Page 10 of Veiled Amor

“Don’t worry, it won’t.”

He didn’t know her father as she did.

He left her then, coming back in five minutes with a plate ladened with finger foods.

Sometimes a girl didn’t know what she’d been missing until she’d married into an entire family, and she became theirs. She’d loved and mourned their loss so hard her heart was going to break open.

“I know what he did was unforgivable, Gi. He went too far to prove a point, to make Santiago step into line.”

“My brother was in over his fucking head, and he should have come to me.”

Yeah, it was what she’d told him too, but Santiago had too much pride to confide in his older brother how he’d crossed Nicholas. She hadn’t known eating dinner at home was her father’s way of keeping her out of the way while his men crept into the Mercado house to kill everyone. Staying silent made her as guilty. “I should have done something, should have told you myself what was happening. He tried to make you proud.”

“There was no need for any of it, Lucia. He had a wife to take care of, not trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with a Kingpin. Santiago was always a fool, and now he’s gone, so I can’t kill him for his stupidity.” She heard Giancarlo’s anger and pain.

“Please, think about what you’re going to do. My father won’t take a move on him lying down. You have a good life with the Renegade Souls MC, don’t you? Why ruin that by getting revenge?”

What happened when you watched a person as closely as Lucia had always watched Giancarlo was she knew he weighed his words as his face darkened.

Hands in his slacks pockets, he seemed taller somehow as he looked on with his dark-magic eyes framed by lashes that were too long for a man. Every woman in the neighborhood had always played hard games to win Giancarlo. His bad-boy appeal was dazzling to many. Women loved him because he was irresistible as much as he was caring.

That man disappeared days ago. Leaving behind someone she didn’t recognize.

“You don’t know how this works, Lucia. You’re still a child. Your father took from me. If you think I can roll over and do nothing, then you don’t know me.” The bitter tone made her shiver under his scrutiny, “eat the food and rest,” he turned and left her alone.

She hadn’t cried since that first night when the house swarmed with emergency services and Giancarlo was standing in the yard like a broken man. But as she listened to the click of the summerhouse door, she curled her knees up to her chest, and she cried. She cried until she had nothing left inside.

It was undecided who she was crying for.

Losing all the Mercado’s.

The certainty of her father forcing her to return under his roof.

Or the possibility that Giancarlo would lose his life too if he tried for payback.

Intent on playing her part, if only for a few hours more, she cleaned her face and then laid on the couch for a minute.

She knew no more until a hand was shaking her awake.

Lucia would never have a reason for what she did next because when her eyes flickered open to see enigmatic eyes looking down at her, her arms lifted of their own accord. Looping around Giancarlo’s shoulders, she lifted her head from the couch cushion, murmuring his name, “Giancarlo.”

Through her sleep-heavy brain, she watched a darkness cast through his eyes.

“Everyone has finally left. Time to get you to bed.”

A physical shudder went through her at the way he said it. Probably not meant in the way she translated it. He’d never looked at her inappropriately, not like some of Santiago’s friends. She was a petite blonde with tits and hips. She got stares and come-ons all the time, but never from this man.

A thumb tracked over her cheek, and that’s when she realized where her arms were. She gasped and dropped them, “I-I’m sorry, I was asleep.”Weak excuse, Luce.

“You’ve been crying.” He growled like he was angry at her tears.

It was as though her tear ducts answered only to him now when a lone tear leaked from the corner of her eye, and he brushed it away, looking like thunder. “Don’t,” he warned. Did he think she could control her body? If only. And then, “goddamn it.” He swore again in Spanish, and then his black head descended, blocking out the light from the chandelier above.

He swallowed her gasp with his two hard lips crushed to hers.

Lucia’s kiss scorecard wasn’t vast by any stretch of the imagination, not with her father guarding her every minute, butshe knew sinful when she tasted it in her mouth.

It was her last coherent thought as she opened without hesitation and kissed him back with a need she didn’t know lived inside her.