I take another sip. Since I don’t know how else to explain it, I lean in closer and tell him, “Francesca Morelli.”
Now his blue eyes go wide, his face freezing, and he looks at me like he’s praying for laughter, for this to be a joke. When he sees it isn’t, he slowly unfreezes, looking down at his whiskey with dread. He throws it back the rest of it, like he needs a drink for me. Then he leans over closer to demand, “Are you fucking crazy?”
I nod once, taking a sip and tilting my glass in his direction. “There you go. That’s the problem.”
He’s bracing both hands on his head now, bearing the weight of my dilemma, for whatever reason. After a minute, he asks, “Is it too late to back out of this thing? It would be a lot easier if you just cut it off now.”
“Probably would’ve been a lot easier if you cut things off with my sister and didn’t cheat on your wife, too, but you didn’t do that, now did you? So how are you going to sit here and tell me to do what you didn’t do your fucking self?”
“That’s literally night and day. There’s no comparison between these two situations. And I did break it off with your sister—it’s just your maniac fucking father decided to blow up my life the same day and she had to ride to my rescue. If not for him, I would still be married and your sister would be fucking Frat Boy Brian right now.”
“Willow’s always saving your ass,” I mutter.
He doesn’t even argue. “Yep. No one’s saving yours, though. I don’t know who’d be more pissed off about this: your dad, or her brother.”
“My dad,” I tell him, without hesitation. “Definitely my dad. He hates her family. Calls ‘em scum. I can’t even be around him lately because I want to fucking defend them.”
Ethan sighs. “Shit, Sal. This is not good.”
“Nope,” I agree. “But I don’t care. I want her, and I’m gonna have her. I already have her, but I’m keeping her.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Mateo’s logical. I think I could get him to come around.”
Ethan doesn’t look as convinced. “And your dad?”
My dad is a lost cause. This is making me more depressed than I was before Ethan got here. This isn’t what I want to hear. I told Francesca I would make this work, so I’m gonna, and that’s that.
“Her brother hired some cocksucker who used her to get to him. She won’t tell me his name. Any chance you could find out who it was?”
“Someone who still works for Morelli?”
“Yeah.”
Ethan shakes his head, but he looks almost apologetic. “Nope. Sorry, I draw the line there. I’m not going near Morelli’s men. How would that help with your dad?”
“It wouldn’t, I just want to kill the motherfucker.”
“Well, I think that’s a bad idea. If you want to make a good impression on her brother, killing his men probably isn’t where you want to start.”
“Cocksucker needs to die, though,” I mutter.
“Maybe your dad would think of her like a trophy,” Ethan suddenly suggests. “Maybe he’d get on board if you presented it the right way, like she’s your spoils of war instead of someone you actually care about?”
I shake my head. “I can’t pull it off. I’m too protective of her. He’d be a dick to her and I’d lose my shit.”
This makes Ethan smile faintly. “All right, I get that. How long have you been seeing each other?”
“Too embarrassing to admit,” I mutter, grabbing my drink.
Now Ethan grins. “Okay.”
“They say when you know, you know.”
Ethan shrugs, like he’s not quite convinced. “I think that’s optimistic. But hey, maybe you stumbled onto something.”
“I’m terrified of hurting her,” I tell him, looking over at him. I damn sure didn’t expect to say that, but Ethan’s got more experience in this arena than I do, with all my shallow-ass relationships. He’s had a real one, a long one, the kind that stood the test of time—until it didn’t.
“How do you mean?” To his credit, the asshole listens like he actually cares. I know he doesn’t. He can’t. I’m such a dick to him all the time.
“My feelings for her have come on so strong, so fast. It honestly feels to me like…” I shake my head, because all the thoughts drifting through my head are soaked in scotch and too fucking hokey to get out. “It feels real,” I finally say. “It’s not like any other woman I’ve ever known, but how do I know it would stay like that? How do I know it would be worth blowing up both our lives to be with her? Not just for me, but her, too. Last thing I’d want is to hurt her. But I get bored. Not with her, not yet, but it hasn’t been long enough and all this shit’s in the way, but the problem is, since all this shit is in the way… I can’t tell if it’s exciting to me because of her, or because of all the bullshit I have to try to overcome to get her. What if we get together and it gets boring?”