Mafia Queen

Chapter Fifty One

Luca

"What about going on a Disney cruise? Layla would like that, wouldn't she?" I asked, scanning the webpage I had pulled up on my laptop. Charlotte was tangled up, still naked in the sheets next to me, pretending to fall asleep. It was no use, though. I still wasn't done with her—we were only taking a little break.

"Luca," Char groaned, turning towards me. "You can't buy your daughter's love."

I arched an eyebrow at her. "I can try."

"She needs time." Charlotte propped herself up, smiling sympathetically. "Look, I know this is hard for you, but you just need to talk to her, spend some time just the two of you. She wants to know you're not going anywhere."

"It's not that simple. This is killing me." I sighed. "She's never rejected me this way. She's always been my little girl and now it's like she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you." Charlotte put her hand to my cheek. "She's confused."

"I'll try things your way." I leaned down and kissed her forehead. "But I'm still going to book this cruise, just in case. It'll be nice to get away for a while. Just the five of us."

Charlotte laughed. "You do realize that just the five of us means sharing a room on a boat with our three children. That means no sex."

My eyes widened. "On second thought, let's invite Angelo and Julia. And I guess Marco and Hailey. And I guess if we do that, we have to invite your brothers and Jenni and Lily."

"So much for a little family vacation." She smiled.

"Hey," I smiled, setting my laptop aside and putting my arm around her. "As long as I get some alone time with you, I don't care who's there. Speaking of alone time..." I moved up so that I was straddling her. "Ready for around four?"

"Oh my gosh, Luca." She blushed. "I can hardly move. There's no way I can do it again."

"Don't worry, you can just lay there." I grinned, taunting her.

"Or you could go downstairs and get me some ice cream and we could lie in bed and cuddle?" The cutest smile spread across her face. Why did she have to be so damn adorable?

I sighed, caving into her wishes and standing up to go downstairs. I put a pair of sweatpants on just in case. "You better not tell any of my men that I do shit like this. I have an image to protect and cuddler is not part of that."

"You're secret is safe with me." She gave me a sleepy smile. Yeah, there was no doubt in my mind that she would be asleep by the time I got back up here.

I padded down the stairs and noticed a light was already on in the kitchen. That was strange. I came around the corner slowly to find Layla sitting at the counter cutting up a banana and putting it in a cereal bowl.

"What are you doing down here, baby?" I asked, frowning slightly. The kids weren't supposed to get up unless one of us was up with them, and especially not using knives unsupervised, but I wasn't about to reprimand her and make her even more upset with me.

She looked up at me cautiously. "Mommy forgot to give me my midnight snack like Auntie Jenni does."

Her little voice was so quiet and unsure that it cut me like a knife.

"Auntie Jenni gives you cereal at bedtime?"

Layla nodded.

"Well, I've got something better if you're interested." I gave her a little smile.

She looked intrigued, eyeing me as I walked to the freezer and pulled out the gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream. "What do you think?" I held it out to her.