Page 207 of Snaring Emberly
“What do you want from me?” I ask with a sigh. “There’s nothing more for you to take. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
He lowers himself onto the sofa beside me and sets down the mug. “You already know the answer.”
“There’s no way you can love someone whose father destroyed your family. How could you not look at me and see Frederic Capello?”
“Emberly.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Look at me,” he says.
I shake my head.
Roman leans so close that he’s sharing his body heat. I reach out a hand and shove him back, but he grabs my wrist.
“What?” I look him in the eye.
“Did you know I grew up around Samson and Gregor Capello?” he asks. “They were the same age as Benito. I was too busy hanging out with my cousin, Leroi, to pay them much attention, but you could easily be their little sister.”
I try not to bristle at the comparison to the Capello twins, but even I saw the family resemblance when I’d looked them up online.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I won’t deny you’re his daughter, but I do see you as your own person. You’re nothing like that bastard and his psycho sons. Your mother spent your entire childhood keeping you away from them, and it shows.”
“Meaning?”
He cups my cheek. “You’re strong, brave, compassionate.”
I roll my eyes.
“You are. How many women would see my arrangement with Officer McMurphy in prison as exploitation?”
“Well, she took advantage,” I say with a sniff.
His eyes soften. “There you are, still looking out for my welfare.”
My jaw clenches. He’s doing it again. Bringing up something incendiary to shift my focus. Now I’m feeling protective.
“Just…” I shake my head. “Just get me a snack.”
Roman kisses my forehead before handing me my tea, which is now the perfect temperature for drinking as well as the perfect level of sweetness. I lean back on the sofa and sigh.
Moments later, he places a plate of banana brownies on the coffee table. They’re leftovers from the organic food box that he must have found in the glass container.
After taking two cans from the cupboards, he returns to the refrigerator and extracts a pile of vegetables. “Minestrone soup okay with you?”
My brows rise. That wasn’t this week’s food delivery. “You can make that?”
He turns the heat under a large saucepan. “I’ve been taking lessons from Sofia.”
“Since when?” I ask.
“Since my social calendar became bleak.”
He doesn’t need to voice the last part of the sentence. Instead, he chops the vegetables with chef-like precision and adds them to the pan.
My lips tighten. I’m sure he wants me to think he’s been pining for me since I left. The truth to his statement is more nuanced. In the month after he was released from prison, I was his biggest project. The heiress to his family’s stolen fortune.