Exploding: A Mafia Romance (The O'Keefe Family Collection #1) (14 page)

W
hen Vince strolled
into the store not two minutes later, Jen had returned from her break. Fallyn cleared off a table in the corner of the store for the two to sit in. When she made to leave, Vince waved her back. “Have a seat, Little Keefer. I need the status report on how my things are selling. Any changes?”

Fallyn’s cheeks were pink as she sat next to her brother across from Vince. The cheery cream walls with lavender moldings and teal wall hangings told her to calm down, but she didn’t listen. She twisted her fingers in her lap. “We sell out by the end of the night, but I don’t think we have the space for more. The order’s good as it is for us, at least. You?”

Vince was leaning back in his chair with his ankle crossed over his knee. “Well, we could use another ten percent, preferably your éclairs. They sell too well for us to keep the customers happy. Do you put something in them that makes them so addictive? I admit, I tried one, and they’re the best I’ve ever had. You mind showing me how you make them?”

“Only if you admit Irish girls are the best at everything,” Fallyn insisted, pursing her lips to keep her nerves hidden.

Vince smirked, the dimple in his left cheek teasing her. “Oh, Irish girls. Always surprising me.”

“I can only stay until ten,” Killian informed her.

“I’m not worried about Vince. It’s the henchmen I don’t want here when I’m by myself.”

Vince pressed his hand to his heart. “I’m losing my reputation if you’re not a little bit afraid of me.”

Fallyn pfft’d and waved off his feigned affront. “I’m afraid you’ll make a mess in my kitchen, but I can handle it.” She was walking down a dangerous road, letting him stay without her brother’s watchful eye. “I’ll leave you to your meeting, guys. Come on back when you’re done, Vince.” She kissed the top of her brother’s head before moving back into the kitchen, worried at the things she was considering.

Fallyn wiped her hands off on her apron and then went back to piping the rest of the custom cake she’d been working on, hiding out with her confection. Loretta was elbow-deep in sudsy dishes on the other side of the kitchen. Even though the newest hire who came in at noon was in charge of custom orders, Fallyn wanted to get a head start on the work to keep her hands from shaking and her mind from wandering.

When the low voice she’d been waiting for greeted her, she nearly dropped the frosting she was refilling her bag with. “You scared me!” she scolded him, worried that a simple “Hello, Fallyn” from Vince would be read into by Loretta and reported back to her brothers as naked time with the enemy.

“You were going to school me on baking, since you’ve clearly got the market on that.” Vince teased her, sitting on the stool near the stove. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on. Impress me, Irish girl.”

Loretta looked on Vince with a healthy fear, noticing his gun sticking out of his belt. “Pumpkin, did you get a chance to fill the dairy order?”

“Yes. They’ll be here tomorrow.” Fallyn tried not to cringe at the childish nickname her employee addressed her with in front of Vince. He quirked his eyebrow at Fallyn to show his amusement.

“But we’re short for today. Do you want me to run to the store and pick up what we need? I’m all caught up here.”

Fallyn frowned, certain they would have enough supplies for the day’s work. Then it dawned on her that Loretta wanted to run away whenever Vince was in the room. “Sure. Here,” she walked into her office and pulled out a small lockbox, taking out a few bills. “This should do it.” She handed the fistful of cash to Loretta, who was halfway out the door with car keys clutched in her sweaty palms.

Once Fallyn was alone with Vince, her own palms began to sweat. She refused to look at him as she went back to frosting her four-tiered wedding cake. “I trust you got my note,” Vince said when it was clear Fallyn wouldn’t break the silence. He watched her nod, scrutinizing her every move. “I admit, I haven’t written a note to a girl in decades.”

“All that does is remind me that you’re old,” Fallyn quipped, her back to him. “But it was a lovely note. How are things going with getting your end of the city cleaned up?”

“Lots of resistance from the ones you’d expect it from. I don’t know why I thought getting rid of the cocaine itself would fix it all. They’ve found new suppliers from out of town and keep running our city into the ground. Had to have a chat with one of the sources last night.”

