Pride (In Wilde Country Book 1) Read Free Page A

Bianca say and despite the heat of the moment, it was all he could do not to turn and hug her. “We are Sicilians.”
    “And American,” Alessandra added. “Thanks to our father.”
    “Your father,” Caleb Wilde said, his mouth turning down at the corners.
    “ Si . Our father. He was American.”
    “You talk about him as if he’s dead.”
    “He is very much alive, as you well know. It is in our hearts that he is dead.”
    “And where is he this morning?” Bianca asked. “Has he run away like the coward he is?”
    “You’ve got that right,” Jake Wilde said grimly. “The SOB is gone.”
    Silence descended on the group, what Luca would later think of as a meaningful silence. Matteo broke it by clearing his throat.
    “Assuming one likes the idea of being American, it is the one decent thing he did for us.”
    Luca folded his arms and grunted.
    “I take it,” Travis said coldly, “that was a ‘no.’”
    “What’s wrong with being American?” Jake demanded.
    Luca gave an expressive shrug.
    “Nothing, I suppose.” His smile was a bright and phony as a bank of neon lights. “It’s the Texan part that we can live without.”
    “Listen, Bellini—”
    “No. You listen, Wilde—”
    “Goddammit!”
    Lissa Wilde marched into the rapidly shrinking space between the Wildes and the Bellinis. Her face was flushed, her posture was tree-trunk straight, her mouth a thin line. “Stop it,” she said. “Just stop it and look at yourselves!”
    Grudgingly, Luca took the advice.
    Amazing.
    Ten flushed faces.
    Ten rigid postures.
    Ten mouths that looked as if they’d been drawn by slashes of a pen.
    Ten sets of hands on ten pairs of hips.
    Cristo!
    Two sets of brothers, two sets of sisters. Alike not only in looks, but in body language. In temperament.
    And with a common bond.
    Hatred for the man who had sired them.
    Was that why they were so close to blows? Was it safer to turn their anger on each other than on the man who had brought them to this ugly moment?
    “Just look at us,” Lissa said, as if she’d read his mind. “I mean, look at us! Are we all crazy?”
    “Liss,” Caleb said, “honey, we know you mean well, but—”
    “Listen to how he speaks to her,” Bianca said softly to Alessandra. “As if she is a child to be soothed.”
    Alessandra raised one eyebrow.
    “ Si . He speaks to her as Luca and Matteo often speak to us.”
    Emily lifted her chin. “It’s probably how overbearing brothers everywhere speak to their younger sisters.”
    “Hey,” the Bellini men said.
    “Hey,” the Wilde men said.
    The Bellini sisters pushed past Luca and Matteo and joined Lissa. Emily and Jaimie did the same.
    “This,” Jaimie said, “is ridiculous. We’re acting as if we’re enemies, but we’re not.”
    “You didn’t think that way last night,” Jake Wilde said.
    “Neither did you,” Luca growled, looking at Bianca and Alessandra. “You didn’t even think that way this morning.”
    “Well, we’ve had time to rethink the situation,” Bianca said. “Is that not correct, ladies?”
    Five heads in varying shades of blond nodded in agreement.
    “And what we think,” Jaimie said, “is that there’s no logical reason for us to be enemies.”
    “None of this was our doing,” Alessandra said.
    “We thought we were his children,” said Bianca. “His only children,” she added.
    “And we thought the same thing,” Emily said. “Who’d have dreamed he was—he was—”
    “A bigamist,” Lissa said grimly. “Just spit it out. The bastard’s a bigamist!”
    “Exactly,” Alessandra said. “A fooking—pardon my language—bigamist.”
    “Fooking,” Jaimie said, and giggled. “It’s just so right. To describe dear old dad, I mean.”
    The women all laughed. The men just looked at each other. The atmosphere in the room was changing. Was that good…or bad?
    “He lied to us all,” Emily said.
    “Well, yes. But especially to us.”
    Emily raised her eyebrows. “What does that