Amedeo, Her Italian Billionaire (15 page)

“Thank you. I don’t feel beautiful,” Gwen said.

Dante rubbed her shoulders. “I keep telling her that she just glows and she doesn’t listen to me.”

The baby chose that moment to kick. Amedeo had to smile. “He knows its Uncle Amedeo. I’m the fun one.”

“You are not,” Salvatore said. “He kicked for me, too.”

Amedeo hugged his brother. “Hey Salvatore. How are you?”

“Good of course. There are always bad guys in the world so I have job security.”

Amedeo laughed. His mother put the flowers in a vase, placing them on her counter. “Dinner will be ready in five minutes, but I think someone is missing.”

“Who?” Amedeo asked.

“That woman living at your house.”

His brothers gasped. Amedeo’s mouth fell open. “Uh, what woman?”

“I think her name is Violet?” his mother said.

How did she know? He looked at his brothers. Both shook their heads. They hadn’t ratted him out. Gwen put her hands up. She didn’t tell his mother.

He sighed. “How do you know about Violet?”

“Tory called me. Desperate girl. Glad you didn’t marry her.”

Amedeo didn’t know if he should be more surprised that Tory had called his mother or that his mother hadn’t been on the phone to him right away. “Tory called you?”

“Yes. She thought that I could help her get you back. I hung up on her.”

Amedeo smiled at his mother. Of course she would have his back. “Well, I wasn’t ready to tell you about Violet.”

“I know she’s having your baby. Why would you think that I wouldn’t want to meet the mother of one of my grandchildren?”

“I’m only just wrapping my brain around the idea of a child. I needed a little more time to get used to the idea.”

“Well, I’ll take all of the grandchildren I can get. I have enough love for all of them.”

Amedeo pondered the situation. If Violet were home he’d go get her, but she was out with a friend. “I guess I’ll bring her next month.”

“No, bring her Sunday. We’ll all have dinner again, barring the arrival of my first grandchild.”

Amedeo glanced at Dante who nodded. “I can make it. Salvatore?”

“Yeah I can make it,” he said.

Amedeo was stuck. “Okay. I’ll bring her Sunday then.”

“Good. I want to meet this woman who has stolen your heart.”

“Mama, I’m not in love with her. I’m just taking care of her because she’s having my child. She was thrown out of her apartment and I gave her a place to live until the baby is born.”

“Not in love? What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing is wrong with her.”

“Then marry her, Amedeo. It’s the right thing.”

Amedeo laughed. “She won’t marry me. I asked her.”

“Then you’ll have to use that Killiano charm and get her to marry you. We’ll soften her up when she’d here.”

He put a hand on his mother’s arm. “You will do no such thing. You will stay out of this. It’s between me and Violet.”

His mother frowned. “Fine, but I bet she’ll love us so much that she’ll want to marry you.”

“I’d like someone to marry me for me, not my family.”

His mother waved her hand as she put food on platters. “We’re part of the package.”

***

Violet had no idea what she was going to think of Amedeo’s family. It had taken him the better part of the week to convince her that she should come meet them. Now Sunday had arrived and she was sitting in Amedeo’s passenger seat as he drove his Bentley to his mother’s house.

Not only was she meeting his mother, she was meeting his brothers too. No pressure at all. She hadn’t expected to be this involved in his life.

“It’s going to be fine,” Amedeo said. “Chewing your nails isn’t going to make it all better.”

“You can’t expect me not to be nervous.”

“It isn’t as if you have to impress them. Nothing will change the fact that you are the mother of my child. No one can take that away from you.”

He made it sound so logical and he was right. She didn’t need to impress these people, but if she did all of their lives might be easier. She wasn’t his girlfriend. They were lovers, yes, but that was it. She might never have to see them again.

Why was she so nervous? Why was this so important to her when it shouldn’t be? She wasn’t marrying Amedeo. She was merely having his kid. She tried to relax. She could get through this. Just a couple of hours.

“My family aren’t ogres, either. I came from that environment and I’m a pretty nice guy,” he said.

He had a good point. Amedeo was a good man. He’d taken her in when she was down. He could have turned his back on her. Not believed her. Instead, he’d opened his home to her. That he came from this family made her feel a little better.

She settled back into the seat. “Dante is the one who is married to Gwen. She’s due any day now.”

“Yes. Salvatore is single and no girlfriend. He’s my mother’s last hope of having an Italian daughter-in-law.”

“You aren’t married. You could still have one.”

He shrugged. “Been engaged and don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to marry or fall in love.”

