Page 55 of He Should Be Mine

Chapter fifteen

Dario

“What’s so terrible about breaking spaghetti?” Molly asks with fake innocence. “Why do Italians hate it so much?”

I look up from browning the mince. Molly is on the other side of the breakfast bar. I can only see his sleeveless tee shirt that he has tied up in a knot to show off his belly. I can’t see the ridiculously short skirt or the thigh-high socks. Thank heavens. Those things are killing me.

Almost as much as the lingering bruises on his pale skin that Molly isn’t bothering to try to hide. Riccardo didn’t hurt him the night Molly and I sat on the sofa and watched the sunrise. I was foolish enough to hope that it meant Riccardo was finished with marking Molly’s flesh. It was a one off. Not a new obsession.

But the next night proved how wrong I was.

He has never been nice to Molly, but now the gloves are off. Riccardo is unleashing his dark side, and I’m running out of time.

Molly waves a handful of uncooked spaghetti in the air. Brandishing it like a weapon.

“It’s so much easier to snap it in half so it all fits into the pot,” he says with a mischievous gleam in his blue eyes.

My eyes narrow. “Don’t you dare.”

Molly’s grin is enormous as he snaps the spaghetti in half. Little bits of dry pasta ping everywhere. Some hit me in the chest.

It was our last packet.

I growl and step towards him. He shrieks out a laugh and flings a handful of spaghetti at me. It rains down my body. I scoop up a handful of the shards that have landed on the counter. He ducks and the spaghetti lands mostly in his hair.

“Not the hair!” he yells, but he is laughing.

“Should have thought of that before you waged war,” I say, advancing on him.

Molly shrieks again and swerves past me, into the kitchen. He scrambles backward, fumbling blindly behind him for more ammunition. He finds a bag of dried penne and lets out a triumphant sound.

“Weapons secured!”

“Don’t you dare…”

Too late. The bag bursts open in his hands, and penne skitters across the counter like hail. A few clatter to the floor, one bounces off my shoulder.

“Now you’ve done it,” I say grimly.

I reach for the flour jar.

“No!” he gasps. “Not the… Dario, you wouldn’t!”

I unscrew the lid with great ceremony. My heart is fluttering. This is like being a child again and the joy of it tastes bittersweet.

“Duck and cover!” Molly dives down just as I fling a small puff of flour into the air. It drifts gently like snow,coating the breakfast bar and dusting the air with a fine white cloud.

Molly pops up with two wooden spoons, brandishing them like swords. “You’ve left me no choice. I’m giving no mercy.”

He charges. I dodge, but he manages to tap me twice on the chest, light but triumphant. “Victory!”

“I was letting you win,” I tell him, grabbing a tea towel and flicking it toward him like a whip. It smacks his hip with a satisfying snap. An electrifying one. I think I feel it every bit as much as he does.

He yelps, spinning away, half-laughing, half-scandalized. “Assault! You’re going to jail!”

“Gladly.”

We’re both breathless now, the kitchen a disaster of scattered pasta, airborne flour, and complete chaos. Molly’s hair is a mess of pasta pieces and flour dust, his cheeks pink with laughter.