Falling for My Ex’s Mafia Dad — Episode 20
Fay rubbed her forearms, but the chill had nothing to do with the kitchen’s temperature. Kent had crossed the room without looking back, while her body continued responding as if his hand remained against her cheek. Shame and fascination tangled too tightly to separate.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said. Fay kept her eyes on Kent’s broad back. The apology felt absurd coming from the man she was supposed to marry for something his father had done, yet the entire arrangement was built on absurdities no ordinary engagement could survive.
“Does he have any boundaries?” she asked. Daniel lifted his coffee with a tired expression. Kent recognized only the limits he chose, and everyone in the household eventually learned to work around them. “You get used to it,” he said.
Fay doubted that. Becoming accustomed to Kent would mean accepting the way fear and attraction arrived together whenever he entered a room. Her professional mind identified manipulation and dominance; another part of her remembered the careful leaf in her cappuccino. She resented him most for making those opposing truths exist inside the same moment.
Daniel followed her gaze and lowered his voice. “Don’t mistake attention for safety.” His father could be protective, even generous, but every gift carried expectation. Daniel had spent his life learning that affection from Kent often felt like another command.
Fay asked whether Kent behaved this way with every woman. Daniel hesitated, which told her the answer mattered. His father had never lacked companions, but flirtation usually bored him once it became easy. Fay’s resistance appeared to have made her more interesting. Daniel warned that Kent pursued challenges with the same focus he brought to territory, and he was unaccustomed to surrendering either.
“That isn’t reassuring,” she muttered. Daniel almost smiled. He reminded her of their rules: they would protect each other, even from the complications inside the engagement. Neither said aloud that Kent had become the most dangerous complication of all.
The kitchen door swung open before Fay could ask more. A woman swept inside wearing fuzzy slippers and a leopard-print silk robe tied loosely at the waist. She moved with the confidence of someone who considered the Lippert mansion her own.
Fay watched heads turn in greeting. The woman was glamorous even before breakfast, with dark hair, immaculate makeup, and a body displayed rather than merely dressed. Armed guards smiled at her, revealing an ease none had shown Fay.
“I thought everyone dressed for breakfast here,” Fay whispered. Daniel’s mouth tightened. “We do. Fiona does what she wants.” His tone contained affection, resignation, and something Fay could not yet name.
The name struck Fay a second later. Fiona was the woman who had taken her blood, though clinical clothes and concentration had hidden this extravagant version of her. The soft voice beside the needle belonged to someone with deep access to Kent’s private household. Fay wondered how many of the woman’s medical duties existed only because Kent trusted her with secrets no ordinary doctor could know.
Fiona spotted Kent near the stove and brightened. She crossed the kitchen without acknowledging anyone else, slid both arms around his neck, and rose on her toes. Kent steadied her at the waist with automatic familiarity.
She demanded a proper welcome. Kent kissed her. It was not the restrained greeting Fay expected in a crowded kitchen; it carried the ease of repetition and the confidence of two people who knew exactly how they fit together.
Something twisted beneath Fay’s ribs. The sensation arrived sharp and irrational, more painful because she had no claim to the man causing it. Kent was her captor, her future father-in-law, and the architect of the lie that cost her family. Jealousy had no defensible place among those facts. Yet watching Fiona touch him with unquestioned familiarity made Fay feel like an outsider in a house where she was supposedly the honored guest.
Daniel studied Fay rather than the couple. She lowered her eyes to her plate, pretending renewed interest in cold eggs. The effort came too late. His expression told her he had seen the reaction and understood it. That knowledge created a new secret between the supposed fiancés, one more dangerous than the arrangement they had made upstairs.
Kent whispered into Fiona’s ear. She laughed, full-throated and comfortable, then followed his glance across the room. Her attention landed directly on Fay. The laughter faded into appraisal.
Fay straightened in her chair. She refused to look guilty for a feeling she had neither invited nor acted upon. Still, the diamonds of last night seemed to return around her throat, tightening like evidence of an engagement she could not honor even in thought.
Fiona released Kent and adjusted her robe. He said something that made her eyebrows rise, presumably explaining the Alden discovery and Daniel’s future bride. Surprise gave way to curiosity—and then to a knowing smile that unsettled Fay.
She crossed the kitchen while Kent remained behind, watching both women. Daniel stood as Fiona approached, but she waved him back into his seat. Her gaze traveled over Fay’s face, pausing at the cheek Kent had touched minutes earlier.
“So,” Fiona said, extending one perfectly manicured hand, “you’re the famous Fay.” Her smile widened as she added the detail Kent had apparently omitted: she was not merely the household medic. She was the Mafia King’s lover—and she intended to learn why Kent could not stop watching his son’s fiancée.
