Carlo froze inside her. Sabina froze with her teeth embedded in his neck. Then she pulled back, and they both turned to Luca, who was doing as he’d said and putting two six packs of beer in the refrigerator.
“Hello, Luca.”
He smirked at her and winked. “Hey, gorgeous.” Then his eyes moved to Carlo. “Carry on, bro. Good form, by the way.” And he was gone, toward the back, Elsa padding happily after him.
When the back door closed, Carlo turned his eyes to hers. “I’m so sorry. You okay?”
“No.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He started to pull out, but she tensed her legs around him and held him where he was.
“I was close, and now I’m unsatisfied. This is why I’m not okay.”
His eyebrows lifted, and he grinned widely. “Yeah? If he’s here, the others probably aren’t far behind.”
“We should hurry then, yes?” She clenched around his cock and flexed her hips.
“I love you, Bina. God, I love you.” And then he hurried.
~oOo~
In the end, Carlo called Carmen and asked her to stop on her way over and pick up a cake.
The threatened rain was holding off, so the family took a risk and set up outside, under the large, covered, flagstone patio. There were too many people to keep under cover comfortably if it did rain, but the Pagano house, a big, beautiful old arts and crafts house, with lots of rooms and lots of heavy woodwork, didn’t have great flow for a big party, especially not one where a rambunctious four-year-old was the guest of honor.
For the most part, Trey’s guest list was just family—his uncles and aunts, his grandfather, and Mrs. D., the next-door neighbor. The same people as every other gathering. But Carlo’s uncles came, too. Uncle Ben, of whom Sabina was quite fond, and not only because he’d saved her. She wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t know who Ben Pagano was, but the man she’d come to know a little was not the notorious mafia don. He was a family man. He was gentle and courtly. His wife, Angie, was a woman with regal bearing, who’d obviously been a great beauty in her youth and still, in perhaps her late sixties, retained a confidence and class that had preserved her looks.
Carlo’s other uncle, Uncle Lorrie, and his wife, Betty, Sabina had only met briefly, after Mass.
The same with their son, Nick. Nick was a few years older than Carlo. He disquieted Sabina, though she wasn’t sure she could have found the words to explain why. Perhaps it was that of all these ‘mob’ men, Nick was the only one who looked like a mobster. He was handsome, with black, wavy hair and piercing, grey-green eyes, but even when he smiled and played with Trey, there seemed to be a film of menace around him.
She found herself going to lengths to make sure she was near Carlo when Nick was around.
The siblings were as they usually were—Carmen kept to herself a little, not out of the party but on its edges. She spent a lot of time talking to her father, who was in his usual place at the grill, wearing his Baci il Cuoco! apron. Rosa had her phone. She was going back to Brown the next day to start her junior year, and she’d been on her phone even more than usual over the past week, reconnecting with friends and making plans. Sabina imagined college for a single twenty-year-old was a fantastical experience. Joey, still mostly silent because of his broken jaw and clearly not in the good graces of his father, or his uncles, or his eldest brother, pinballed around the periphery of the yard until John and Luca, standing near the beer coolers, pulled him into their conversation.
Carlo was with Trey, and with her. She felt the strength of their threesome as a family unit more strongly every day. She sought it out, and yet she feared it. Despite her rational wish to go slowly, they were moving fast, and she was not slowing things down at all. Her mind might know well that she should take measured steps into a life with Carlo and Trey, but her starved heart could wait no longer.
One other guest Sabina had never met before, and she felt a surprising, sharp twinge of jealousy when Carlo greeted her warmly, with a wholehearted hug, and Trey ran to her and hugged her legs. She was a round, pretty blonde, and as she squatted down to Trey’s level and talked with him, Sabina discovered that she had a very wide jealous streak. The woman had an aspect that was hard to hate—she just looked like a nice person. Sabina wanted to hate her, though, and watching the three of them, she decided she was going to try.
Then Carlo led the person over to her. “Bina. Sabina, I want you to meet Natalie. Natalie is Trey’s nanny.”
“Former nanny,” Natalie corrected.
Carlo looked abashed. “Right. Sorry.”
Oh. Well…oh. Sabina felt like a fool. Appalled at herself, she focused on the happy news that at least she hadn’t exposed her sudden insanity.
Carlo continued, “And Sabina is my…she’s…she’s just mine.” He gave her a look that was part apology and part question. Still contending with her misplaced jealousy, it took Sabina a second to think about his words. Then she smiled at him—she didn’t mind. In fact, she liked it. It was nothing like the way words like that had been said about her in the past.
Trey piped up. “She’s mine, too, Daddy! Right?”
“You know it, pal.”
And that sealed the deal. Sabina decided that she loved being theirs.
