Read Love Brewing (Love Brothers #3) for Free Online Page B

arm draped over his
    shoulders and her lips touched his temple while she ran her fingers ran through
    his hair. He leaned into her, but tried to remain free and clear of anything
    resembling emotion.
    “I…I’m not….”
    “Shush, honey. Not now. I have to figure out what I’m gonna
    do with your daddy.”
    He raised his head. “Don’t kick him out on my account.”
    Tears rolled down her cheeks. Dom swiped at them, desperate
    to make her happy, terrified she would abandon him.
    “I’ll bring your things. Kieran says he found you out at the
    Brantley’s.” She smiled at him. “I always did like that girl. The younger one.
    You know.”
    He averted his gaze. “Yeah, Mama, I know.”
    She yanked his chin to force him to face her, her jaw set in
    a very familiar way. “You are somebody special, Dominic Sean.” Her grip
    tightened. “Don’t ever forget that. I don’t know that I understand why, or
    what, or….” She dropped her hand, looking helpless, as if she no longer knew
    him. His heart sank at how very old she seemed right then.
    “I love you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
    “You have no reason to be sorry.”
    He shook his head and glanced behind her at his brothers,
    standing shoulder to shoulder a few feet away. The extreme urge to escape
    stabbed him square in the gut. She held out a bag and he stared at it, confused
    for a moment.
    “Please take your medicine. You know good and well you
    require it.”
    He nodded and took the bag. The moment felt final in a way
    that hurt worse than anything his father had done to him. He tried to smile.
    “Let me know if he decides I’m back in his will.”
    Lindsay sucked in a breath.
    “I’m sorry, Mama,” he repeated. “Don’t cry anymore. Please.”
    Kieran appeared at her shoulder. “Go on. He’ll calm down.
    I’m sure of it.”
    When his mother slumped against Kieran’s side, Dom leapt off
    his bike, determined to pound his father so hard the entire goddamn Amatore
    family would feel it in the old country. He got as far as the crest of the
    grassy hill where the pool deck had been installed when Antony stepped in front
    of him.
    “Get the fuck out of my way.”
    “It isn’t the place,” his oldest and much-bigger brother
    insisted. “Not now.”
    “You don’t get to decide anything about this.”
    “No, but you do.”
    Dom stared into Antony’s face, so like their father’s. He
    cursed and squared his shoulders.
    Fuck this. Fuck my father. I don’t require the Love
    family’s approval for anything. I never have.
    He shoved his way past the wall of Aiden and Kieran, jumped
    on his bike, and peeled out onto Hunter Street. The wind whipped his hair, the
    sun beat on his shoulders, and his mind went completely, alarmingly blank.

Chapter Five
     
     
    Diana focused on the flashing silver of her knife,
    concentrating on chopping the rest of the tomatoes and not her fingers. The
    kitchen smelled like the inside of a salsa bowl already. Piles of bright
    cilantro, rich tomatoes, nasal passage-clearing jalapeno and poblano peppers
    lay along the stainless steel counter to her left. Odors of grilling meat
    floated through the open windows. The rest of the ingredients for her mama’s
    recipe chicken salad sat in one of the many huge metal bowls to her right.
    She paused and wiped her forehead with her wrist. Thanks to
    getting distracted by Dominic’s reappearance in her life, she’d gotten behind
    on pretty much everything. Jen was due out any second to pick up the salsa and
    she hadn’t even touched the stack of cukes—their secret ingredient that gave
    Brantley’s salsa a rich, gazpacho edge. It didn’t take much, but the quantities
    she dealt with meant not much translated to a dozen cucumbers’ worth of
    work.
    Jen’s catering van horn honked so loud Diana jumped and
    cursed, nearly skewering her hand. She noted the mild tremors she’d been
    experiencing since Kieran had dragged Dom out for the Big Family Confrontation
    had