by Bethany-Kris
Miguel made the hour and a half drive to the client’s private, gated estate in a little over an hour. She almost told him to stay behind in the car, but her mother had a point in what she said. Plus, this was the first time Catherine had ever handled this client after he requested a new girl deliver for him.
Catherine tucked her Gucci bag under her arm as Miguel helped her from the car. The three-level home loomed high, and stretched wide.
“How does one man live in such a big place all by himself?” Catherine wondered.
Miguel chuckled. “Rich people sometimes do strange things when they have all the money in the world. I think all humans sometimes want to be alone, reginella. Imagine having a career and the funding to literally shut yourself off from the rest of the world for as long as you want or need. You could have your food delivered, your sex ordered, and drugs supplied on your time and needs.”
Catherine eyed him. “Sex, too, huh?”
“It’s no different than providing any other service. As long as the adults are consenting, and it’s a healthy situation where both understand and agree to what will happen before, during, and after, then I can’t see the problem. Like the need for food, cars, or even flower vendors on the side of a city street … there is a demand where sex is concerned, for the able bodied and those not so able. When there is a demand, someone will always supply. It is when society forces those people to do business in situations that might cause them harm to keep safe from officials that it becomes dangerous for them.”
Well, when he put it that way …
“I guess you’re right,” she said.
Miguel grinned. “I usually am. Don’t tell Queen that, though, as she likes to tell me I have a big head to match my ego.”
Her mother, he meant. They all simply called Catrina by the title Queen, except for Catherine. Catrina was still just her mom.
Catherine poked Miguel in his arm on the way by. “Perhaps you do have a big head to match your ego.”
“Being smart does not equal an ego.”
She kept walking, laughing at Miguel all the while. She took the marble steps at the entrance of the estate home two at a time, and her heels clicked against the white stone. At the door, she didn’t even need to knock.
A man opened it.
Early fifties, a lost look in his blue gaze, gray at his temples, and yet still quite good-looking. He wore a crumpled dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and khaki shorts. Catherine was not sure what she had expected in her new client, but she could not say that this was it.
Then again, the man was an introverted, secluded New York Times number one bestselling author fifty times over. What in the hell did she know? Her mother made it clear that what mattered was a client feeling connected to their few moments with the beautiful ghost in their lives before she was gone again—nothing more. She was not to judge them, or pry too deep as to make them feel she was seeking more than what she was there to provide.
“Mr. Gordana?” Catherine asked.
The man nodded. “That’s me, my dear.”
“Hello, I’m Catherine. I have something that is going to make your day.”
“Where’s Cross?” Catherine asked as she stepped onto the private airstrip.
Andino lifted a single shoulder in reply, but said nothing. Catherine tried not to let her disappointment show, but she had really looked forward to seeing Cross as soon as she was back in New York. He was supposed to be the one picking her up.
As for her cousin … well, she and Andino hadn’t been on the best of terms ever since that night at his home. Sure, they talked occasionally, and got along for the family’s sake, but she was still kind of pissed at him for how he lied to her all those years simply because of money. Because for no other reason than he believed she would stop dealing if she knew that her parents were aware of her business with Andino.
“So, he sent you?” Catherine asked.
Andino held open the passenger side door of his car. “No, Dante sent me. We’re heading to your parents’ place first.”
“I want to go to Manhattan and see Cross.”
“Well, I’m just following orders, Catty.”
Catherine sighed. “Is Cross busy or something?”
“Or something,” her cousin said vaguely.
“You’re such an ass, Andino.”
He grinned wide. “I know.”
Catherine slipped into the passenger seat, and Andino closed the door. Once he was in the driver’s seat and they were making the long drive to Amityville, he turned on the radio. Likely to fill the silence as Catherine wasn’t offering much conversation.
Finally, he asked, “Are you ever going to forgive me?”
“Does it bother you that I haven’t?”
Andino cleared his throat. “I mean, family is family, Catherine. And then there’s us—Marcellos. It’s a whole different kind of family.”
“That wasn’t an answer to my question.”
She continued staring out the window, refusing to even give Andino her attention while they conversed. It was easier to stay angry and bitter with him that way. Truth be told, she did love her cousin. She loved all of her cousins because they had been brought up more like siblings than anything else.
“Yes, it bothers me,” Andino said.
Catherine did turn to look at him then, but his gaze was firmly stuck on the road. “You used me. That’s how I felt, and how I still feel. Family definitely is family, but you did not once consider family when you lied to me and used me.”
“Business is business, Catty.” Andino smiled faintly. “In business, family becomes something entirely different. I figured you knew that.”
“That’s not the kind of business I want to be a part of.”
“Yet, look at you.”
Catherine shrugged. “Yes, by my choice. Not yours. A business I went into knowing all the details; being honest. You certainly taught me how to hustle, though, so I guess I should thank you for that.”