She could understand that. With a kid in tow, she was pretty sure her prospects for a husband were slimmer. The men she dated weren’t interested in raising their own children, let alone someone else’s.

Marriage probably wasn’t in her future anyway.

“What about you?” he said. “Will you marry?”

“I doubt it. The men in my circle don’t want to raise children.”

“You need to find a better circle,” he said.

Like it was that easy. She’d go back to freelance work when this was all done. She couldn’t’ imagine working in an office, though she might have to consider it. The baby would need so much. Amedeo would provide a lot, at least he’d agreed to. Would he get bored and leave her in the lurch? She didn’t think so, but she had to prepare for that eventuality. Or maybe it was only a possibility.

He pulled the car into a large house. Not as large as his, but still impressive.

Amedeo rang the doorbell and a small, round woman opened it as if she’d been waiting. “Amedeo.” She hugged her son. He kissed her cheek and Violet couldn’t help be jealous at the easy affection they shared.

“Mama, this is Violet,” Amedeo said.

The woman with the darkest eyes she’d ever seen on a white woman turned her gaze toward Violet. “Hello, Violet.”

The woman pulled her into a hug. Not what she was expecting, but she responded. “Hello, Mrs. Killiano.”

“Call me Cara,” she said.

“That’s a beautiful name,” Violet said.

Cara had let her go and was looking her up and down. Violet knew she wasn’t showing, but her face held some trace of the fat it would hold when she was further along.

“Thank you. Come in. Meet the rest of the family.”

A very pregnant black woman waddled past the door to the kitchen. She smiled at Violet as if she knew exactly what the woman was entering into. “I’m Gwen. I’d hug you, but it’s a little hard these days.”

Violet shook Gwen’s hand and felt like she’d already found a friend. The woman’s smile was warm and inviting. “Hi.”

“This is my husband Dante,” she said, indicating man who was clearly related to Amedeo. They had the same color eyes and very similar features.

Dante leaned down and kissed her on both cheeks. She couldn’t help smiling at the affection. These people loved to kiss. Amedeo was often kissing her head or her hand. “Hello.”

“Welcome, Violet. You have that glow about you.”

“Thanks, I think.”

A slightly shorter man though by no means short stepped up to kiss her cheeks. “I’m Salvatore. The younger and hotter brother of these two lunks.”

“Nice to meet you, Salvatore.”

The conversation began to swirl around her and she was able to see the love the three brothers had for each other and their mother. Gwen stayed by her side, albeit on a stool. So that’s what she would look like in a few months’ time? The poor woman looked so uncomfortable.

Finally they sat in a dining room and ate the meal Amedeo’s mother had cooked. She’d answered questions as she was asked, but she observed more than anything. She liked his family and the warmth they conveyed in their jibes at each other.

Later in the car, she smiled, thinking back on the afternoon. “Your brothers don’t let you get away with anything.”

“True. Did you like my family?”

She shifted in her seat to look at him. Why was that important to him? “Yes I did. They were very friendly. And fun.”

He glanced her way. “Good. I’m happy you did.”

She stretched then yawned.

“You tired?”

“No, just full, really. Warm from the food.”

“Good, because I had plans for our evening,” he said.

Chapter11

Amedeo held Violet’s hand the rest of the way home. He liked that she liked his family and they had clearly enjoyed her. No one had to do that, but the situation would be easier if they did. Violet wouldn’t object if one of his siblings or his mother wanted to babysit.

As if his mother would even ask. She’d probably come over to his house and just pack up the child. The kids were going to have all kinds of family.

Violet didn’t nap, but he could tell she was more relaxed now that the meet and greet was over. Her hand was warm and soft in his. He kissed her hand before he pulled into his driveway.

“Home,” she said.

She thought of his place as home? The idea warmed him. Good. She would feel welcome here then. It would make shared custody much easier.

“I think the furniture for the baby’s room will be delivered tomorrow.”

“That’s fine, but I have to find a place to live and set up a nursery there.”

“No hurry.”

He wasn’t in a hurry for her to leave. He’d gotten used to her being around. The offer to marry her was still on the table. They hadn’t discussed it in days and he didn’t want to ruin the good will that meeting his family had given them.

“But I need to figure out so much,” she said, sounding exhausted.

“Not tonight. It’s okay.”

“You always say that, but it isn’t okay. I need to take some responsibility for myself.”

He squeezed her hand. “What are you going to accomplish on a Sunday night? You can’t go look at apartments. You can’t even make appointments to look at apartments.”

She sighed. “I know. I just have been slacking about that part of this.”

“Look, we can go this week. I’ll call a real estate agent and line up some places.”