“I know exactly what ‘have a chat’ means. How bloody did it get?”

“Eight more bodies in the river, none of them ours, so it was a productive chat.” He paused, wishing she would turn around. “Fallyn?”

“No,” she ruled to whatever it was that he wanted from her. She knew that she couldn’t look at his handsome face, his angular jawline or his broad shoulders.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Still no, and you know why.”

Vince stood from his stool and walked slowly towards her, the predator and the prey. When his arm slipped around her to palm her stomach from behind, he pressed up against her to whisper in her ear. “I thought you were going to teach me how to bake. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

Fallyn’s eyes fluttered shut as she leaned against his chest, her heart stuttering at the danger he presented. “We can’t, and you know it.”

“We can’t bake together? Killian seems to think we can. He trusts me.” Vince tugged on a lock of her hair, inhaling the scent before burying his lips in the tresses. “Things are changing between our families,
tesoro
. I’m working hard to make sure they do. It won’t be like it was. Pretty soon, that’ll all be just a bad memory.”

She wanted to believe him, but knew it wasn’t that simple. “Pretty soon? My stitches only came out a few days ago.” She turned in his arms to finally look at him, her chest pressed against his. “I’m so proud of you and Killian for all that you’re doing. I really do believe that one day, it’ll be a good world where our families get along like they used to. The streets will be safer. Everything will be better because of you two.” She shook her head, casting her blue eyes filled with regret up at him. “But I don’t see a world existing where us being together will be seen as a good thing to them.”

Vince skipped over the parts he didn’t like, adoring her lovely face she finally left exposed to him. “You’re proud of me? I haven’t heard that in a long time.”

Fallyn’s nose crinkled. “I can’t imagine that’s true. You’re doing so much. You run businesses that thrive without Papa D’s drug money. You’re making your territory safer for your people. You’re making peace with age-old enemies. Who wouldn’t be proud of all you’ve accomplished? Our parents left a mess for you and Killian, but you’re both set on making something beautiful.”

Vince watched her praise him with unconcealed wonder after he ruled she was not mocking him. “You really think that about me?”

“I’m sure I’m only one of the many who do.”

Vince lowered his head and kissed Fallyn once, fending off the sexual beast that wanted to devour her whole. He felt her melt in his arms, savoring the sweetness of her that he could taste in each movement of their malleable lips. “
Dolcezza
, I’m falling hard for you. Please tell me you’ll help me find a way for us to be together.”

Fallyn shook her head too quickly, the confusion weighing heavy on her. “You know I went on a date!”

Vince chuckled, and the sound was rich and velvety. “Oh,
amoroso
, that only plays in my favor. That you think there’s anyone out there better for you than me? Tell me all about the poor soul who’s soon to have his heart broken. What’s his name?”

“James.”

Vince’s grin had a glint of evil to it, the dimple in his left cheek making him look younger and impossibly more handsome. “You look guilty. Like you know you want to be with me, but you’re trying to convince yourself there’s anyone better for the job. Keep dating him. I love a challenge.”

Fallyn pulled back, her head darting around to make sure no one was in the kitchen. Then she tugged on his shirt, leading him to her office where she shut the door on logic and gave in to her desire.

V
ince had
her pressed up against the wall, his kisses hard and laced with the fear of getting caught. “No one talks to me the way you do,” he admitted between kisses. “No one believes in me like you do.”

“That’s not true,” she panted, twining her fingers through his and letting him pin her hands above her head. Her eyes were wide at how easily she took to the position of restraint, and she worried she had lost the ability to say no to him. “Vince, I feel all the things you do. I keep trying to ignore it, but I’m too deep in it now. I’m… I’m…”

“You wore the red skirt for me,” he growled in her ear, palming her thigh through the material, hiking her skirt up to an indecent height so he could run his finger along her smooth skin. “Did you think about me while you got dressed this morning? Did you want me to want you this badly?”

“Yes,” she admitted, ashamed and excited as she gave a fruitless struggle in his grip.

