68

68
Emilia’s POV
The park had started to empty out, the sun already setting. I sat on a bench, watching Francesca dart between the swings and the slides, her face lit up with a kind of pure, unbridled joy I hadn’t seen in a while. It was infectious, and despite the little argument between Alaric and me earlier, I found myself smiling.
Alaric was standing a few feet away, his eyes following Francesca with a mix of protectiveness and something softer that I couldn’t quite place. There was no trace of the coldness and bitterness I had seen in him earlier. And even if his words really stung me, I understood. He looked… different here. More at ease, less like the ruthless mafia leader I’d come to know and more like just a man-a father watching his daughter. I couldn’t help but wonder who he might have been if his life had taken a different path.
I got up and walked over to him, feeling the crunch of gravel beneath my shoes. He didn’t acknowledge me right away, but I knew he’d noticed. He always did.
“You seem relaxed,” I said, trying to ease into the conversation.
He glanced at me, his expression guarded. “She’s happy,” he replied simply, nodding toward Francesca. “It’s hard not to be relaxed when she’s like this.”
I nodded, watching Francesca run up to another kid and make an instant friend. “You’re good with her,” I said quietly. I needed him to understand that he wasn’t as bad as he thought he was.
Alaric let out a soft, almost self-deprecating laugh. “Am I?” he asked. “I never know if I’m doing this right.”
I looked up at him, surprised by the vulnerability in his voice. “You are,” I said. “She adores you. You can see it in the way she looks at you.”
He was quiet for a moment, his gaze still fixed on Francesca. “I just want her to have a better life,” he murmured. “Better than the one I had.”
There it was again, that flicker of something deeper beneath his cold exterior. I hesitated, then decided to push a little, curious about what lay beneath his hardened shell. “What was your childhood like?” I asked.
He remained quiet for a few minutes, and I wondered if I’d crossed a line. But then he sighed, a long, heavy sound that seemed to carry the weight of years.
“Complicated,” he said finally. “My father was… strict, to put it mildly. I was groomed for this life from the moment I could walk. There wasn’t much room for anything else.”
“Did you ever want something different?” I asked, genuinely curious.
He looked at me then, really looked at me, as if trying to decide whether he should tell me the truth. “All the time,” he admitted. “But wanting something doesn’t change what is. It doesn’t change the responsibilities you’re born into.”
I felt a pang of sympathy for him. “That sounds… lonely,” I said softly.
He glanced away, his jaw tightening. “It was,” he said. “But it also made me who I am. And if I’d had a different life, I wouldn’t have Francesca.”
There was so much unsaid in that one sentence. I could see the love he had for his daughter. It made my heart ache for him, and I got the answer to the question that I had been asking myself for a while. If he hadn’t been born into this world, he would have been a really, really great guy. The kind of guy I could actually let myself care for without all the complications that came with his name.
“You know,” I said, trying to lighten the mood a bit, “I think you’re better than you give yourself credit for.”
He raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Is that so?”
I shrugged, smiling back at him. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
We both fell silent for a moment, just watching Francesca play. It felt comfortable, the silence between us, like we were sharing something we didn’t need to put into words. And I realized I liked this side of him-the side that wasn’t trying to be the boss, the enforcer, the untouchable mafia king. Just a man, standing in a park with his daughter and the woman who, against all logic, was starting to care about him more than she wanted to admit.
“We should head back soon,” Alaric said, breaking the silence. “It’s getting late.”
I nodded, but as we turned to call Francesca, my foot caught on a stone. I stumbled, barely catching myself before I hit the pavement, but Alaric’s reflexes were faster. He reached out, his arm slipping around my waist as he pulled me upright.
The contact sent a shock through me, like an electric current racing from where his hand gripped my side, all the way through my body and pooling low in my belly. I sucked in a breath, looking up at him, and found his face inches from mine. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes… they were dark, intense, focused solely on me.
“Careful,” he said, his voice rougher than before. He didn’t let go right away, his fingers lingering at my waist, the heat of his touch searing through the fabric of my dress.
“I-” My words faltered as I realized how close we were standing. I could feel the hard lines of his body pressed against mine, and it sent a rush of something heady and dangerous through me. Desire for him. I wasn’t supposed to be having that.
“Alaric,” I whispered, not even sure what I was going to say next.
He looked down at me, his gaze flicking to my lips for just a second before he seemed to catch himself. He stepped back, his hand dropping from my waist as if he’d been burned. “Let’s get Francesca,” he said, his voice clipped, almost like he was angry-maybe at me, maybe at himself.
I swallowed, trying to gather my thoughts. My heart was beating wildly in my chest. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“Frankie sweetie!” He called out and she came running over, her cheeks flushed from the cold air.
“Can we come back tomorrow?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“We’ll see,” Alaric said, ruffling her hair. His voice was softer now, all that thick tension from a moment ago seemingly vanished. But when he glanced at me, I could still see the storm in his eyes.
We walked back to the car, Francesca skipping ahead, blissfully unaware of the undercurrent between her father and me. I tried to focus on her, to keep my mind from replaying the feeling of Alaric’s hand on my waist, the way his body had pressed against mine, but it was no use. The memory was burned into my skin, and I knew that whatever line we’d been trying not to cross, we were standing right on the edge of it now.
As we reached the car, Alaric opened the door for Francesca, helping her into the backseat. I moved to get in the passenger side, but before I could, he caught my wrist, holding me back for just a second.
“Emilia,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Be careful.”
It wasn’t a warning, not exactly. It was more like a plea, a request wrapped up in layers of things he wasn’t ready to say out loud.
I met his gaze, my heart pounding in my chest. “I could say the same to you,” I whispered.
He held my stare for a beat longer before letting go of my wrist and stepping back, giving me space. I climbed into the car, willing my racing heart to calm.