My stomach sank with anticipation and I bent my head to check his watch. Knowing what I had coming later, it seemed like dinner would take a million years.
Every Sunday we went to family dinner at his older brother’s house. The first time Dante brought me for family dinner I thought it might be awkward, given my history with his brother, Mateo. It was hardly a great love affair, but Mateo met me first. He was the first Morelli to set my heart to fluttering and my stomach to sinking. Before Dante’s dark eyes burned a hole right through me, Mateo’s did. His were the first hands that traveled the curves of my body, the first lips to brush mine in a darkened corner. Even though Dante ended up being the one to sweep me off my feet, I still had a soft spot for Mateo, and I was terrified my extremely possessive boyfriend might notice and take issue.
All my worrying was for nothing, though. Mateo was far from hung up on me, and shortly thereafter, he met Beth. Once he had a girlfriend of his own at the table, I no longer had to worry about Dante watching too closely and making a big deal out of nothing.
We were early to dinner that week, but I needed to see Beth anyway. Two purses dangled from my arm—a cute, black one that belonged to me, and a smaller silver one I needed to return to her. I borrowed it a few weeks earlier and kept forgetting to return it. Beth had been supremely unmotivated the past few Sundays anyway, so getting there early allowed me a chance to go upstairs and find her, maybe perk her up before we got dinner started.
I knew she and Mateo were having problems, but I also knew Mateo had no intention of letting her go, so the best thing I could do for her was try to get her excited about him again.
Given I had spent some time pulled under the spell of Mateo Morelli myself, it shouldn’t have been hard to remind his struggling girlfriend of all the really wonderful things about him. Even if I had never liked Mateo, I had plenty of practice handling my own high-maintenance Morelli.
Mateo is more difficult than Dante, though. As the oldest of the Morelli children, a lot of responsibility fell on Mateo’s shoulders at a young age. I don’t know the grisly details about his childhood, but I know there are plenty. Really, you need only meet him to figure he must have a fucked up past. The man is a puppet master, pulling the strings of his loved ones like we’re all here to perform a show just for him.
Given all that, I could understand why Beth was feeling a little burnt out. Mateo must be a very demanding man to love. Beth knew what she was signing up for, though. I’m sure he warned her like he warned me. Didn’t do much good for me, either, so I understand why she didn’t listen. It’s hard to focus on the underlying truth of a warning like that when it’s falling from such sensual lips.
Beth more than ignored the warning, though, she threw herself into the deep end. She treated their relationship like a race, and she needed to hurry up and win the gold before anything changed and she lost her chance. Only a few months into dating, Beth turned up pregnant. I think she assumed she was landing herself a whale, but what she got instead was a cage—gilded, and with a handsome, powerful captor, but a cage nonetheless.
It gained her a beautiful baby girl and the love of the most ruthless man in Chicago. It wouldn’t have been such a bad hand for the right woman, but Beth’s increasingly desperate disinterest in Mateo made me worry… maybe she wasn’t.
Still, since she was well and truly stuck, I considered it my duty as her almost sister-in-law to try and help her see the silver lining.
When we finally approached the front door of Morelli mansion, Dante opened it with the comfortable familiarity of someone who still lived there, even though he had moved out earlier that year.
“Was it strange growing up in such an enormous house?” I asked him casually, as we strolled inside.
Dante’s gaze flickered to me. “No. It was a normal house to me.”
Normal isn’t the word that comes to mind when looking around the palatial residence. It’s a home fit for royalty, and it suits Dante’s family because sometimes it feels like they are a royal family—just with stolen crowns, ruling over a city that shouldn’t belong to them.
We were no more than through the front door and a little blonde maid came hustling into the foyer. Her blue eyes were wide and uncharacteristically haunted. Before I could ask what was wrong, a man with scars on the left side of his face came following after her.