Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
“So, is this how it’s going to be?” Daniel murmurs to me as he watches Natalia and Alessi take two seats at another small table behind us. “Just…a stalemate?”
“If it is,” I say, sighing and turning back to my plate, “then you’d better eat up. We’re going to need all of our strength.”
Daniel looks down at his food and I swear I see him gag a little bit I can’t hold back my laughter. I do notice, though, that Natalia turns around to look at me when she hears it disgruntled, I think, to see me having a happy morning with my fiancé when she basically told us the engagement was off last night.
I act like I don’t see her, though, pretending I’m above it.
“It’s going to be weird, Fay,” Daniel says, shaking his head, so serious that I meet his eyes.
“We’ll get through it,” I say firmly, holding his gaze and nodding to him. “We just need a plan.”
“Well, I’ve got my summer off,” Daniel says, giving me a little grin. “Let’s get to work.”
The days pass quickly now that I no longer have entertaining Natalia and Alessi tying me up, and they start to fall into a familiar pattern. Breakfast with Daniel, then mornings and early afternoons at the stable, burning off my anxiety and my energy. Late afternoons are spent in my bedroom with Daniel as we pour over Kent’s strategy books and talk about our next moves.
And nights?
Well. Nights are where my real education happens.
Other things have changed in the house as well. For one, I finally got a lock on my door.
“Really?” I breathed as Kent came up about two weeks ago with the handyman to have it installed. “I get privacy?”
Kent just glared at me a little. “When have you lacked for privacy, Fay?” he asked. But I just rolled my eyes at him and gestured to both the door and the wardrobe, neither of which had a lock and both of which were available to him twenty-four hours a day. But he just smirked and ignored me.
“This isn’t the reward you think it is,” he informed me, coming over to where Daniel and I were sitting on the bed, books and a chess board spread out between us. “It’s wait,” he says, blinking and refocusing on our study materials. “What are you two doing?”
“We’re studying, Dad,” Daniel said with a little shrug.
“But the semester is over for summer,” Kent reminded him, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Autodidacticism is a legitimate form of education, Kent,” I said loftily, bouncing down onto my bed and leaning back against the pillows, grinning at him. He flashed me a little glare of annoyance before leaning forward and looking at our collected books. Then, he gave a surprised blink as he realized that they were his books.
He paused for a moment, considering, but then he just straightened. “Put these back where you found them, when you’re finished,” he said. And then he turned to glare at me. “Exactly where you found them.”
I gave him a sarcastic little salute and rolled my eyes; his glare just intensified. But I smiled, knowing that he’d make me pay for it later. And I very much looked forward to that.
“So,” Daniel said, nodding towards the handyman, who was finishing up. “What’s up with the lock?”
“You’re going to start sleeping in here,” Kent informed him, nodding towards my bed. Daniel and my mouths dropped open.
“Why?” Daniel asked, a little appalled at the idea.
“Because you’re engaged,” Kent growled, glaring at him. “I bought more time with the Bianci’s set up meetings with Alden so that he can convince the Italians that he’s a bigger player than he honestly is and that we don’t need to take him out. But in the meantime, you two need to start convincing everyone that you’re in love.”
“Oh,” I said, my eyebrows going up. And then I bit my lip, looking down at my hands in disappointment, thinking that this meant…
“Nothing else is changing, Fay,” Kent informed me, interrupting my thoughts, and I snapped my gaze back up to Kent to see a small smile on his face. He just nods towards Daniel. “You’ll just have to let him in on the secret.”
And then, with a little nod, he left the room.
Daniel turned to me, confused. “What secret?” he asked, a little betrayed.
And then, as the handyman finished and closed the door behind him as he left, I took Daniel’s hand and asked a very simple question. “Did you ever read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe?”
And so, ever since then, Daniel comes into my room every night and, after giving me a chaste little kiss on the cheek, he rolls his eyes and holds the wardrobe door open for me so that I can scurry down the secret passage to his dad’s room. And then every morning, when I climb back out, I wake Daniel up with another little chaste kiss and a cup of coffee that I bring him from his dad’s espresso bar.
