A Forbidden Love (Book 2)

Mind Your...

               Andreas holds me tight the entire car ride and he still seems very upset. I can tell by how his hands are still clenching and unclenching.

The car pulls up outside of our home and we all get out. Andreas helps me scoot out of the car but then he sees how swollen my feet are.

I become a little insecure seeing him stare at them and try to hide them. I start to step out of the SUV but Andreas picks me up bridal style and walks me into the house and up our stairs.

The whole time I'm unsure of what to say. Things still seem very tense and I don't want to say anything to set him off.

Andreas sets me down on the bed and he walks out of the room. I sit on the bed feeling a little awkward.

"Andreas?" I ask out but  I don't hear anything but stomps down the stairs.

The next thing I hear is a huge crash which makes me jump. My heart skips a beat and I get off the bed and run down the stairs . I see glass all on the ground and I make sure to not step on any shards.

The back door is open so I carefully make my way outside. I look around outside but i don't know where he could be.

"Andreas?" I say my voice shaking a little.

I keep walking around and decide to walk inside of the guest house.

"Andreas??" I say looking around the studio but I don't find him anywhere.

Looking around I decide to go upstairs. When I get up the stairs I see Andreas in a squatting position with his head in his hands. He's so tense and I walk over slowly. Above his head there's a huge hole in the wall.

"Andreas meine liebe?" I say softly to him.

I walk over to him and sit down on the soft carpet with my back against the wall. He doesn't look up at me but I don't pester him.

"There's a lot you don't know about me" he says to me and looks up.

His eyes are red which pulls at my heart. I get up on my knees and he opens up his legs letting me come in close to him I wrap my arms around his neck and he rests his head on my big belly bump.

"I-it's hard for me to trust people... and that stems from my past" He mumbles into my arms. "I don't think you'll like me if you knew everything.."

"Baby you're scaring me what are you talking about?" I say lifting his head up so our eyes meet.

"I wasn't there when Finn and Luka needed me and I took the easy way out, there's still so much hostility between our families, things went left very quickly, and in the process I created an enemy" he says starting to open up to me.

"I understand" I say running my fingers through his hair giving him some time to get some things off his chest.

"I know you're frustrated that I keep secrets from you but I do that for your own good, please don't fight me on that schätzchen" he says.

I lean in and kiss him on his forehead trying to make him feel comfortable about opening up to me.

After a little silence I decide to ask him a question.

"What was it that made you and your family leave to the US in the first place?" I ask rubbing circles on his upper back.

"Just a lot of things were going on" he says running his fingers through his hair in a nervous way. "Things weren't safe for us at the time, and my father had a friend in the states that helped to establish us..."

"I'm so sorry that happened you were just a child then right?" I ask

"Yes we left when I was 5, but when I turned 10 my family thought it would be good for me to visit with family in Germany every year to learn the family business" he says and stutters on the last part.

"Finn had been born by that time, so every year I would come back he would get older and older and he really looked up to me. Luka was born a lot later and him and Finn would come to the US and stay with me and.. um Dana— and Damien from time to time, they really looked up to me and depended on me for advice with um things back in Germany." He says.

"When they got a lot older something had happened back home in Germany and they begged me to come back, I mean my parents had already returned home by that time, and they needed me to come back and take over the business, but at the time I wanted to distance myself from it, I had found happiness in art and was curating a lot of the big name artist in Chicago" he says looking off in the distance.

"I decided to run the family's bank accounts instead and make sure everything was good... I thought that was enough but things became strained between me Finn and Luka" he says becoming fidgety " they didn't really have a good relationship with their father growing up, and I guess I filled that position in their eyes" he says shaking his head and looking down at the ground.

"They grew up and did some things behind my family's back and they still feel as if I abandoned them and was disloyal to the business" he says to me.

I breathe out that's a lot to take in I see now why he didn't want me to go to the shop without him. I start to feel bad about how that whole situation went down. Then I remember something Luka had said to me at the shop.

"Luka said something to me at the shop" I say looking down at him.

I feel Andreas tense underneath me and his grip around my waist tightens.

"What did he say?" He asks.

"He said something about a Krauskopf mafia..." I look into his eyes. "Is that the business you've been referring to?"

Andreas laughs which catches me off guard. "Luka doesn't know what he's talking about" he says dismissively and stands up.

"Wait what—?" I say a little thrown off by how quick he deaded the conversation.

He helps me up and says "Come I planned something for us" I take his hand and follow him.

I try not to get upset. I felt like we were making progress but he's still very private about certain topics. I feel like he doesn't feel like I deserve to know anything past what he is wants me to know, and I have a problem with that. Like what did he mean Luka doesn't know what he's talking about?

I'm so ridiculously confused, nothing is making any sense. There's just so much air of mystery around Andreas and his family.

But I'm gonna get to the bottom of it.