Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
“Not if it means letting you off the hook for treating me like I’m just the girl you’re fucking, Kent,” I say slowly, cruelly, in response. “And not something more. Which we both know I am.”
It’s a gamble, those words. Because he’s never said more has never told me, explicitly, that he feels anything more for me than just the mistress he signed up for with that stupid contract.
But I know. I know it in my bones.
And right now? He’s either going to admit it, or he’s going to lose me. Because I can’t do it anymore not when I have it on good authority that someone is coming to kill us all sometime this week. The time for playing coy is over. He either trusts me or he doesn’t. We’re either in this together?
Or I’m leaving.
I’m not getting killed for someone who doesn’t trust me and can’t even admit he cares about me.
And as I glare up at him, and he glares back, I know that Kent understands all of it.
We stay in that deadlock for a long time, staring at each other, each waiting for the other to break. But neither does.
Until, to my surprise, Kent shifts his position and looks down at his feet, stepping his right foot on the heel of his left shoe and starting to step out of it.
“What?” I ask, confused, realizing that Kent’s…taking off his shoes? “What are you doing?”
“I’m coming to bed, Fay,” he snaps, looking up at me and renewing his little glare.
“What?” I ask again, still baffled as he shrugs off his suit jacket and hangs it neatly up on a spare hanger in the wardrobe.
But he doesn’t answer me this time, just sighs as he peels back the covers on the other side of the bed Daniel’s side of the bed, technically and sits down on the mattress, leaning back against the pile of floral pillows against my headboard.
“Turn off the light,” he says, nodding to my reading light.
But I hesitate, glaring at him a little and grabbing a pillow that I plant staunchly between us like a little wall. Kent glances down at it.
“What’s that for?” he asks.
“So you can’t seduce me,” I grumble, “into being nice to you after you’ve been so mean to me ”
“Is that all it will take to get you to stop being mad at me?” Kent asks, raising an eyebrow at me. “Just, sex?”
“Well, probably!” I answer too quickly, and then bite my lip as I see Kent’s mouth quirk up into the start of a smile. Unable to look at him, I bury my face in my hand as I mumble my reply. “You’re…hard to resist, Kent. And we both know you use sex to manipulate me.”
Kent laughs a dark little laugh then. “Manipulate might be too strong a word, Fay,” he murmurs softly. I feel him trace his fingers over my knee then and I angrily swat his hand away.
“No touching,” I murmur, frustrated. Because damn it, I’m trying so hard to hold onto my convictions but I’m so happy he’s here so pleased that he swallowed his own pride and made himself go all the way through the passage, to climb that stupid winding staircase made himself make the trek he usually makes me take every night to be by his side.
But still. It’s not an apology. It’s not a sigh of trust. I steel myself and try to be newly determined to stay strong. Because my self-worth is worth more than what he’s offering. Especially now that I know just how much more I want.
“The light, Fay,” Kent says and I pull my hand away from my face to frown at him a little, confused.
“Why?”
“Because,” he says, giving me a little shrug. “If I’m going to confess all of my darkest secrets to you, it feels…more appropriate to do it with the lights off.”
I stare too long at Kent in surprise and he rolls his eyes at me before shifting to reach over me towards the light, his body brushing against mine.
“Hey!” I snap, smacking at him and making him flinch back.
“What?” he asks, glaring at me again.
“No touching!” I say, pushing him back to the other side of the bed that now feels much too small. “I can get the light!”
“Well, you weren’t getting it, Fay,” Kent points out, but I flap my hand at him dismissively and turn to flick off the light. The room instantly plunges into an inky blue darkness and when I turn back to Kent I can only see his shadowy outlines on my bed.
“Better?” I ask.
“Yes,” he sighs, starting to lay down.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting comfortable, Fay,” he replies, and then I see his head turn towards me as he holds open an arm, inviting me to come closer.
“No. Touching.” I say through my teeth.
Kent sighs in exasperation in response. “Damn it, Fay,” he says, shaking his head and covering his face with his hands. “I have given in to everything you’ve wanted tonight. You didn’t want to come downstairs? I came up here. You wanted to hear the truth? I’m here to lay it out for you. Now would you please, please just let me fucking hold you while I talk, instead of glaring at me like an angry cat?”
A little angry about being put in my place like that, I scowl and rip away the pillow between us, tossing it onto the floor and angrily tucking myself in against Kent’s side, my cute flannel pajamas pressed up against the clean white starch of his dress shirt.
“Touching privileges will be revoked,” I murmur, “if you are a dick to me.”
“Okay,” he sighs, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me a little closer. Then, quite soft, he murmurs “thank you” before turning his head to bring his nose closer to me, sniffing my freshly-washed hair.
But I flinch away. “No funny business,” I murmur, wanting quite desperately to hold my ground but knowing that I will lose my head immediately if this goes any further.
“No funny business,” Kent agrees, sighing again and turning his face up to the ceiling so that I can see the clear outline of his profile against the dark of the room. “What do you want to know, Fay?”
I know my answer immediately. “I want to know what you’re sending to Italy. Is it…drugs?”
“No,” he replies without hesitation, apparently wanting to make it clear that he’s not holding anything back anymore. “It’s not heroin. It’s not any kind of drugs.”
“What is it?” I ask.
Kent sighs, lifting a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose again. “It’s…guns, Fay. Alessi asked me to send a great deal of guns to Italy so that they can…better conduct their business there. As you might presume, guns are harder to get in Europe than they are in America.”
“Oh,” I say, my eyes going wide as my body relaxes against his, my mind whirling. Because I feel, somehow, instantly better.
I don’t know why and I feel a little guilty that I do it’s not like guns don’t hurt as many people as drugs do. But there’s just…something horrible to me about the idea of building a multi-million-dollar business on an industry that gets people hooked on a drug, drains them of everything they own in their further pursuit of that drug, and then leaves them to die when they’ve got nothing else to give.
Kent gives me a moment to process this, laying silent with his arm wrapped warm around me. “Kent,” I continue when I’m ready, my voice very soft. “Why didn’t you just tell me that? It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”
I see him shake his head a little. “Because, Fay. Like I said downstairs, you don’t need to know it.”
“But I do need to know it ”
“You don’t!”