“How do you even know where I want to live?”

Yikes. He hadn’t mentioned any of his thinking to her. “Well, I was hoping you’d live close to me.”

She looked at him as if he had two heads. “I can’t afford Princeton.”

“I wasn’t thinking in Princeton. You can be closer to Trenton and the rents are more reasonable.”

She seemed to mull that over. “Okay. Maybe I can do that.”

“I know you’re uprooting your life, but if we’re close, the baby doesn’t haven’t to travel as much. That’ll be more important when he or she is in school. We both can attend parent things. Besides, I’ve said I want the child to go to private schools. There are many right here.”

“I guess we’ll have to talk about private school.”

“Why talk? It’s the best education the boy or girl can get.”

“How many black people go to private schools?”

“I don’t know, Violet, but is that any reason to hold the child back?”

He really didn’t want to discuss this now. He didn’t want to argue with her. He wanted to have sex. They hadn’t in a few days and he was itching to touch her.

“Maybe not. We’ll see.”

He’d leave it for now. He opened the door from the garage to the house for her. She smiled at him and she had that look in her eye. Her hormones were raging. He could help with that.

He led her upstairs. “You want a bath?”

“That sounds amazing.”

He filled the tub while she undressed. He could see that her stomach wasn’t showing, but it wasn’t flat anymore. That was his child growing inside of her body. Made him even harder.

He undressed, waiting for her. He held her hand as he helped her into the tub. He settled her against him. She let out a sigh, relaxing into him.

He could just reach her tits. So he did. He played with one then the other.

“Don’t touch them unless you plan on following through.”

He licked her ear. “Oh, I do, Violet.”

“This kid is going to wonder why the outside world is so peaceful after all the sex we’ve had during this pregnancy,” she said.

His fingers roved over her nipples, bring them to peaks. She reach around putting her arms around his neck. His one hand slid down her body to find her spot. She was wet and warm and he liked that feeling.

“Oh,” she said as he began to rub her. In circles, the way she liked it.

Her head fell back into his shoulder. Her body arched into his hand. Damn. She was close. He could tell. She started making those sounds that drove him wild. She was on the edge. Her body was jerking around, making waves. He didn’t care if they made a mess. It could be cleaned up.

Her fingers dug into him as her body stiffened.

“Oh. God.”

He chuckled in her ear. “That never gets old.”

“Not from this end either.”

He laughed and so did Violet. She was even more relaxed now. He hoped she’d stay awake long enough for him to do that again. With him inside of her.

“We’d better get out before I fall asleep in here.”

He helped her out. They dried off and she led him to the bed. “Your turn.”

She climbed on top of him, kissing his neck, setting fires wherever her lips met his skin. He was hard and so turned on, he wanted to grab her and dive into her.

Finally she was poised above him. “You ready?”

“I was born ready.”

She laughed then slid herself onto him. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Damn. Her rhythm was spot on and he thought he’d blow his wad before she came again. He didn’t, but her orgasm wrenched his from him.

She slumped onto his chest, her breathing heavy. She then slid off of him, her body never losing contact. She threw one hand over his chest and a leg over his leg. Then he was asleep.

***

Violet was ready to pack it in for the day. She’d been sitting doing nothing for two weeks. Her trap hadn’t caught anyone yet. The hacker had been laying low and she was bored. She could only play Candy Crush so many times.

Amedeo was going to work late, so she’d would be going home to an empty house. His driver would take her there. She wasn’t in any hurry to be alone, but she wanted to get out of her work clothes and into sweats. Dinner would probably be cereal unless there were leftovers in the refrigerator.

What an exciting night she was going to have. She sighed. She might as well get used to it. You didn’t party with a baby around. She didn’t miss alcohol at all. She missed being around people who were having fun.

She could stop off for a drink somewhere, but what would be the point? It would be juice or soda. Damn.

She closed her laptop then noticed a strange email on her phone.

“We know what you did.”

What the Hell? Had she been tracked down because of her hacking? Shit. This wasn’t good. Things had been really good lately between her and Amedeo. She didn’t want to screw things up, but she might with this.

If he found out.

Another email landed in her inbox. Same person, but she figured they were using an anonymizer. Damn. She wouldn’t be able to trace it.

“We’re going to find you.”

Double shit. She had to tell Amedeo. What if he was in danger? She’d been stupid and she knew it. All because she was bored at home.

She sighed. No more emails came in. But they knew who she was. Or at least they’d tracked down her junk email address. It might only be a quick step to tracking down her name. Not her address, since she didn’t live there anymore.

