by Bethany-Kris
She watched Marcus wrangle Tiffany out of the backseat and greet the waiting enforcer at the front of the restaurant. Then, her daughter grabbed the hand of the large man and headed inside the business. The familiar cars parked in the reserved spots told her that their family was already there and ready to get the dinner started.
Waiting on them.
Finally, Marcus made his way back to the passenger side of the car. Wind from the street wrapped around her legs, making the flowy skirt of her dress blow wildly when he opened the door for her. She tried to admire the sight of Marcus in his pressed, black slacks and silk button-down that he had rolled up to his elbows. The dark dusting of hair that peeked out of the buttons he’d left undone at his throat disappeared beneath his shirt, and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed with his swallow was a teasing distraction for Cella.
Then again, everything beautiful and sinful about this man was a distraction to her. One she was happy to chase whenever, wherever. Only Marcus did that for her.
Usually, he went for his staple three-piece suits, but the summer heat had him opting for something less heavy, constricting, and hot. She didn’t blame him a bit. Besides, his silk shirts allowed her a great view of the definition in his back and arms. She certainly wasn’t going to complain about that.
Even if right then all she wanted to do was lose her lunch all over his shined, leather loafers. Knowing Marcus, he would probably just smile and tell her that was okay, too.
“Any better?” he asked.
Cella laughed weakly. “Define better.”
Marcus made a face. “Well, if I don’t get us in there someone is going to come out here and ask why, sweetheart.”
Right.
Cella didn’t want their news to be ruined for their waiting family because her morning sickness decided to be a bitch that day.
“One more minute?” she asked him.
Marcus leaned into the car and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, murmuring, “Sure, whatever you need.”
With him close, the summer warmth hugging her tight, and fresh air blowing through the car, Cella did start to feel better as the seconds ticked by. She didn’t need the full minute before she was able to step out of the vehicle with Marcus’s help. Turning to face the side entrance of the restaurant, the same one Tiffany had just taken with the family’s enforcer, Cella exhaled the stress that had been resting low in her belly like a heavy weight.
Even if she hadn’t acknowledged it.
It was there.
Well, not anymore.
This was a good day. The perfect moment to celebrate their pregnancy with their families. Nothing was going to ruin that, but especially not any fear she felt when there really wasn’t much reason for her to feel it.
“Let’s share the good news,” she told Marcus.
His sexy grin glinted in the daylight. “Let’s do it, Cella.”
• • •
Cella had to give her daughter credit because it was due. Despite having almost ten minutes alone with her grandparents and everyone else waiting for Cella and Marcus inside the restaurant, Tiffany managed to keep quiet about the surprise. Even though she was probably the most excited of them all to share the news that she was going to be a big sister, she didn’t.
By the time Cella and Marcus took their seats at the large table in the private dining section, everyone was already looking their way.
Waiting.
Expecting ...
Wondering, she bet.
Once they were past the usual greetings from everyone, and each person had their moment to say hello, give a hug or a kiss, as was the Italian way, Cella and Marcus took their seats on either side of Tiffany. The conversation at the table continued, quieter than it had been when they first entered the space as it seemed like the attention from their families was now all on them.
“Where’s the food?” Cella asked, refusing to acknowledge the curious gazes observing her and Marcus. They could wait a few moments more, surely. It wouldn’t kill any of them. “I thought we were doing a buffet?”
“We are. Food’s coming,” her father said.
“We sent for it once we knew you guys had arrived,” her mother added.
Her parents sat at the head of the table. Marcus’s parents sat at the other end. His brother—with Corrado’s large family in tow—sat across from them while John, his wife, and their kids sat in the chairs next to Cella, Marcus, and Tiff.
The whole table was full.
“We do have an announcement, right?” Corrado asked across the table. “Because that’s what I was told and—”
“Quiet,” Marcus murmured, pointing a finger his brother’s way.
“What?”
“It’s the wedding, right?” Siena asked at Cella’s far-right. “We’re finally going to get a date for a wedding, I bet.”
“About time,” John added, shooting his sister a smirk. “I’m just saying, Cella.”
And just like that, a wave of chatter moved from person to person at the table. It didn’t slow or stop, and each new person had something different to add. Cella let her family—and Marcus’s—do their usual thing.
Nothing new to see.
They were still loud.
Nosy.
Of course.
“If everyone is quite finished,” came the soft, amused voice of Cara Guzzi at the far end of the table where she sat with her husband. The two stared Cella and Marcus’s way; they hadn’t joined the chatter with the rest of the table. “I would like to hear the surprise. Wouldn’t you, Gian?”
Next to her, Gian nodded. “I would.”
“I was hoping to eat first,” Cella said, only half teasing, as Marcus leaned in closer to her by bending over the back of Tiffany’s chair between them. His fingers tickled her side with a soft touch while he kissed the shell of her ear at the same time. “Then we could get around to the surprise.”
“Just tell them,” Marcus urged in her ear.
“Why don’t you?”
“Or we could let Tiff.”
