Black Hearts Red

by Leigh, Anne

  I talked about my trip to India when I was a sophomore in college.

  I talked about going back to school after having children and starting the non-profit that had grown to forty locations in the United States and ten locations overseas including India and parts of Africa.

  I spoke about my dreams of having it grow to be as many locations as Starbucks.

  And at the end of the ten minutes that I was allotted to talk, the sign in front of me indicating that I needed to close out my speech, I said, “I want to acknowledge the man in my life who has helped me make things possible, who has stepped aside many times so I could shine, who is also the father of two very lucky, and in about seven and a half months, three children.”

  I watched as my husband’s eyes went wide with surprise, his jaw slack, the bottom half of his mouth close to falling on the floor. I hoped a camera caught that.

  He’d been wanting another baby.

  I got off the pill three and a half months ago.

  My heart was working perfectly according to my doctors.

  He might have surprised me into attending this extraordinary gala.

  But he shouldn’t have counted me out because I could still deliver the best surprises.

  Two Years Later

  Zander

  “Who invited the scrooge?” I eyed Milo as he slammed his glass of iced tea on the table.

  You heard me right.

  Iced tea.

  We’re old.

  Fuck, we’re old.

  I’d reached my maximum limit of two beers earlier.

  Anything over that would make my grandchildren’s voices grate my nerves, and just make me an unhappy old feller in the morning.

  “Matteo said he promised his grandfather that he could attend his wedding,” Milo responded, it wasn’t hard to miss the complaint in his tone. He hadn’t bothered to welcome his father-in-law who’d showed up minutes before the wedding.

  The old fool was probably scared that Milo and Ava would chase him away from the ceremony.

  And now that we were here at the reception, Maxwell Troudeau stayed on the corner of the pavilion where the wedding guests were being served the lavish dinner of American and Indian food.

  “It was a very nice wedding,” I said, planting my ass on the chair, watching as my wife helped Alissa with her hair. Women. My daughter’s hair was perfect in a mass of curls and if you were to ask me, she looked magnificent in her veil lined with pearls, but I guess my opinion didn’t count. I was a biased father.

  “Yes,” Milo agreed as he drank the tea. “It better be for the shitload amount of money we paid for this.”

  I chuckled because he was right.

  He and I were shouldering the bill for the wedding, and my head started to throb when I saw that it cost sixty bucks for a pair of slippers for the bachelorette party.

  I loved my daughter, but when I reasoned with Sedona that Ali wasn’t a bachelorette since she and Matteo have been married for seven years, she ordered me to be to silent.

  Milo chomped on a piece of the delicious pita bread that I’d been gorging on for the last few minutes before the rest of the wedding party arrived.

  Alissa said it was called naan. Whatever it was, it was delicious.

  I’d never really explored Indian food, but now that we’d been here for a week, I didn’t know if I could leave this place.

  That’s right, we were in India.

  For my daughter’s wedding.

  The official wedding with the pictures they were releasing to the press.

  Alissa, now a successful businesswoman in her own right as she managed the charitable arm of T & T Inc. along with Systix Techonologies to which my old man was completely elated about because his granddaughter was now involved in the business, had always referred to Matteo as her husband.

  The press and my friends had always asked me when my daughter got married, and I always said that it was a very intimate family affair.

  And it was.

  I’d never thought that my baby daughter would be married inside a hospital, after she’d just had twin babies, and the night before she was going to have heart surgery.

  I’d never thought that she would be lying in bed for a week after her wedding, spending her supposed-to-be honeymoon feeding her premature babies in the hospital.

  And I’d never thought that there was a man who would stand by her and never waver in his support the way Matteo did.

  As a father, I’d hoped that Matteo was serious about loving my daughter through the good times and the bad times.

  And boy, did they have bad times.

  Through it all, I watched how he’d stood by my daughter from her lowest points to now, where she was standing in front of everyone, holding court with her close friends and the three hundred guests that were flown in for this wedding.

  When Matteo and Alissa told us during Christmas dinner at their house in San Francisco that they wanted to get married again in India, Sedona and Ava had screamed in delight.

  They felt that they were robbed of a real wedding, so Milo and I had stepped back and let our women take over the wedding preparations.

  Alissa and Matteo could very well pay for their own wedding, but Milo and I talked and we offered to pay for the whole event as our gift to them.

  Matteo had warned us that it would be costly because he wanted this to be as lavish as it could be, as opposite of what Alissa wanted which was another simple ceremony. This time Matteo won because he wanted to give her a wedding worthy of a queen, which was as he sappily said in front of all of us, what Alissa deserved from the beginning because she was his queen. I guess the little shit could spew some sweet words too.