She packed up her laptop then made her way to Amedeo’s office. He smiled when she entered. “You done for the day?”

“Yes, but I have to talk to you about something.”

“Sit. You look concerned.”

She did sit. She took a moment to frame her words. “When I was home, I was pretty bored. And in order to keep my skills sharp, I hacked into someone’s computer system.”

“You do know that’s illegal.”

“Yes I do, but I don’t think that person is concerned about the legalities of my actions.”

“Huh?”

“I think the system I hacked into was for someone doing criminal activity. I rushed out of the system and may have left a trail.”

“A trail?”

“I received an email on my junk account. It’s not connected to anything that could connect to me, but with enough money, things can be found out.”

She handed him her phone. He read the emails. “Yep, those are threatening. I can’t come home with you tonight, but make sure the driver closes the gate after he leaves. Turn on the security system. Keep your phone with you.”

“I’m sorry, Amedeo.”

He frowned. “You didn’t mean to do this, but you have to think about things before you do them.”

She knew that. She had a baby to think of. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve finally lined up a real estate agent. I’m sorry the last two weeks have been nuts.”

“Is something going on?” she said.

He glanced at the office door then rose to cross to it. He closed it. When he sat down he looked at her. “Yes, someone has offered to buy the company. We’re in negotiations right now.”

“Does that take this long?”

That would mean he’d built and sold three companies. Boy, her kid had good genes. Too bad she wasn’t contributing anything that spectacular.

“It does. I like to take care of my employees. I can’t leave them to be fired when I’m gone.”

That was so Amedeo. “What will you do once it’s sold?”

“I have some ideas for another company. I haven’t done any real estate investment so I may go in that direction. We’ll see.”

He was so confident. She knew the sale of the company would make him able to be choosy about what he did next. She couldn’t imagine being in that spot. She had always lived freelance job to freelance job.

“I could take time off to be with the baby.” He shrugged the way a man who had options would.

“You’d do that?”

“Yes I would. My child will be important to me. My parents always made us a priority.”

She nodded, not knowing what that felt like. “That might make it easier for me. I’ll be back to establishing clients at that point.”

“Well, we’ll see. You can stay on here after your job is complete, but we can talk about that later.”

She rose. “You need to get somewhere?”

“I do. Sorry. Call me if you get spooked.”

“I’m not exactly sure who I’m dealing with. It could be an idle threat,” she said.

“Let’s not look at it that way,” he said.

She left him in his office and let the driver take her home. The gate was secured when the driver left. The alarm system was on. Amedeo had written down the password. She should feel safe, but part of her didn’t anymore.

This was her own stupidity. Was she really expecting the person to walk up to the front door? No, they might use the internet to take her down, but she had no possessions. No credit rating. Her identity wasn’t worth much.

She sighed, settling into leftover macaroni and cheese. She jumped at each sound. When she crawled into bed, she put on a movie so she wouldn’t have to listen to the sounds of the house as it settled for the night.

She curled up under the covers, her heart beating just a little faster.

Why had she been so stupid?

***

A week later, with no more threats sent to her, Violet finally settled down. There had been no further threats to her which made Amedeo think the first one had been an idle one. Her stomach was just beginning to pop and he liked to fall sleep at night with his hand on it.

The world felt right when he did that. Violet had been frustrated by not catching the hacker. She’d wondered out loud to him that maybe the hacker was just flexing his muscle and won’t come back.

When she came to Amedeo in his office that morning, her face was lit up with triumph.

“I’ve found your hacker. Well, I’ve at least caught him in a trap. I haven’t identified where he came from yet.”

“You’ll do that soon?”

“I’m hoping. I just need to walk away for a minute, so I decided to come tell you.”

He leaned back in his chair studying her. She was getting more beautiful as the pregnancy progressed. “Do you need more maternity clothes?”

She smiled at him sheepishly. “Yes, I do.”

“We can go after work tonight.”

“For home, just sweats, but for work I’ll need a few weeks of something until I wrap this up,” she said.

Carl wanted him to hire her. Amedeo knew he would have to broach the subject carefully. She’d be skittish, thinking that he was doing it out of pity. Maybe he should have Carl broach the subject. That way, she might not think it was coming from.

“Wait, we can’t shop tonight. I lined up a real estate agent to show us apartments.”

She plopped down on the chair for guests. “You did? I’ve been meaning to.”

He waved a hand. “I’m used to taking charge.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’m not sure if you’re happy about that or not.”

She shrugged. “I guess in this situation I’m happy because I kept forgetting to do it. I’m usually so organized.”