“You know this is weird, Fay,” Daniel says to me today, after about two weeks of this pattern. “Super weird that you go fuck my dad every night and bring me coffee in the morning after I sleep alone in your bed.”
“Don’t be jealous,” I scold, plopping down on the bed with my own little cup, “just because Jerome doesn’t have his own secret passage.”
Daniel grumbles discontentedly and I grin, knowing that I’ve hit the nail at least a little bit on the head there. Daniel, I know, misses his sneaky midnight visits from Jerome.
“They can’t stay forever,” I say quietly, reaching out a hand to rest comfortingly on Daniel’s knee. “Natalia and Alessi have to go back to Italy at some point.”
“Not until this is finished,” he sighs, looking down into his cup. “And I can’t believe it’s still stretching on.”
“I know,” I murmur, but at that moment a knock comes at the door and I move towards it to receive our clothes delivery for the day. Kent has started sending Daniel’s clothes as well, since he has less access to the walk-in closet in his room, and Kent wants Natalia and Alessi to see Daniel and I walk out of my room every morning holding hands and appearing as if we’ve spent every moment of the night together.
Daniel dresses more quickly than me, as he does every day his clothes are easier to pull on than riding pants and tight boots and then he sits and talks quietly with me as I do my hair and makeup. Then, when I’m ready, he takes me by the hand and unlocks the door and we step out into the hallway just as Alessi is passing my door.
“Ah,” Alessi says, stopping to smile at both of us. “The young lovers emerge.”
“Morning, Alessi,” I say cheerfully, stepping close to Daniel and resting my head against his shoulder. I’m more aware of Alessi now more aware that even though he’s nicer to me than Natalia is, that he’s still very much on her side. But still, I have no real reason to be nasty to him not now. Not yet.
“Beautiful Fay,” Alessi says, stepping forward to give me a kiss on the cheek before we all start down the stairs together. “And how did the two of you sleep?”
Daniel gives a soft little laugh, meant to suggest to Alessi that we didn’t, which makes Alessi smile. “We slept very well, Alessi,” Daniel adds as we pass through the kitchen door. “We hope you did as well.”
Alessi tells us about his evening as we all move towards the coffee stand, but I find myself distracted, as I am most mornings when Natalia makes it to breakfast before we do. Because when she does, she’s always in the galley at Kent’s side, her arm wrapped tight around his.
I do my best to glance away from them and not narrow my eyes, because honestly I shouldn’t. The Fay that I’m playing the one who is Daniel’s fiancé has no real reason to object to Natalia and Kent getting together, besides the relatively minor objection of a bossy mother-in-law.
But the real Fay, the one who climbs into Kent’s bed every night?
I want to rip her face off every time she drags a finger down his chest, looking up into his face and laughing her stupid little tinkling laugh.
But I clench my jaw and look away from Natalia clinging to Kent’s arm, knowing that we’ve made a decision about how to play this. And that I’ve got to stick to it.
“Let her,” Kent said to me a few weeks ago as we laid tangled in the sheets of his dark room. “Let her think that I’m considering her as my wife, Fay.”
“Are you?” I asked, hoping that my voice didn’t betray my terror at the idea. That I could lose him to that horrible woman
“No,” he had insisted, taking my chin in his broad hand and making me look at him. “No, Fay, I don’t want her. But…until this settles, until we come up with a solution that makes the business secure without the Bianci’s insisting on a second marriage pact to solidify it? Let her burn herself out spinning her wheels. Let her think she’s getting somewhere with me. Let her try.”
I tore my chin from his hand, then, turning my face away and scowling down at the bed. “But what if she succeeds?” I grumbled, a little alarmed at the level of jealousy I’m feeling at the idea of it. “What if she wiles you away with her stupid Italian charms ”
Kent just laughed and slid his hand from my shoulder all the way down my back to land on my ass, which he gripped tight in his palm. “How could she do that,” he murmured, dipping his head to lick a long stroke between my breasts, “when I’ve got you here, hogging my bed ”
“What!” I shrieked, slapping at his back and laughing. “I do not hog the bed ”