  The 19th century palace in Udaipur boasted of opulence and decadence. It was rich with art and history, but it was the gardens that surrounded the courtyard that my daughter fell in love with and where she and Matteo had exchanged their vows earlier.

  After waving at Kieran, Xavier, Brynn, and Nalee who were seated at the other table, I shifted my gaze to my grandson, Gelo, who was pulling on his twin sister Lian’s pink dress, and she was slugging him with her tiny fists. Pink was Lian’s favorite color these days. Pink bicycle. Pink chair. Pink fork and spoon. While Gelo was the opposite. Blue was his color of choice. I didn’t think I’d ever sink down to a seven year-old demands, but when I’d called Gary, the head of Wilson, maker of footballs, for a custom blue football, he’d thought I’d lost my mind, and I had to admit that I was whipped. Their baby brother, Aeron Amadeo watched with mild interest as he was being tickled by his grandma, Ava, who was also carrying him.

  I heard Milo laugh and I looked over to his side. He was also watching the heart-warming scene in front of us.

  Alissa and Matteo had been through a lot.

  And there was no doubt, not a trickle of doubt, that my daughter was meant to be with the boy who’d given her pearls when she was just a kid.

  When I’d first heard about it, when Ali was around six or seven years old that Matteo had given her a set of pearls as a birthday gift, I thought something was wrong with the kid. That shit cost a lot of money, and from my talks with Ava and Milo, I knew he was getting the same allowance as my kids, which amounted to maybe five hundred bucks a year.

  But Sedona had shrugged it off and said that Ali was important to Matteo, and Ali loved pearls which was why he gave her that gift.

  Now every Christmas, we all watched as he gave her a new set and Ali would tear up.

  My daughter was a strong woman, but I’d never seen her cry as much as she did when she was with Matteo. Good thing they were tears of happiness, or it didn’t matter if my son-in-law was skilled in MMA, I was still capable of bashing his head in if he hurt her.

  Sedona motioned for me to join them in the front which was set up as a stage, and Milo stood up the same time I did.

  As we walked towards our family, he said, “I would pay three times, even ten times what the final bill is.”

  I nodded my
head.

  I would too…

  Ten times.

  Hundred times.

  Because happiness like this –

  Was priceless.

  “Until I found you,

  I wrote verse, drew pictures,

  And, went out with friends

  For walks…

  Now that I love you,

  Curled like an old mongrel

  My life lies, content,

  In you…”

  Excerpt from Summer in Calcutta

  Kamala Das

  My husband: Thank you for giving me the time and space to write these books. It’s always exciting for me but I know that it’s more exciting for you when I’m done with the book – I heart you.

  My daughter: You’re my comic relief and my source of sleepless nights at times but I wouldn’t change you for the world.

  For my family: For always being there, thank you.

  My friends in and out of the book world: You all know who you are. I’m productive and also a procrastinator but you accept me just the way I am. I’m blessed to have all of you.

  To bloggers: You are the unsung heroes all the time and I just want to say that I appreciate everything that you do.

  To the One Up Above: For all the miracles, thank you.

  My readers: Thank you for being with me from the start. I didn’t know if I was going to write about the Love Unexpected characters again. When inspiration hit, I wanted to shout it to the world and tell you. I waited for a bit until I had a handle on their stories. Every time you read my books, my heart sings a little bit louder. Thank you and I hope to keep building these worlds and characters.

  “I write because I love it and for no other reason. The minute I stop enjoying it will be the exact moment I will stop writing.”

  Anne Leigh is a 30-something-year-old who refuses to let the calendar dictate her age. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s degree in Nursing. She likes to write about strong women and equally strong guys who grapple with their emotions when faced with something as intangible as love.

  She lives in Los Angeles with her family. With her crazy schedule, she gets frustrated at L.A. traffic and needs an escape to keep her sanity, which thankfully her characters provide.

  She didn’t think of publishing her stories and when she finally did, she’s truly appreciative of every, single person who found the time to let her characters become parts of their world.

  She appreciates all the readers who leave kind comments/reviews on where they purchased the book because without them, all her stories would remain locked up in a thing called “computer.”

  She’s always happy to find new friends and would love to hear from you via:

  Facebook: Like her Official Author Page for book updates: Author Anne Leigh

  Twitter: @ Anneleighauthor

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  Love Unexpected Series

  Love Unexpected

  Love Unmatched

  Love Untouched

  Fight or Fall

  Love Undefeated

  Next Generation: Love Unexpected

  Black Hearts Red

  W Duet

  W

  A

  Sports and Elements Series

  Graphite

  Supernova

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