Mafia Boss & His White Rose novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: What He Didn't Say

He told me on the garden bench on Delancey Street, with a blanket over his knees and Nonna's driver parked at the curb.

Pippa had taken one look at us and announced she was going to sleep for a week.

The courtyard was cold, and the last white rose on the old bush hung from its cane.

"I never meant to hide it for the reason you think," said Domenico.

"What reason do I think?"

"That I was ashamed."

"Weren't you?"

"No." He looked at the rose. "I was afraid you would stay for the wrong thing."

I waited.

"My mother was sick for the whole of my childhood," he said. "People were kind to her in a way that made her smaller."

"They brought soup. They said, how brave. By the end she couldn't say a sentence without somebody pitying her at the end of it."

"I know that," I said.

"I know you do. You watched yours."

He turned the signet ring on his finger.

"If I'd said it in the club, you'd have been sorry for me before you knew my name," he said.

"I wanted one person to choose me before they knew what I was."

"It was a coward's reason."

"It was."

"It was also the worst plan I've ever heard."

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