“Nope.”
“You’re a sick bastard.”
“I know,” he says, unconcerned. “Just tell her so she knows—unless you’d rather I go tell her myself?”
Resentment bubbles up inside as I cross my arms defensively, but I shake my head. I don’t want him going anywhere near her, and he knows it. “I’ll enforce it if that’s what you want. I don’t understand why you made her come to dinner at all.”
“I’ve given her all week to herself. Time to get back to normal.”
“Normal is her with Vince,” I state.
Cutting me a look of mild annoyance before he turns away, he says, “Not anymore.”
“Why are you being so awful to her?” I demand, causing him to pause. “If you like Mia, this isn’t the way to show it. If you don’t, this is just a horrible thing to do. That girl hasn’t done a damn thing to deserve your wrath.”
“We’ll see,” he says cryptically, then continues on his way.
Chapter Twenty Three
After the disastrous Sunday night dinner, tensions in the house somehow rise even higher. It doesn’t seem like Mateo anticipated the turn of events, but he let Vince storm out of the dining room with Mia, merely steepling his hands on the table and getting lost in thought for a few tense minutes. Finally he pulled out of it and dinner resumed, just without them.
I’m so nervous for Vince that my stomach hurts all night. I want to go up and check on him, but I’m sure he and Mia have their own stuff to work out. I don’t even know how they work it out, because I don’t know if Mateo will let him keep her. When he stopped in the kitchen to tell me she only serves him now, it definitely seemed like he intended to keep her longer.
The following morning Mateo is at the table when I go down for breakfast. I briefly consider leaving and stopping to grab a breakfast sandwich on the way instead. I guess I can’t avoid him forever, though. We do live together.
I grab some fruit and oatmeal and reluctantly take a seat at the table. I sit in the seat that would be across from Mia, right by him.
I feel him watching me as he reaches for his coffee cup, so I look up at him, narrowing my gaze. “This doesn’t mean I like you again.”
Smiling faintly, he brings the coffee cup to his lips and takes a slow sip. “I understand.”
I frown all of a sudden, my attention caught on his torn up knuckles. He looks like he got in a fight with a brick wall. “What happened there?”
He glances at his hand, annoyance flickering in his eyes. He doesn’t respond, and I start to worry. I’m not sure why. I’m not sure what he could do that’s worse than what he’s already done. Obviously he hit someone—maybe he’s an all-around abuser now. Maybe he punished Mia for going with Vince last night.
God, I can’t handle much more of this bullshit. I’m half-ready to go running straight to Sal’s dad and sell Mateo out myself. There’s no way I wouldn’t get major daughter-in-law points for that.
“Do you hit women now, too?” I ask almost mildly as I sip my orange juice.
At that his eyes narrow with annoyance. “Of course I don’t fucking hit women now.”
“Like it’s such a stretch from what you did do.”
“Vince happened to my knuckles,” he states, meeting my gaze.
“He attacked you?”
“No,” he replies. “I hate to break your heart, but the Morelli you actually like is as capable of rape as I am.”
Stomach plummeting, I narrow my eyes at him. “Bullshit.”
He shrugs, like he doesn’t care whether or not I believe him.
“Vince wouldn’t do that,” I say, even more strongly. “He would never do that.”
Mateo sets his coffee cup down, picking up his newspaper and resuming reading it, apparently done with me.
I’m so angry he would say that, I reach over and knock the paper down so he’ll look at me.
He glares, but I glare right back. “You’re lying,” I say.
“Believe what you need to,” he replies, straightening his paper so he can ignore me again.
I’m definitely not hungry now. I wish I would’ve eaten by myself in the kitchen. Shoving my chair back, I stand and grab my dishes. My mind is racing with the garbage he just fed me, but the problem is I don’t know why he would lie about that. He’d lie, of course, but not without purpose. He doesn’t need an excuse to hit Vince; mouthing off and making a scene at dinner last night was more than adequate. And even if Vince did do the horrible thing Mateo is saying he did to Mia—which I still don’t want to believe—why would Mateo care?
Apparently I’m a sucker, because instead of going the long way out of the kitchen and heading out the back way to go to work, I go back to the dining room and stop by Mateo’s chair. He waits long enough to accept that I’m not moving, then he glances at me, cocking a dark eyebrow.