Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
“That’s his bet,” Jerome says, coming to stand behind Daniel and raising a cup of coffee towards me in a toast. “I’m team girl, though.”
“Atta boy,” Janeen says, tossing him a wink.
Daniel opens his mouth to counter, but I put up a hand. “As fascinating as all of this is,” I say, looking around at them all but letting my eyes settle on Daniel at last. “There is no time for it. Because we,” I say, giving my husband a significant look, “have to get ready.”
“Really?” he asks, surprised and suddenly suspicious. “Why?”
“Because,” I sigh. “We’re having lunch with my father.”
“Why do you have to get ready for that?” Janeen asks, confused. “He’s just going to make ham and cheese in the kitchen like he always does -“
“No, sis,” I say, lifting a hand to pat her cheek. “My other father.”
“Oh no,” Daniel moans, sinking further against the doorframe. “Can’t I get out of this? Can I have morning sickness instead of you?”
“Sorry, dear husband,” I say, giving him a sad little shrug. “We’re going to go get you a job.”
My father was more than happy to throw me a little last-minute luncheon when I sent him a message yesterday. He’s incredibly excited about being a grandfather, especially when this baby comes with wealthy Italian connections in tow. Natalia and Alessi, when I sent them a message this morning, were only too happy to shift around their plans and join in.
We’re all one big happy family now, after all. With this little Bianci/Alden baby at the center, holding us together.
“You’d better be cute, kidney bean,” I murmur down to my belly. “We’ve got a lot riding on you.”
“What?” Daniel asks, turning to me, thinking that I’m talking to him.
“Nothing,” I say, beaming up at him, letting everyone at the table mostly my close Alden family, along with Natalia and Alessi see how in love we are. Daniel, understanding his role, smiles and takes my chin in his hand, planting a slow kiss on my lips before turning back to my cousin on his other side.
He was a good sport about coming today, though he was sort of the last to be told. But he didn’t have any other plans, I knew. I smirk, thinking that if I didn’t bring him to lunch with me Daniel would have spent all day laying on the beach with Jerome. And while I don’t begrudge them a happy day, I have need of my husband.
Because, unfortunately for him, he has an even more important role to play in the upcoming weeks.
I sit and look down at my plate, playing with my food instead of eating it, listening quietly to the conversation around me, letting a very subtle pallor of sadness and worry settle around me.
As soon as I feel a meaty hand settle on my shoulder, I know that it worked.
I look up at my father with wide, anxious eyes.
“Come along, little daughter,” he says softly to me, putting out a hand to help me to my feet. “Let us go and have a chat.”
My father leads me to a little sitting room just off the dining room, built for little chats like this. We settle on a sofa where we can still see most of the action at the party, and where, indeed, I have a direct view of Tristin, who glares daggers at me while she holds my baby sister on her lap. Romulus leans across her, stealing a piece of chocolate from her plate, about which she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
She’s too busy hating me.
I grimace a little, but turn my attention to my father, who focuses on me.
“What is wrong, daughter,” he says, raising a hand to my cheek and cupping my face softly in his palm. “I can see that you are worried.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, laughing a little and raising my hand to cover my father’s, pretending a fondness and affection that belies the rage that burns in me whenever I look at this man.
Because I have not forgotten, not for a moment, what Ivan told us: that my father was the one who, alongside him, sold Kent out. That in exchange for his information, my father was also able to pass a significant number of his crimes onto Kent’s shoulders, adding them to the Lippert rap sheet and wiping them off his own.
And that, though Ivan’s sudden departure from the city’s drug scene devastated it and has resulted in a great deal less heroin on the streets of our fair city which was, in retrospect, probably part of his plan that my father has absolutely benefitted from this lack, as well as the vacuum in businesses that was left when Kent was arrested.
My father is now, hands-down, the Mafia King now that Kent has been dethroned.
And yet here he is, looking down at me like the kindest, gentlest man who has ever lived so concerned for his daughter’s happiness he’ll do anything in the world to help her.
And suddenly, quite suddenly, as I look up at him I want nothing more than to bare my teeth and to use them to rip out his throat for taking my world from me, from Daniel, from Kent.
But I have work to do before I can savor that particular pleasure.
“Please, daughter,” my father says, taking his hand from my face and wrapping it around my shoulder. “I want to make you happy. I know that the rug has been pulled out from under you that your wedding was hastily done, to account for the miracle growing in your belly. It makes sense that you are worried please, let me help you, as a wedding gift.”
I look down at my hands, demure, twisting my fingers together and pretending to hesitate.
Even though there’s no hesitation in me at all. This is precisely what I was waiting for.
“Well,” I say, looking up at him, shy. “I I admit that…well, father,” I say now, all in a gush, “you know I love Daniel I don’t want you to think that I don’t ”
“Of course, of course,” he says, placating, “anyone who looks at the two of you couldn’t help but see it, plain as day.”
Yeah, I think. Anyone who hasn’t seen him with Jerome. Inwardly I roll my eyes, but outwardly I press on with my act.
“Well, he’s so good to me father, and so kind, and thoughtful, but…” I take a deep breath and look fully up into my father’s face, “I don’t think he’s very good with money.”
My father nods slowly, making soft understanding noises and encouraging me to tell him more.
“Kent left us some,” I say, speaking of him as if he’s dead which is how I want my father to think of him as well. “But you know it’s all tied up in legal issues. We have plenty to get by,” I continue hurriedly, “but…it’s not enough. Not for forever. Especially…” I look down at my stomach now, letting him fill in the blanks.
“Not enough for the child’s future,” he says, understanding.
I nod, agreeing even though inwardly I laugh. Daniel and I still have the greater part of four million dollars in cash, alongside my beach property and whatever it is that Daniel has in Europe. If a single baby can’t be raised on this?
Well. Let’s just say that I’m glad Tristin is a bit of a high-maintenance wife, at this point. I make a mental note to thank her at some later date.
“So what would you have me do, Fay,” my father asks, his voice friendly and kind, pleased at the prospect of being able to do something for me, for his grandchild.
“I wondered,” I say, turning my head and looking up at him like he’s my saving grace, “if you could…teach him? Just a little bit? His father Mr. Lippert,” I say, laughing inwardly at my use of the name, “didn’t teach Daniel very much about the ways of…business.”
I heavily emphasize the last word of my sentence, making it impossible for my father to not hear “business” as “mafia.”
My father lifts his chin and hums, arching a brow as if he thinks Kent a great fool.
I press on.
“Do you think you could teach him?” I ask, as if I just came up with the idea now, a bright new thing. “Just a…just a little bit?” I say eagerly, pressing my hands to his arm. “Just to get him started?”
My father hesitates, perhaps not wanting to take a Lippert into his business, but then his eyebrows raise as he perhaps considers the closer ties he’d have to the Bianci family if he takes Daniel under his wing. “Well, perhaps,” my father murmurs. “In some small way…”
But I snatch my hands away, suddenly hesitating, and my father turns to me, asking me what’s wrong.