Page 109 of Made in Love and Blood

“We don’t need to spell it all out,” Salvatore muttered, cutting her off.

Nico rocked on his heels. “Oh, but I do like things clear.”

Salvatore gave the two of them a look that he hoped screamed he was over the entire conversation. It was becoming harder to ignore Carina’s soft giggling at his back. “Stop fucking around. It is clear. No sex unless married on my property. It’s called respect. It’s the least you can do, do you understand me?”

Nico nodded. “Got it.”

“Yep,” Frankie joined. “We understand.”

He didn’t know why...but they looked suspicious.

“Get out of my face and be seen together only when required so that’s one less thing I have to handle tonight, please.”

The two did not be need to be told again. He watched Nico’s hand find Frankie’s lower back as they exited the kitchen. He realized when his daughter pushed back into that hand how his instruction could be interpreted, and how much more there was to physical intimacy besides actual sex.

“Oh, wow, you really played yourself there,” Carina murmured, clapping softly behind him. “Good job.”

“Just...just not now,” he uttered.

His beautiful wife kept laughing.

14. — rain...

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Staten Island, New York

Frankie, Gallo Estate

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“Just so you know,” Carina said beside Frankie where they stood side by side on the front steps, “your father will adjust those rules he mentioned earlier. He’s distracted right now and knows today isn’t the best time for that entire conversation.”

Frankie, eyeing where Nico leaned against the hood of his Mustang while smoking a cigarette, tried not to grin. And failed so miserably that her stepmother outright laughed.

“Thanks for the heads up.”

She did look at Carina to find her stepmother stared back, unflinching and unashamed with a conspiratorial glint in her eye. Only then did Frankie truly correlate the world-renowned beauty Carina really was with the sacrifices she had paid to become it.

It ached a little. Somewhere deep.

“Women need to look out for one another, we’re the only other people in the world who really gets it—who knows what it means to be one,” Carina said softly. “And I swear, it’s even worse when you’re born a beautiful woman.”

“Three minutes out now,” Salvatore said, nodding at a retreating Larkin as he announced the first visitor’s arrival to the community gates. Only a handful of people would be allowed to park on the estate’s property; the rest would be delegated to the road by a paid valet and a neighbor’s equally large garage for another handful of people that specifically requested such a thing. “Let’s get this shitshow over with.”

“Sal, you know I worked so freaking hard here—”

“It looks amazing in there,” he interjected, dropping a kiss to Carina’s smiling mouth before he found his spot next to her side. He breathed deeply, his next words almost sounding as if he were trying to convince himself and not them of how the night would go. “It all is going to be great, and you did that.”

She just smiled over at Frankie.

Who shook her head back.

“Hey,” Carina added quieter to her, bumping their shoulders.

“Yeah?”

“I have another ultrasound in a couple of weeks. Would you want to go with me?”