“Oh?”
“And I forgive you, too,” Catherine added.
Andino’s gaze darted to hers, and then quickly went back to the road. “You’re like your mother, anyway, Catherine.”
“How so?”
“Too fucking dangerous for our kind of men, and too strong-willed and good for Cosa Nostra. We clip wings and keep a person caged—people like you can’t be confined when you shine free. You can’t really soar too high in this business, not when la famiglia chains you to an oath.”
“Yet, look at you,” Catherine said, echoing his earlier statement.
She knew the changes happening in her father’s Cosa Nostra, or she heard enough to know. Things like Andino becoming an underboss, and readying to take her father’s position as the boss when the time was right. How high he had risen. How different he was, too.
Andino nodded. “That’s the difference between you and me. You can’t do my thing. I can’t do yours. But we both like what it is that we do, and we’re good at it.”
“So, we good?”
“We’re good,” her cousin said.
Because family loved.
Even when they hated.
“Why is everyone standing outside?” Catherine asked, noting the cars they passed and the crowd of people they came up on at her parents’ large home. “And why are they all here?”
Andino parked his car a few feet away from the two people at the front of the crowd—her parents.
“Ma said she had to go to Los Angeles,” Catherine said.
Andino chuckled. “We all told a few white lies for this.”
“What?”
He didn’t explain.
Catherine only became more confused.
“Here,” Andino said, reaching into the backseat to grab what looked to be a shadowbox. It had a large hole in the top, and was at least three inches thick and a good foot long. The front window pane of the box was made of glass with two small interconnected C’s carved into the glass. “You’r
e going to need this.”
“Why?”
“I guess it’s time to find out, Catty.”
Catherine climbed out of the car, and fixed the skirt of her dress as she approached her parents. It seemed like nearly every single member of her family was there, and friends, not to mention people from Cross’s family.
“What’s going on?” Catherine asked.
Her father smiled. “We all have something for you, dolcezza.”
Her mother matched the smile. “Well, most of us.”
Dante’s hand reached into the pocket of his suit jacket, and he pulled out a single photograph. Catherine stared at the item, surprised her father even had something like that. It was a photo of Cross and Catherine when she was maybe thirteen, and he was fifteen. A picture she had snapped at school using her phone, and never thought about again once she upgraded devices.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“I don’t throw our devices away without emptying the contents into drives,” her father said. “Old habit, that’s all.”
He dropped the photo into the shadowbox without further explanation.
Catrina reached out and opened her palm, showing a small bag with sand inside. “Jacob Riis Beach, I was told.”
Catherine’s brow furrowed as her mother dropped the small bag of sand into the shadowbox, too.
“There’s more,” her father said softly. “You have to keep walking, Catty.”
Her mother and father parted just enough to let her move to the next people waiting. Her brother, Gabbie, and their three and a half month old son, Antony Dante. Michel held a small patch with the number thirteen and her old school’s logo. Gabbie held a small Range Rover emblem.
Someone else had a miniature paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet. Another held her silver knuckles. One of her cousins dropped in conch shells. Movie stubs. Another photograph. A daisy. A black Sharpie.
So many memories.
So many things.
Things that made up her and Cross and them.
Cross’s father and his mother were the last two that actually had items, though they were not the end of the line of people Catherine had to get through, apparently.
Calisto unfolded a yellowed piece of paper, and turned it around for Catherine to see the sketch she had given to Cross for his fifteenth birthday. He folded it back up without a word, and tucked it into the slot at the top of the shadowbox.
Emma Donati smiled softly as she held out a tiny bag of white powder that was tied off with a little red ribbon. Catherine instantly laughed.
“Is that flour?” she asked.
“It is. I have no idea why, though,” Cross’s mother said.
“I do.”
She wouldn’t tell, though.
It was a part of their story.
Not anyone else’s.
Emma dropped the small bag into the box, and then she and Calisto stepped aside. Slowly, the rest of the people behind them followed the same idea. They separated until Catherine could see who waited at the end of the drive for her.
On one knee, dressed in black Armani, dark gaze on her, and waiting.
She figured Cross had been waiting on her for his whole life.
She hadn’t realized it until then, but as she blinked, the water gathering in her eyes fell. The tears made tracks down her cheeks as her next breath caught in her throat.
“Go ahead,” she heard someone say.
She wasn’t even sure who.
Catherine hugged the shadowbox tight to her chest as she finally found enough bearings to make her legs move. As she came to a stop in front of Cross, he flipped open the top of a black velvet box in his hand.
The ring in the box made her heart stop.
It belonged to her grandmother, Cecelia. A family heirloom that was always safely hidden away in a safe with other precious things. Her grandmother only wore it on very special occasions, and when asked, had never said who she would give it to. It had been used as the engagement ring for her mother and father, too, but was again stored once they were married and Catrina never wore it again.
