Mafia Secret (12 page)

She couldn't help the small step back at his venomous tone as he leaned over her.

"You won't like what'll happen when your con is revealed. People who mess with the Tazios tend to have an expiration date."

"Enough!" Marc strode into the office. He pulled Lessa away from Tony and put himself between them. "She's done nothing to you."

Tony grinned. "You're certainly playing the hero for all the females in this family. Shouldn't you be with your grieving fiancée?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but Clarissa and I are no longer engaged."

Tony laughed meanly. "Really? So who dumped whom? Let me guess, Clarissa dumped you. So, here you are working on the other daughter? She's just a bimbo cheerleader, right?"

Marc stepped closer to Tony. "Are you that worried about your place in the family?"

Tony's face turned red and his hands curled into fists. "I'm not the one who has to worry. Clarissa dumped you. Jio will be next. He hates you as much as I do."

Tony shoved past Marc and glared at Lessa as he rushed from the room.

"He always knows how to make his point." Ryan shook his head as he stood.

Marc's gaze swept over her, and he touched her shoulder with his hand. "You all right?"

"I'm fine." Lessa forced a brave smile. She wasn't really. Tony had frightened her in a way she hadn't thought possible. "He doesn't like me much."

"Has nothing to do with you." Marc frowned at Ryan. "What's going on?"

"Jio had Vivian do the DNA test."

"Vivian." Marc raised an eyebrow and shook his head, mumbling under his breath.

She almost asked if Vivian was Jio's girlfriend, but gritted her teeth shut. Adrenaline ran through her veins, and she recognized the "fight or flight" response working perfectly.

"What did the test show?" Marc touched her arm this time, as if letting her know he was talking to her.

She took a deep breath and forced her edgy thoughts to focus. "She has to send it in for the results. They went off to get a sample from Edoardo. Something about the test being more accurate and quicker if there was more than Jio and me to compare."

Marc nodded, but his eyes weren't focused on her. He seemed distracted.

"I saw you'd gone out." Ryan changed the subject "Find anything?"

Marc's frown returned. "No, we'll go back out tonight"

MacDonald picked up his briefcase. "Hope you learn something." He smiled at Lessa and offered his hand. She grasped it, hoping she wasn't trembling. "If you need anything, call me."

Marc's hand touched her back. Lessa nodded and dropped Ryan's as a completely different type of tremor made its way up her spine.

The attorney looked from Lessa to Marc. "Take care of her."

"I am," Marc growled.

"Good." Ryan hesitated a moment, but left the room at last.

Marc's hand dropped as soon as he was out of sight. "What did Tony say to you?"

Lessa turned her head to look fully into his face. Surprisingly, his mask was gone, and she could see concern clearly written in his features. "He thinks I'm a conniving gold-digger, but we already knew that." His frown deepened. "I'm all right, Marc." As she said the words, she made herself believe them. "Tony wanted to speak with me alone, but Ryan refused to leave."

"It shouldn't have happened." His voice remained rough. "Where's Nina?"

Lessa instinctively smoothed her hand down his arm to sooth his distress. "I was with her when Jio came to get me for the test."

"Where's Jio?"

She cocked her head. "He went to find Edoardo."

"He shouldn't have left you with Tony."

His insistence on that point did nothing to help her calm down. She huffed a breath out. "You aren't reassuring me."

"I don't want to." He shook his head. "Sorry, it's been a bad day."

She forced a small smile. "Yes, it has. How are you?"

Marc answered her meager smile with a slow one of his own. "I don't want to talk about it." He took a deep breath. "You're getting along with Nina?"

"Yes, she makes a very good babysitter."

He slanted an amused look at her. "Someone has to watch over you, as has been so clearly demonstrated."

"I wasn't complaining." Well, maybe just a little, but what she really wanted to complain about was her family's lack of welcome. She didn't know how much more outright hostility she could take. And why would she want to? "There doesn't seem to be a reason for me to stay. I've met my family, taken the DNA test, had not-so-pleasant conversations with my siblings, hung out by the pool." Her frustration was clear in her voice. She wasn't good at the poker-face thing like Marc and didn't feel like acting like everything was all right.

"It's just going to take a little time for them to get used to you. The family's a tight-knit group." He paused. "What did Tony say?"

How had he known that her confrontation with Tony was why she wanted to leave? "It'd be better for me to head home. If any of them want to talk with me, they know where to find me."

Marc frowned and put his hands on her shoulders. "You agreed to give it a week."

"I agreed to come and meet them as he requested, and I have. You can't force someone to have a connection they don't want."

"I'll have a talk with them."

"That's not what I'm saying." She tried not to let her disappointment creep into her voice. "It's time for me to go home."

"Take a walk with me."

"Why?" Suspicion rose within her. He was going to show her something to try to force her to stay.

"I need some air." He led the way out of the office, then out the front door. The sun was just beginning its drop into the orange and pinks. "And I have more to show you."

She just bet he did. "Marc…"

"This way."

He didn't take her hand to tug her along as he had the night before. Instead, he strode out purposefully, and she had to jog a couple of steps to catch up to him.

As they rounded the corner, they came to the side of the house where she'd originally arrived. At the time she'd been so focused on the mansion itself she'd barely noticed the ten–stall garage.

Marc paused, his gaze finally coming back to her. "The garage."

"Kinda obvious." She hugged herself and rocked back on her heels. "That has ten bays, and there are several cars in the front of the house and three outside the garage."