“You don’t get to move. You decided to tease me with this skirt? The least you can do is hold still while I get a good look at you in it.” He kissed her while his free hand roamed her thigh beneath the material. “I’ve been wanting this for too long. I need you.”

In the next breath, her passion twisted to mourning as he kissed her again. “Stop!”

Vince released her from his hold, slowly deflating as he stepped back, supporting her jelly-like body in his arms. “I tried to stay away last week. It’s not working for me. I can’t pretend I’m not in this.”

“Well, you’re going to have to.” Fallyn righted herself and stood taller in his arms. “This will just have to be happy memories that stay in the past. We can look back on all of it and smile, knowing we shared something beautiful and nothing bad came of it.” She begged him with her eyes. “We have to.”

He brushed the hair from her face and kissed her lips again, soft and gentle. “But I want you. We’re good together. I know you feel it.”

Fallyn’s knees were weak. “You can’t possibly know that. We’ve never even had a day together. We only know the family end of each other. I don’t know what your favorite book is, how you like your burgers, how you…”

“Machiavelli’s
The Prince
is my favorite book. I like my burgers medium rare. I like my pasta handmade. I have a thing for classic cars, but never had the time to rebuild one myself, like Joey does. I like the winter but hate the snow. I think rap music is boring, and I can’t stand it when people talk about opera like they know so much about it. I drink limoncello when I’m happy, and Jack when I’m not.” He kissed her lips again, moaning at the sweet flavor of her. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, only tell me you’ll consider us. I want us to have that day together. A whole lifetime of days together.”

Fallyn gasped and pulled back, her wanton expression mutating to a hard frown. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Like what?”

“‘A lifetime of days together’? You’re talking permanence when we haven’t even gone on a first date. You’re just saying things you think I want to hear, but you can’t use the lines you’ve run on other girls, because I’m not some idiot you can manipulate with vague talk about a future together we’ll never have.”

Vince’s eyes widened at her sudden offense. “Do you think I say things like that to women? I’ve been with Maria for years, and I never let us have those conversations. We don’t even say ‘I love you’ to each other! I’ve never been in love. You’re the only woman I’ve had those permanent thoughts about.”

Fallyn took another step back, her indignation switching to worry. “Well, you can’t have those thoughts. You can’t think about me like that at all.”

“It’s my heart, and I decide how it breaks.” He thumped his fist to his chest. “I’m ending things with Maria when she gets home tonight. She’s been away visiting her cousin for the last week, which is the only reason I haven’t broken it off sooner.”

“Don’t,” Fallyn warned him. “Don’t you dare break up with her for me. I can’t give you anything!”

“You can give me a kiss when we can steal a minute together. And you’re right, you’re not cheap, and you’re not the other woman. Until you’re ready for me, there’ll be no women in my life.”

“Stop!” Fallyn shouted, panicking.

“I’ll wait for you to be ready for us.” With that, Vince kissed her once more. The brush of her lips to his was sweeping and grand, shushing the logic out of the conversation. “Killian invited me to play ball with your family tonight. It’s not exactly a date, but I can’t wait to see you there.”

“What?”

“He’s trying to smooth things over after the shooting incident, and thought this would be a good way to do it. One of me versus the whole O’Keefe clan. Let them feel safe around me.”

“Vince, no. It’s a bad idea. James is coming too, and my brothers don’t know I’ve gone on a date with him.”

Vince smiled lovingly at her. “Oh, honey. I’ll just stand back and wait for your brothers to do away with him. It’s almost too easy. Poor bastard.”

“You should want me to be happy,” she scolded him.

“I do, but you won’t be anything like happy with him.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I know he’s not me. I know your life, your world.” He kissed her again, stroking her plump lower lip with his thumb when he pulled away. “Tonight’s almost a date,” Vince said, squeezing her hand. “So I’ll take what I can get, even if it means walking into the lion’s den.”

