Family Ties (Morelli Family 4)

“Breakfast food is the greatest,” Francesca states, stabbing a piece of pancake. She lifts it, watching as a stream of syrup drips off the soggy bite and onto the plate. She pops it into her mouth with an exaggerated, “Mmmm.”

A lazy grin steals across my face. “Watching you eat it, I’m inclined to agree.”

Her eyes widen. “Is breakfast food not your favorite?”

“I like breakfast food. I just like dinner food better.”

Francesca shakes her head. “Breakfast food all the way. Waffles. French toast. Bacon. Sausage. Hash browns. Warm, fluffy biscuits. Creamy sausage gravy. There are so many amazing choices.”

“The same can be said of dinner,” I point out. “Even more choices, frankly. And vegetables. If we always had breakfast, when would we ever get our vegetables?”

“We wouldn’t; we would get happiness instead.”

“We would get fat,” I inform her, taking a bite of my omelet.

“I can think of worse things. Like a world without breakfast.”

“See, mine would’ve been a world without you. Nice to see how I rate,” I joke.

Francesca laughs. “I guess you’re just more of a romantic than me.”

“I’m really not,” I say dryly. “I can see why you would believe that, but no.”

“You’ve never taken your previous girlfriends to the ballet?”

I snort, the idea is so ridiculous. “Never.”

“Or had semi-platonic sleepovers,” she adds, smiling as she cuts off another piece of pancake.

“Not even in high school.”

Her gaze moves from her plate to me as she chews, a look of contemplation on her face. “Be honest, what did you think of me that first time you saw me at the bakery?”

Now that I actually care about her, my initial interest in her sort of pisses me off. I won’t lie though. “I thought you had an incredible mouth and I wanted to know what kind of dirty things you could do with it.”

A little surprised laugh shoots out of her and she offers up a teasing smile. “Now you know.”

I don’t even want to go there. “What did you think of me?”

“I thought you were really attractive and I kind of hoped you’d come back. Until Adrian came in and told me who you actually were, then I just thought you were an asshole.”

I’m relieved that she gave me the opening I needed to bring him up. I keep it casual, but I watch her for any signs of distress. “What do you think of Adrian?”

Her brow furrows as she cuts off some more pancake. “Adrian? I don’t really think of Adrian. He eats his salad without dressing,” she says, as if just thinking of something. She points her fork at me, nodding. “That’s really weird. I mean, it has to be so dry.”

Smiling faintly, I ask, “You have dinner with Adrian enough to know his eating habits?”

“Of course. I sit right by him at dinner. I serve him on Sundays. He hates chocolate lava cake, too.”

Suddenly I’m less worried about him being her ex and more worried about why the hell she’s serving him his dinner. “Why do you serve him?”

“Because Mateo killed off all the other women. No Luciana, no Beth. I’m pretty much a one-woman show on Sundays. Alec dates, but he doesn’t bring them around Mateo. Everyone else is single right now, so I’m the token woman. The idea of Sunday dinner works a lot better when there are more of us, but for now I play maid on Sundays.”

“Does Adrian ever date? I’ve never actually seen him with a woman.”

Slanting me a funny look, she says, “Why, you wanna date him?”

I roll my eyes. “He’s not my type.”

“Why so curious?”

I shrug nonchalantly, taking a sip of my orange juice. I watch her, but not obviously. “Ever think about dating him?”

Francesca shakes her head. “Not really. He has a major crush on our maid. He wouldn’t go for me, and like I said, dangerous men aren’t really my type either.”

This is all very reassuring. Adrian isn’t the guy who fucked her up.

“Why all the sudden interest in Adrian?” she asks again, her gaze locked on me.

I understand her being a little cautious that I’m asking about her brother’s main guy, but I still don’t fucking like it. I want all her loyalty for myself; fuck her brother. I offer up an explanation anyway though, to set her mind at ease. “Adrian’s been helping me out with something on the side. I was a little leery at first, but it seems like he just wants to help.”

Now she frowns. “He’s helping you with something? Does my brother know?”

I shrug. “Not sure. It doesn’t seem like he knows. It’s nothing he should care about.”

“Well, what is it?”

She’s still frowning. I take a drink of my orange juice and take my time answering. “I have a half-sister; I think I mentioned her, Willow? We’re not close, but something really bad was done to her. She was kidnapped, dragged right out of her house in the middle of the night and stashed in a house rumored to be run by your brother’s crew. Delmonico, specifically. You asked how I knew of him, well, this is how he got on my radar. Supposedly he had a crew abduct Willow to strike out at my dad. It went pretty bad for her. She was treated like anyone else who gets mixed up in that shit would be treated.” Francesca’s already pale. I don’t think I have to explain what exactly that entails. “Anyway, she got out. One of the guys on the crew was working with the police so the operation got busted. The girls all made it out okay, but if you haven’t noticed, I don’t take too kindly to people fucking with the women in my family, whether we’re close or not. To make matters worse, a video was made of my sister being mistreated. People sent it around. It got sent to me. So I decided to step in and figure out what the fuck happened and then, you know, handle it. That’s how I ended up at your bakery, actually. I went to your brother directly to see if he really was responsible for what happened to Willow.”