Read Online Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini by Mallory Monroe - Free Book Online Page A

him
unconditionally.   Other times she was the
bitch of bitches, a woman nobody in their right mind would want to be around.
    But good or bad, she was his mother.
    He leaned over and hugged her.   “ It’s okay, Ma,” he
said, fighting back tears as hers shed.   “It’ll only be for five weeks.   I’ll
be back in five weeks.”  
    “That’s the whole summer.”
    “I know.   Dad wants me there with him and his new family.   But I’ll be back.”
    Then Jimmy looked past his mother as Fred
Ridgeway stepped out of the house carrying two suitcases.   He and his mother stopped embracing. “I’d
better go.   Dad’s come outside.”
    Nell looked across the lawn at her ex.   He was lifting the trunk of his car and
putting his suitcases in.   He was a lean
man like Jimmy who once loved her and begged her to marry him after she returned
to Crane, fifteen years ago, with a two-year old son.   They would say he impregnated her before she
left town, was what he told her.   Jimmy,
he had said, wouldn’t be a bastard child, but would be raised as his son.
      Although Shanell knew her son was no “bastard”
no matter what the circumstance, she knew he would need a father.   So she married Fred Ridgeway and they both
told Jimmy that he was his father.   She
never regretted telling him that, either.   Given the circumstances surrounding the birth, and given the lifestyle
of the man who was his real father, she knew it was the best thing for her
son.  
    But now, as Fred Ridgeway was about to take
her son away from her, for the entire summer, to be with some strange woman and
her family, she wasn’t so sure.
    Nell patted her son on his chest.   “Be good,” she said and kissed him lightly on
the cheek.
    Jimmy smiled, but she could see his
anguish.   He’d always held out hope that
she and Fred would someday reconcile.   But now, with this pending marriage to this Nebraskan woman Fred was
hooking up with, that reconciliation seemed, as Nell knew it was all along,
impossible.
    And as her son walked across the lawn toward
his father, and as Nell got back into her Mustang and watched he and his dad go
back inside that house, she closed her eyes in pain.   Somehow she couldn’t shake the feeling that
Fred was about to marry the woman of his dreams, and she was about to lose
everything.   She didn’t know why she felt
that way, but she couldn’t shake the feeling.

 
    The apple-red, high-revved Porsche zoomed into
the driveway of the modest, wood-framed home.   Reno, behind the wheel, and Trina on the front passenger seat beside
him, stared up at the big, two story , residence with
long, wraparound porches on the first floor and the second floor.   There was nothing remarkable about the place,
other than its size, and Reno immediately realized its lack of character.
    “You have got to be kidding me,” he said.   “I told those realtors to find me the best
house they had to offer in this town.   This
is the best they have to offer?”
    “Oh, Reno, it’s cute.”
    Reno looked at Trina.   “Cute?   It looks like an oversized white, wooden box, Tree.”
    Trina knew that Reno had never lived in a
modest home in his life, but she’d lived in plenty.   “It’ll do just fine,” she said.
    “And look,” Reno said, nodding his head toward
the front porch.   Trina looked as a tall
white woman came bounding out of the house.   She was smiling and waving.  
    “Who the hell is that?” Reno wanted to
know.   “Pollyanna?”
    Trina smiled and hit him lightly on his
muscular arm, an arm revealed by the short-sleeved polo shirt he wore.   “Don’t start, Reno,” she warned, and began
getting out of the car.  
    Reno couldn’t help but smile himself, as he
got out, too.
    Blossom Spivey, the realtor, stood on the
porch and held her clipboard over her squinted eyes.   The glare of the Georgia sun made it almost
impossible for her to get a perfect look, but she was able to quickly size them
up.