Fall For My Ex's Mafia Dad novel Chapter 44

Kent storms into the dining room, where the table is set for four. He sits down hard in his chair at the head of the table, waving at the place settings on either side of him.

“Remove these,” he says to the waitstaff, biting off the words in his frustration. “Have Daniel’s and Fay’s plates sent up to Fay’s room, they’ll take their supper there.”

The waitstaff give each other worried looks but silently do as they’re told. The chef comes out next, looking around the room.

“Sir?” He asks, his French accent heavy in the word. “Will you be dining alone?”

“Apparently,” Kent says, angry that Fiona isn’t here either. “Please bring it out.”

The chef nods, impassive, and heads back into the kitchen. A few moments later he appears again with Kent’s first course - salmon tartare with a small side salad and a freshly-sliced French baguette.

Kent ignores the fish and reaches directly for the bread, slathering it with butter as he sits back in his chair and thinks.

Thinks, inevitably, about her.

God damnit, he almost couldn’t take looking at her tonight, sitting there in her bed, crying as if her heart would break. He had tried – tried to break the mood, to cajole her out of it, to scare her out of it by pounding on the wall –

But she had just kept crying –

He grits his teeth between bites of bread, angry with himself for not being able to control himself. For wanting, even now, to dash up those stairs and so something – anything – to make her stop.

But she was Daniel’s problem now, a right with Daniel had just asserted upstairs. Kicking him out and keeping Fay all to himself.

Kent has tried, these past few weeks. Tried to distract himself, to busy himself with his work and his plans, tried to ignore her when she walks by, the light lily scent of her shampoo drifting through the air –

But the idea of it, of them building a life together, of her smiling at his son while she bore his children –

Kent grits his teeth and pounds his fist against the table once. God damnit.

He stares down at his plate as his mind races.

What could he do. What, really, was the other option. Could he, somehow, claim her for his own – convince Daniel to give her up, to move on to someone else –

Kent scoffs at himself, then, putting his hand over his face, disgusted. What was he thinking – trying to find a way to take his son’s fiancé from him? It was unthinkable, despicable. Daniel would never forgive him, and Alden –

God damnit, Kent had never been in such a tight spot. Had never wanted something so badly, and yet had it so completely forbidden to him – in terms of morality, of honor, of political alliance, of family. Absolutely forbidden.