At the mere mention of her name, Tiffany popped up brighter than ever in her chair. “Yes, I will! Can I?”
The laughter from their families colored up the table. Cella shot Marcus a silent question when their eyes met. He shrugged in response. It seemed like an okay to her.
“Go ahead, baby,” Cella told Tiff as Marcus straightened in his chair again. “Tell them the surprise!”
Tiffany didn’t wait one second before belting out, “I’m gonna have two little brothers ... or sisters!”
“And we’re getting married,” Cella added quickly, “but the surprise was more the babies.”
Silence coated the table.
Before it exploded with happiness.
Chairs scraped the floor as their families left their seats. Before Cella knew what happened, she was surrounded by her mother and father, brother, and her in-laws. Their congratulations, hugs, and kisses rained down until she was sure that she couldn’t take one more second of it. Yet, she did. And she loved it, too.
“You owe me a grand, Gian,” Lucian said.
“How so?” replied her soon-to-be father-in-law. “I said a wedding. You said a pregnancy. We were both right. It’s even.”
“Pregnancy was first. A win is a win, man.”
Gian grinned, asking, “But is it? Because I remember Marcus mentioning that he had come to have a chat with you not too long ago ... why didn’t you pick marriage?”
Lucian smirked right back. “I never pick a sure bet, Gian. Accept your loss.”
Chuckles passed between the men at the table, including Marcus beside her, as their families retook their seats. Finally, the food started to come in, too. Cella would have been more than happy to focus on getting some grub—she was always hungry, now—but a question from her mother stopped her from reaching for the bowl of bread that the server sat down within her arm’s reach.
“When is the wedding?” Jordyn asked her. “Before, or after the babies are born?”
/> “Before,” Marcus said.
At the same time, Cella answered, “We don’t know.”
The two of them turned to face each other.
More laughter skipped down the table.
Marcus cocked a brow, saying, “We’ll get back to you guys on that one. Right, babe?”
Cella grinned. “Right.”
One thing at a time.
It’s how they dealt with everything.
Shit.
It worked.
38.
Marcus
“DADDY?”
It didn’t matter how many times Tiffany called Marcus her daddy, it still hit him in the chest every single time. Like a kick that he couldn’t avoid, it smacked him hard with the weight of what it meant to be that man for her, and he was as honored as he was determined not to fuck it up in some way.
She only said it now when it was just them in private, or with her mother. She did sometimes refer to him as her dad to others when people asked but for the most part, Tiffany was still testing the waters in that regard.
Marcus didn’t mind.
She could take all the time she needed. He would be there, willing to answer to whatever title she wanted to call him whether that was her dad, daddy, or that guy who loved her mother. He was fine no matter what. The choice was all hers.
“Yeah?” Marcus asked, leaning in the bedroom doorway.
Instead of making the long drive back to Toronto, they opted to stay the rest of the weekend in Rochester at Cella’s place. Though it sometimes made work hard for Marcus—even if he wouldn’t tell Cella that—he never said one thing or another about his place in Toronto or staying here with her when she wanted. He was up for whatever.
Still.
Tucked under her pink bedding, Tiffany’s questions shone through in her stare. She had done well at the dinner with their families. For a kid that needed to ask as much as she liked to talk, she had allowed the adults to have their conversations without really butting in for most of the dinner. And he was grateful, but he wasn’t surprised she was ready to talk now, either.
“Is Mommy done?”
“Nope. Still on the phone,” he said. “She’ll be in when she’s done. Okay?”
He didn’t bother to explain Cella was on a call with a client who had been pressing her for a final deadline for two weeks. It wasn’t like Tiffany would understand, anyway. And he hadn’t hesitated to get the girl ready for bed and pull out a bedtime story to read when Cella got the call earlier. He stepped in where she couldn’t and filled in where she needed him to. She didn’t even need to ask him to do it.
He just did it.
Wasn’t that what parents did? What love was?
Tiffany didn’t mind, either.
“Well, I have a question,” Tiffany said, raising her blonde brows high like she expected Marcus to reply in the only appropriate way.
Which he knew was, “And what question is that, love?”
Her smile said he was right.
“When you and my mom get married,” she said, squinting upward at the canopy over her bed as though she was seriously considering her next words, “does that mean we’re all going to live together?”
That was not the question he expected. And yet ... It was an easy answer, he thought.
Even though they practically lived together anyway between New York and Toronto, it also wasn’t official. He bet—for Tiffany, mostly—she saw the clear distinction between the home they called Marcus’s house, and the place in Rochester where she lived with Cella before he ever came along. And to her, that distinction meant they weren’t living in the same home.
Not like other people did.
She wasn’t wrong.
“Well, yes,” Marcus replied.
“Oh,” Tiffany replied. “But ... here?”
Ah, there it was.
He heard it that time.
The hesitance.
“Probably Toronto,” Marcus said, “and not here. But you like it there, don’t you? You could pick a whole new school or even go to the one Maria goes to if you wanted. Which means you would already have a friend. And you’ll have lots of family there from my side. Lots of Guzzis. I know it would be a change, and it’s not like ... here. But it could be after a while. It could be home, too.”
