unknowingly.

“I stay telling you things.”  He looked down from the moon, smiling at her.  “I swear to God, I tell you things I’ve never told anybody.”

“You don’t tell me anything.”

“I done told you some things.”  He beamed.

Jessica bit her lip when her smile stretched on for too long.  “So you might as well keep telling me, then.  Tell me all of it.”

“Don’t get me wrong.”  He lifted a shoulder.  “I know Pop loves me, and I love him more than myself.  It’s just little things like that.  And then Novsky…” He scoffed.  “Val made a few keyboard swipes at Cornell, and Novsky blew up.  Of course it did.  And that was it.  He’ll always, always, always…”

Jessica frowned, waiting for him to finish.

“Be faster.  Stronger.  Smarter.”  Leo breathed in.  “Better.”

Jessica opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.  Finally, she managed.  “Leo…”

Leo licked his lips, fighting back the pain that was taking over his eyes.

“You have no idea—” Jessica’s voice broke, and she dropped her head, trying to find control.  When she looked back up, she clawed her nails into his sweater.  “How wrong you are.”

Leo’s eyes left hers.

She scooted closer, trying to reclaim them.  “I think you should tell Val how you feel, and then you’ll see.  You’ll see how wrong you are.”

“I would never breathe a word of what I just said to him.” Leo’s eyes hit hers.  “And don’t you do it, either.”

“I would never do that.  I just think it would help if you told him how you feel.  You might be surprised.”

“Let’s change the subject.”

Jessica wasn’t used to Leo withdrawing.  That was
her
forte.  It threw her into a long moment of silence.

“Okay,” she said, stacking her palms on his chest and pushing her chin into them.  His deep breathing made her head rise and fall.  “Why didn’t you want me to see your apartment today?”

“What?”

“When you called me and asked me to meet you, I wanted to meet at your apartment, but you said no.”

“Why have I never seen your house in Westchester?” Leo countered.

It was a fair question.  One that ended her curious line of thought.  “Tell me more about your family.  Your dad,” she whispered.  “Taking guardianship over Zoey ten years ago.  He’s a good man for doing that.  Pure of heart.”

When she saw nothing but love spreading in his eyes at the mention of his father, it solidified that he really had
no idea
who his family was.  What they’d done.  What they were capable of.  Even after everything he’d shared with her about feeling cast aside by him, it was clear Leo had nothing but blind love in the deepest parts of him when it came to Tony.

He let his fingertips travel to her hipbone, trickling over the loops of her jeans.  “Pop always says Marcus would have done the same for any of us.”

“Zoey’s dad?”

“Yeah.  Him and Pop were both orphans, grew up in the same foster home.  Marcus’s real family was always in shambles, they couldn’t care for him.  Pop never knew his real family. They swore to each other to never let their own kids know the feeling of having no place to call home.”

“What about Zoey’s mother?” Jessica asked.

“Orphan.”

“Wow.”  She moved her eyes back to the sky.

He stared with her.  “Sometimes I get the feeling Zoey thinks she deserves this.  Like this was her destiny, and she’s just some pawn in an unstoppable family legacy.  I think that’s why she was so adamant about not having kids before Val knocked her up.  She’s scared to bring another child into the world that might end up alone, like she did.  Like her folks did.  If only she knew… having both parents in your life doesn’t mean you aren’t alone.”

Jessica’s eyes danced from one winking star to the next.  “You feel alone?”

“Sometimes.”

“Me too.”

“Then I met you.”

A smile spread on her lips.  “Me too.”

“Why did you choose me?”

Her eyes snapped back to his.  “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that, which makes me all the more curious.”

What could she say?  That she’d chosen him to get close to his brother?
Confirming that everything was about Val, and nothing was about Leo?  Her heart was
all about
Leo, regardless of how hard she fought it, so she told him her second truth.  The truth that was slowly driving her to the brink of madness.

She struggled to speak, and when she finally managed, every word was hoarse, broken, fighting to stay inside, hidden away in the parts of her that were growing darker by the second.  “Leo, I chose you because you’re open.  You’re caring.  You’re hilarious, and sharp as hell.  You never cease to surprise me when you sideswipe me with some insane comeback or anecdote.”  She cradled her chin in her hand and reached out, running it along the dip in his V-neck sweater.  “You make me feel really safe.  Like nothing bad could ever happen as long as you’re close enough.”  With every word that spilled out of her mouth, she wished she could take them all back, because she meant them all way too much.  Her finger trailed down to his forearm, pushing up his sweater so she could tap her finger against the flame on his wrist.  “What’s this one for?”

He chuckled.  “My eighteenth birthday.  An hour after midnight.  I was desperate for my second tat.  Any tat.  A flame was the fastest and most logical choice.”

She moved up, pushing the sweater to his elbow, hearing him inhale as she swept her fingers along the Buddha on his forearm.

“This one?”

His eyes searched hers.  “Look closer.”

She leaned in, noticing that the tattoo was comprised of detailed calligraphy in the
shape
of a Buddha.

“Every morning we are born again,” she read, brushing her finger across each word.  “And what we do today is what matters most.”

His eyes never left her as she read the passage.

She pulled her hand away from his arm the moment she finished and pushed away when her lungs threatened to close up, taken by the emotion.  She turned back to the water, hiding her eyes.

He sat up when she retreated.  “Where you going?” he demanded, taking her arm and tugging her back.

She plopped down on her back next to him, bouncing on the cushion.

He sat up and cradled his arm on either side of her body, trapping her under him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she answered, eyes falling to his lips.  The truth was, that quote had hit too close to home. When he found out the truth about her, what she did
today
would not be what mattered most to him.  What she’d done
yesterday
would define her in his mind for life.  He would file her into a place that he only visited with anger and hatred in his heart.

He moved on top of her, and she breathed deep under his glorious weight.  It had been a long time since a man had laid every inch of his body on her.  Leo already knew how to make her heart stop with one hit of his intense eyes, so feeling him on top of her, limbs searing together, she was sure she might stop breathing and never inhale again.  She might die right there underneath him.