A
s Fallyn drove
to the baseball diamond toward the east end of the park, her hands were shaking. She felt cold inside and out, and blamed it on the fact that she was wearing shorts. When she stepped out of her car, she was greeted by Declan, who took the box of muffins out of her trunk, along with her bat and glove. “Did you know about this whole Vince thing? If you want to go home, you can.”

“No, no. It’s good that Killian invited him. We have to stop fighting. If our families stop, everyone else will calm down a little. Vince is really trying to turn things around. We should support that. Support him however we can.”

Declan nodded. “I know, but his man shot you. I understand if you want to leave.”

Fallyn tugged on her blue baseball cap that matched her white fitted baseball shirt with blue stripes around the short sleeves. “I came here to play. And I barely got scratched by that bullet.” Her heart rose when she saw her father sitting on the bench with his breathing machine, his nurse at his side. “Hi, Daddy!” she called to him, waving. Her heart sank when he looked at her in confusion, and then turned away.

Declan wrapped his arm around her. “It’s alright, kiddo. It’s not just you today. He didn’t know who Danny was earlier, either. The doctor warned us there’d be good days and bad, with more bad days as things progressed.”

They divided up into the usual teams, with Killian, Finn and Fallyn pitted against Seamus, Carrigan, Danny and Declan. “You’re going down!” Seamus goaded Finn. “We kill when it’s baseball.”

When Vince saddled up in gym shorts and a white t-shirt, Fallyn’s eyes widened. She hadn’t seen him in anything but his business attire since she’d been school aged. “Hi, Vince.” She made a point of sounding normal and detached, as if he hadn’t been gripping her parted thighs.

“Little Keefer,” Vince acknowledged her with a nod.

Seamus waved his mitt toward Killian. “You take the handicap. Vince doesn’t know how to get things done without a gun. I’d put him far in the outfield if I was you.”

“Get it all out now,” Vince grinned, happy to be in the levity where no business decisions would have to be made, and hopefully no one would need killing. “You’ll be crying like a baby and begging for mercy when I get through with you.”

“Yeah?” Seamus shoved Vince a little too hard.

Vince tilted his head to the side to size up the man he knew he could take down, but shouldn’t. “Yeah. You look like the begging type.”

It teetered on a dime. There were too many men with too much pride all on one baseball diamond. Fallyn breathed when Carrigan clapped his hands and hooted his approval of the verbal jabs. “Alright, play ball, you clowns.”

Vince gave Carrigan a light shove to accompany his grateful smile, and Carrigan reciprocated with a nod of understanding. This wasn’t just a baseball game. This was step one of a familial merger.

Killian claimed Vince for his team, ensuring someone friendly would be there to watch him so no one tried anything. There were a few more insults thrown around that felt awkward at first, but eventually turned them all back into the adolescents that adulthood had attempted to crush out of each of them.

Killian cast around for James, but decided on starting without the newcomer, who Fallyn was beginning to learn was a man who was habitually late. As she was a person who was raised on five minutes early measuring out to being ten minutes late, this did not sit well with her. Though, as she didn’t want Vince anywhere near James, it worked out well for the event. Vince was on his best behavior, keeping any covert glances toward her to a minimum.

The ease of the game lifted her spirits, and she noted the difference in her family’s territory compared to Vince’s. Papa D had let drugs into his side, and they were still paying the price. The housing market was poor there now, where two decades ago it had been thriving. The crime was high and the streets were dangerous at night. The D’Amato family was close, but they weren’t allotted luxuries like baseball games in the park. Vince had his work cut out for him, but Fallyn had seen so much improvement in the year he had been in charge, she had no doubt that given more time, he would turn things around for his people.

When James finally showed up, it was forty-five minutes into the game. It was decided he would play against Killian’s team. “They need the help,” Killian called to James from the bench, giving Seamus the finger when he argued with his eldest brother from the pitcher’s mound. “Everyone, this is James. He works with Danny at the law office.”

Declan stood up straight, glaring at James. “Hey, I’ve seen you before. You’re the handsy guy who was sniffing around my sister last month.”