Tiffany let out a big breath.
Marcus smiled, waiting her out.
“I guess,” she finally said. “I do like Toronto. And we’ll come back to visit lots and lots, right? We’re still coming back here to—”
“As much as you want, no worries.”
Or as much as was possible.
He seriously doubted the Marcello family would give him much of a choice when it came to them spending a reasonable amount of time with Cella and Tiffany. As it was, if Lucian thought his daughter and granddaughter hadn’t come around enough, the man didn’t hesitate to let Marcus know that needed to be corrected. ASAP.
Marcus respected it.
Mostly.
“And I think,” Marcus added, “that when we do move you and your mom to Toronto, it won’t be to my house that I live in now.”
“No? Where?”
He grinned. “A new house. With a bigger bedroom for you. A theater room where we could do movies. Probably a swimming pool, too.”
Shit, he wanted the whole deal. A mansion with a couple of wings, just because. Like the one he grew up in, even.
If Marcus was going to finally go all out when it came to his adult life, including getting married, he might as well settle right down into it as well. Like buying the home of his wife’s dreams that she could decorate to her heart’s desire.
Why the hell not?
Tiffany sunk back into her blankets, the expression on her face telling him she was far happier about the idea of a move than she had been minutes before. “And a puppy, too?”
“What?”
“Could I have a puppy at the new house?”
Marcus laughed, unable to stop it even when he replied, “You know what, Tiff, we will certainly see what I can do about that.”
The littlest love of his life eyed him from her mound of pillows. “That wasn’t a yes.”
Smart kid.
Then, Tiffany smiled when she added, “But that wasn’t a no, either.”
Marcus pointed a finger her way and winked. “Exactly.”
And with kids, sometimes it was all about the compromise. Even if he knew Tiffany wasn’t the type of kid to forget about this in a few months. That was fine with him.
39.
Cella
“DID I hear you promise Tiffany a puppy?”
At least, Cella thought, Marcus had the decency to look slightly ashamed when he strolled into her home office.
“Maybe,” he returned as his attention drifted to the phone on her desk. “Weren’t you on the phone with a client? Why are you eavesdropping on my conversations with Tiff, anyway?”
Despite what his reply suggested, there was no heat to his words. Thing was, Cella really did trust Marcus with her daughter. He’d proven himself capable, responsible, and loving on more than one occasion with Tiffany. He never crossed a line; not even the suggestion of it.
She also trusted her daughter felt safe enough that if something made her uncomfortable, she would speak up about it. She always had before. Even if it was just saying that she didn’t like sharing a bathroom with a boy because of all his boy things, as Tiffany had put it.
Mostly, Cella figured that was just so her daughter could have easier access to all the pretty things—like her mom’s makeup and perfume—when they switched around who used what bathrooms.
“Nice try.”
Marcus chuckled deeply. “Had to give it a shot. You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, right? That’s what I was told once. And technically, it wasn’t a yes or no on the puppy. Nothing firm. What, are you against pets? Wouldn’t have taken you for the type, love.”
Mmhmm.
She heard how he tried
to switch that around on her at the end. But she also wasn’t that easy to trick, and a puppy would be a lot of work.
“I’m against more work or responsibility getting shoveled onto my plate than I already have to deal with,” Cella explained, shrugging under the silkiness of the robe she had thrown on earlier as she readied for bed. “How are we going to do this, Marcus?”
That had him quirking a brow.
She cocked one right back.
“Do what?” he asked.
Cella widened her arms, hoping he got the point at her rather wide gesture. When he didn’t seem to catch on, she let out a breath of frustration before saying, “Everything, you know? Getting married. This pregnancy. Oh, and now we’re apparently going to start talking about moving, too. And if I trust what I heard you telling Tiff, it won’t be just moving to your place. It’ll be buying a whole house. Like that’s not a lot of—”
“Cella.”
She ignored his quiet hum of her name and how it sounded both amused and calming coming out of his mouth. Instead, she continued to rush right ahead with her ranting because that felt better for the moment. “I suspect you’re going to want to do that before the babies get here, too. I also need to find a new office space for my business because if I am moving to Toronto, then so is my company. But let’s not forget the client I was just talking to that—even though I should cancel the contract because it would clear up my time a bit—I don’t actually want to. I was looking forward to that job.”
“Cella ... babe, hey, are you done?”
Her eyes snapped upward from where she had focused her stare on the buttons of his shirt while she rambled her way through the mess of thoughts and feelings that hadn’t left her alone for most of the past month. His conversation with Tiffany might have brought it to the surface where she was willing to say something, but that didn’t mean it was a new thing.
None of this was new.
All this stress?
It didn’t leave Cella alone.
“Am I done?” she asked, every word measured.
Marcus must have heard the warning there because as he crossed the room with a laugh and his arms open wide, he said, “Sorry—bad choice of words. I just meant, could I step in and say a few things now or do you need more time to get out ... the rest of the lovely mess in your head?”