"We have a lot of cars. Personal and business."

Next to the garage, she spotted the one she'd been driven around in. She wrinkled her nose.

"The boys who stay on campus live in the apartments above the garage."

Little windows lined the top of the two-story garage.

"The boys?"

"You met one of them last night."

"You mean guards."

He shrugged. "Part of the job description." He started walking again past the garage at a slower pace.

Lessa noted one of the boys walking the perimeter of the pool. Marc nodded to him as they passed and headed in the direction of the vine-covered hills.

He ran a hand through his hair and dropped it. "About Tony—"

"Tony doesn't matter anymore." She sighed. "I think I can avoid him until I leave."

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Jio was already planning on keeping Tony out of the way. You don't need to run off on his account."

"I'm not."

"Look." He stopped and turned to her. "Give it a couple more days."

She raised an eyebrow. "That's not very convincing."

Marc rocked back on his heels and dropped his hands on her shoulders as he had earlier. "You'll regret being run off. You'll wonder what could have happened if you'd stuck it out."

He might be right, but he'd also made it clear he didn't believe her father should have invited her to come there. How much of his protestation was real and how much was him following his old boss' orders?

"I could regret not leaving before things get worse."

"You're being dramatic."

Lessa raised her eyebrows and stayed silent.

His lips curved. "I'm being cautious not dramatic. Come on." He released her shoulders and grabbed her hand to tug her after him.

At the familiar gesture some of the tension she'd been carrying released, and she let him pull her after him. The dirt lane bordering the house was thankfully easy to traverse in her sandals.

"Where are we going?"

"Just giving you a feel for the land, since you're going to be spending a lot of time here."

She sighed. "You don't give up easy."

"I didn't think you did."

She jerked him to a stop. "Now, wait a minute. You have no right to judge me."

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are. You spend half your time issuing dire warnings, with the seeming intention of running me off, and the rest of the time acting like I somehow owe it to Jiovanni to hang out here and wait until one of my half-siblings condescends to speak with me." She placed her hands on her hips, warming up to her rant. "You pop in and out whenever you feel like it, leaving me to be babysat like a child. I can't fathom why you'd think I'd want to hang around for another day?

"That's not—"

"It's not like he even wanted to meet me or get to know me. He had me summoned after he died. For what purpose? To stir up trouble with his family, because that's all that's been accomplished—"

"Jiovanni was respecting your mother's wishes to leave you alone."

She rolled her eyes. "If he'd had any interest in me, he wouldn't have waited until after he died to contact me."

He clenched his jaw before huffing out a breath. "You didn't know him."

"No." She breathed deeply. "I didn't know him at all. You know, I almost cried for him at the funeral until I realized my sadness wasn't for him, but for what he represented and for what he took away by being my real father."

He kicked at the dirt, staring at the ground a moment. "I think I've been a little too forthcoming with my own feelings about all of this. I didn't know about you, Lessa, so I can only guess as to his reason for sending me to bring you here. But it's still just a guess. Family was important to Jiovanni."

She barely prevented herself from rolling her eyes in exasperation. "So, you've told me multiple times, but he's not here, is he?" At Marc's slight flinch, remorse flickered through her. She kept forgetting he'd actually been close to her father and had to be grieving. "I'm sorry. I'm…" She closed her eyes, trying to pull her thoughts together, but all she could think of was going home and leaving the turmoil behind her.

"Don't worry about it."

His hand grabbed hers again, and she opened her eyes. His smile was back in place, making her wonder if she'd imagined the flash of grief.

"I want to show you my favorite place."

"It won't change my mind."

"We'll see."

He led her to another building she'd barely noticed while sitting by the pool, figuring it had something to do with the vineyard. It wasn't until they'd walked around a bend in the dirt lane that she could see the clearing around the building and the horses behind the fences.

"A stable?"

"Know how to ride?" He stopped at the fence and leaned his arms along the top rail.

"Nope." Lessa didn't consider the few trail rides she'd gone on in summer camp to count. A brown horse walked up to them, sniffing at Marc first before checking her out. As she'd been taught, she held her hand out for him to smell before reaching up to pet him between his eyes. Except she wasn't sure if the friendly horse was a he or a she.

"I could teach you." Marc ruffled the horse's forelock. "He's gentle, but you'd have to stay for more than a day."

"What makes you think I want to?" She raised an eyebrow as she cocked her head to look at his face.

It was relaxed in a way she hadn't seen before as he grinned first at the horse and then at her. "You're not afraid of him. Besides, every little girl loves horses."

"I'm not a little girl."

He shrugged. "Vertically challenged."

Despite her amusement, she dropped her hand and pivoted on her heel to fix him with a glare. "Excuse me. You didn't just insult me?"

He reached up to brush her hair behind her shoulder, then rested his fingers on her neck. She froze, surprised by the gesture. It wasn't the first time he'd touched her. In fact, he touched her a lot, but this was much more intimate than any of the others. Her eyes locked with his, and she felt like she was under a spell at his intense gaze.

His hand dropped to his side as he looked away first. "Come on, I'll give you your first lesson now."

He didn't wait for her to respond, but walked along the fence toward the barn door. The horse followed him until the side of the barn forced it to go inside. Lessa's feet took a moment to respond to her command to follow Marc, but she finally stepped into the interior. Plenty of light filtered in through the large doors on both ends of the building. Marc was nowhere to be seen.