Killian’s head whipped toward Fallyn. “Last month?! You know this guy?”

James gave them all a meek smile, but Fallyn could see the deviant rising in Declan, Killian and Seamus. “Enough, guys. James is here to play baseball. Yes, we met last month. We went on a date, and that’s that. Deal with it!”

“You’ve been on a date with James?” Killian demanded to know what he had missed. He’d been assuming his sister was happy continuing through life celibate. “No.”

Fallyn’s shoulders hunched forward, narrowing her eyes at James for making this an issue by pushing to meet her brothers. “Look, it was one date, so don’t freak out. I thought we came here to play baseball.”

Danny looked torn between standing up to one of the junior partners in his firm and keeping his job. “Fally, he’s like, forty!”

James rolled his eyes. “I’m thirty-two, but thanks for that. We’re just getting to know each other, so I thought it would be good to get to know Fallyn’s family. She talks about you all so much.”

Seamus smacked the ball into his glove with a menace that made James take a step back. Fallyn was grateful Seamus wouldn’t be pitching to James. Vince was leaning back on the bench, his arms crossed over his chest as he chuckled under his breath at the scene.

“Something funny, new guy?” Fallyn demanded.

Vince’s chortle gave birth to a full laugh. “Oh, Little Keefer. So many things are funny right now. I mean, look at this poor bastard. Just walking straight into the lion’s den with a confident smile on his face. I do enjoy a good massacre. Better than Animal Planet.” He raised his hand. “Anyone feel like switching to football instead of baseball?”

The prospect of breaking one of James’ bones lit each of her brothers’ faces, and they nodded with too much glee at the suggestion. Fallyn stood, arms akimbo. “Knock it off, guys. You should respect James for coming here and trying to get to know the people in my life. Not many would have the guts to do that. And we’re playing baseball, not football. No matter who’s playing the game, baseball is
not
a contact sport, understood?” She walked over and grabbed the wooden baseball bat from the ground, smacking the middle to her hand with a sneer. “You’re all going to be cool, and nothing bad’s going to happen to James. In fact, he won’t so much as get a hangnail, or you’re all looking at replacing your windshields tomorrow.”

James gaped at Fallyn, as if seeing her in a new, less attractive light, but Fallyn refused to shrink.

“Come on, Fally. We’re just feeling him out.” Carrigan recalled Fallyn’s rage when they’d done away with Jeremy. She’d bashed in each of their cars’ windshields in retaliation back then, so they all knew she could make good on her threat. “Put the bat down. We won’t hurt him.”

Declan snarled, “Speak for yourself. My windshield’s already got a crack in it.” He pointed at James in accusation, who was growing more confused by the second. “I saw him grab her ass!”

James held up his hands and took a step back. “Whoa! That definitely did not happen.” He turned to Fallyn, whom he was beginning to understand was raised around more violence than he was used to. He’d been taken in by her demure smile and her admirable work ethic. The woman on a mission with a bat in hand on the field was not the one he’d been trying to cozy up to. She was a complete stranger to him. “Maybe this was a bad idea. I should go.”

“No! You’re in it now. You leave, and they win.” Fallyn was enraged at Declan. “He didn’t grab anything, you drama queen!”

“He came close enough.” Declan’s chin was raised in defiance while Vince held his hand over his mouth to stem his laughter.

When Declan took a step toward James, Fallyn turned and stomped toward the parking lot, bat in hand. “Have it your way!” she shouted, not caring that both James and Vince were seeing her act like the hooligan she’d been raised to be in situations where she felt cornered.

Carrigan reached her first, but Declan was close behind. Carrigan’s arms went around Fallyn while Declan jerked the bat from her hands. “I won’t do anything,” Declan sighed. “I hate him though. Like, actual hate. Physical hate. I saw him in the bakery and knew in a second he was no good.”

“Wow, that’s an excellent barometer you’ve got there. Do you also read minds, oh wise one?” Fallyn shook Carrigan off and stomped back to the bench, arms crossed over her breasts and a scowl etched on her face.