“Catherine,” Cross murmured. “Won’t you look at me?”
Her gaze darted to his.
He smiled.
She sucked in another shaky breath and let more tears fall.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed through tears. “You’re making me cry, Cross.”
“I so love you, my girl.”
“Too much, apparently.”
“Never,” he countered. “Are you ready?”
“To cry more?”
“Probably.”
She laughed weakly. “I mean, thanks for the heads up.”
He wet his lips, and took a quick breath.
“Catherine Cecelia Marcello, love of my life, keeper of my heart, owner of my soul, girl of my dreams, and whisperer of my truth. You are the breath to my blood, the sea to my sky, the forever to my today, and the queen to my king. The only woman I have ever loved, the only heart I have ever coveted, and the only life to have woven with mine so entirely. I am not me without you. I have loved you for every day I have known you, and I need you to let me promise all the rest of my days to you, too.”
Catherine wiped the wetness from her cheeks with shaking hands. She really wished she could catch her breath, but she couldn’t quit crying.
“Would you do me the greatest honor, and marry me?” he asked.
He could have asked her on the highway. He could have asked her in bed. He could have asked her over a fucking phone call. Catherine still would have said yes.
“Of course I will,” she whispered.
Cross was up off the ground before she could even get another word in. He slipped the shadowbox out of her hand, and set it carefully to the ground a second before his lips closed in on hers. His hard kiss took her breath away, but it was so familiar, it made her ten feet high and warm to the touch. He slipped that ring down her finger, and pressed a quick kiss to her knuckles. Catherine hadn’t even heard the clapping and cheers until that moment.
His hug wrapped her in home and love. She buried her tear-streaked face into his neck, and let his arms hide away the rest of the world.
Just for a second.
Only for him.
“Love you,” he murmured in her ear.
“Promise?”
Oh, so familiar.
Oh, so perfect.
“Always, Catherine.”
Three months later …
“Are you ready?” Dante asked.
Catherine nodded, and smoothed her hands over the blush chiffon of her ball gown wedding dress. Off the shoulder, long lace sleeves, and with a ten foot train that held tiny pearl buttons from the very bottom to the very top of her shoulders, she felt like every inch a princess.
“Let me look at you one more time,” Dante said.
Her father took her hands, and held her out just enough to gaze over her dress. He fixed one of her stray waves of hair behind her ten foot veil with lace trim. He also checked the bottom of her dress to make sure the skirt hadn’t gotten dirty.
“My God, you are beautiful, Catherine.”
“Yeah?”
She figured the twenty thousand dollar wedding dress helped a lot.
Her father disagreed.
“You make that dress shine, dolcezza. Nervous?”
“Not at all.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“I’m so ready for this,” she admitted. November twenty-ninth. A Saturday, mid-afternoon, cool outside, and warm inside. Her wedding day was finally there. She had been counting down every day leading up to it. Although, she didn’t need this big day at all because … “I would have married him at the courthouse the same day he asked, Daddy.”
Dante chuckled. “Yes, well, thankfully Cross and I came to an agreement before you could try and convince him of something like that.”
She cocked an eyebrow at her father. “What, now?”
“I wanted my principess
a to have a proper wedding. Think, Catty.”
She did.
Their reception was being held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan. Their wedding, at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. The guest list topped six hundred, easily. Catherine stopped asking the cost of things because her parents were determined to spend a lot, and Cross’s parents were more than happy to help them out.
She simply showed up and agreed to things.
Their honeymoon was a two-week stay in a private mansion on a beach estate in Sicily.
It was too much.
It was still perfect.
“Still determined to have this dress reveal before the ceremony?” her father asked as they walked through the bottom floor of the Waldorf. “We could always send someone up to let him know you changed your mind.”
Catherine shook her head. “I think this is better.”
“Really? Your mother did all she could to hide her dress from me until those doors opened. I didn’t understand why, but I am now most grateful for it. It’s one of my fondest memories of our wedding day, considering it was all meant to be just business and nothing more.”
“We’re not like you and Ma.”
She and Cross were them.
And this was a long time in the making.
A long time coming.
She thought … maybe …
“He’s tried to see my dress a lot,” Catherine said, “and I couldn’t figure out why.”
Dante glanced at her. “Curious, maybe?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Surely that man does not have cold feet, Catherine.”
She laughed. “Definitely not, but everyone has made such a big deal about the dress, and seeing me for the first time. I think it got to him, and he freaked out.”
“About what?”
Catherine pressed her lips together.
She didn’t know how to explain it.
Men like Cross did not have emotional outbursts in public settings. He had just turned twenty-eight that month; he was a grown man who did not share his feelings openly with barely anyone. She had never even seen him cry. She thought he was worried that he might be overwhelmed in front of six hundred guests; many would be made up of men just like him. She didn’t want to do that to him.
