Fall For My Ex's Mafia Father novel Chapter 228

As subtly as I can, I sit back in my chair, lifting my glass of wine to my lips and pretending to take another sip as I slip my gaze towards Daniel, who is already looking at me with his eyebrows slightly raised. I flick my eyes away quickly, not wanting to give anything away, but grateful that he, too, sees what is happening.

Slowly, Kent turns his head towards Natalia. “I seem to be doing fine as a bachelor, no?” he asks, and I’m surprised to hear a little bit of an Italian accent come into his voice, perhaps harkening back to his younger years when he spoke Italian with her every day. Those days when he fell in love with her, and told her about it, and asked her to marry him, all in that language.

But I smirk a little, inwardly, to think that they’re all speaking in English at this dinner for my sake. I still have a little power here, even if she’s trying to take it all.

“You are doing all right,” Natalia replies, leaning even closer to Kent and letting her eyelids drift down so that she’s looking up at him through her lashes. “But with the right woman, Kent? You could do so much better. Be so much more relaxed.”

And I feel the inner urge to bare my teeth at her as Natalia slips a hand onto Kent’s shoulder and then lets it drift, ever so casually, down his back – the fond kind of gesture that could be friendly but which we all know in this moment is so, so much more.

Kent, going a little stiff at her touch, turns his attention back to his meal and picks up his knife and fork as he takes a deep breath. His voice is different now – harsh, controlled, as he begins to cut at his chicken. “I’ve decided never again to marry, Natalia,” he informs her, and then looks around the table at Daniel and Alessi, as if remembering suddenly that they’re here. But I’m very, very interested to see that he does not, in fact, look at me.

Natalia shifts herself subtly, pulling her hand away from him and reaching for her own fork. “Ah, Kent,” she breathes, a subtle smile on her lips. “You will change your mind. You just need to…pick the right woman.”

Kent doesn’t say anything, just continues to cut his chicken and lift bites of it to his mouth as the table goes silent. Daniel chimes in after a moment, breaking the awkwardness in his own particularly skillful way that makes the change of conversation seem natural as he asks Alessi about some of his own memories of childhood.