Natalie held out her hand. “Well, that’s quite an introduction. I’m glad to know you.”
“And I, as well.”
The afternoon passed happily. The sky glowered but kept its water. Trey opened his gifts. There was a decided shark theme—Uncle Ben and Aunt Angie gave him a six-foot long stuffed shark; Luca gave him a big, inflatable, remote-control flying shark; Joey gave him a shark-shaped sleeping bag; there were shark books, and shark t-shirts, and shark pajamas, and a Shark Week DVD set. Carlo gave him a projector that would cast an undersea world on the walls of his room at night, a world replete with sharks of every kind.
Sabina felt humbled by her little gift. Andi had taught her how to knit, and she’d made Trey a pair of shark socks. She wasn’t very good yet, and Andi had had to help her do the finish, but she’d thought they were a fun gift. To put them on, the feet went to the mouth, and then the mouth went up the leg, like the sharks were eating the legs. She hadn’t told Carlo about the gift.
As Trey plowed through one shark gift more wondrous that the one before it, over and again, nearing her small box in the shiny blue paper, Sabina steeled herself. He was four. He wouldn’t know to spare her feelings. They were only socks. How could they compare? How silly had she been to think socks were a fitting gift for a child?
He unwrapped the shiny blue paper, and she stepped back. Rosa was helping him by reading out the cards so everyone would know who had given what. Sabina took a few more steps backwards—far enough that Carlo noticed and turned back to her with a little worry. She smiled, though, and he turned back.
Trey had been shouting with glee with every magical gift. Now he was quiet. She backed up more, unable to see now what was going on. She heard Rosa say, “They’re socks, Trey.”
“Socks?” Sabina could hear his confusion.
“Yeah, like this, see?”
A pause, then a gasp. “THE SHARK IS EATING MY FOOT? THE SHARK IS EATING MY FOOT! DADDY, THE SHARK IS EATING MY FOOT!”
Carlo laughed. “Yeah, pal. I see that.”
“PUT THE OTHER ONE ON! AUNT ROSIE, THE OTHER ONE.” A pause. “TWO SHARKS ARE EATING MY FEET! SEE THE TEETH! MS. BINA!”
Trey came around the group of family who’d been circled to watch him open presents. He was lifting his feet high up with every step so he could see them as he walked.
“Ms. Bina! Look! Sharks!”
“I know! Do you like them?”
“Yeah! Sharks are eating me! Chomp chomp!” He turned around, lifting his feet like a jackbooted soldier, and returned to his little throne.
Sabina was again nearly overwhelmed with emotion. Trey did that to her often.
Carlo came up to her, smiling warmly, and took her hand. “Why did you hide
?”
“They are only socks. I felt silly.”
“Well, I think they went over okay. Where’d you find them?”
“I…made them. Andi taught me to knit so I could make them. She…helped, though. The more difficult parts.”
Carlo’s expression then didn’t register as one Sabina understood. It was deep, however. Whether she’d done something wrong, or something right, or whether that even mattered, she did not know.
“You made them? For Trey? You learned to knit and made them?”
“I did. Was that…wrong? Should I not have?” Sabina was growing more confused as he stared at her.
“No.” He caught her arm and pulled her against him. “Marry me.”
Even as the rush of adrenaline made her knees weak, she laughed. He was making a joke. He had to be, and it was safer to remember that. They’d been together in this way for one week only. It was a figure of speech. She laughed again and sought her head for something equally impish as a rejoinder.
“I’m asking, Bina.”
Her mind skidded to a halt. “What? Carlo, I…I…” Yes. The word she wanted to say was yes. Yes!
But one week. One week only. Fifteen years of captivity, a month of recovery, a little more than one month on her own, and one week with Carlo. How could she know that it was not her heart only telling her that this life was the right one, and that she would not lose herself in it before she’d even had a chance to find herself?
“Carlo. I love you. But…” She dropped her eyes and couldn’t finish. She couldn’t tell him no, or even not yet, any more than she could tell him yes.
He let go of her and took a sharp step backward. “God. I’m so sorry, Bina. I told you I wouldn’t push. I’m sorry. Forget that.”
She reached out and caught his hand. “I don’t wish to forget it. I wish to treasure it and keep it safe. For later. May I?”
“For later.” His smile was a little sad, she thought. “Yes. For later.”
~oOo~
For thirty minutes or so, there was an awkward space between them, a space filled by the two words of his proposal. In that time, Sabina began to wonder and worry whether that space would grow roots and stay between them. But then, as she was helping distribute slices of the store-bought cake and thinking wistful thoughts about what had happened in the kitchen after her cake had fallen apart, he was behind her, his hand possessive on her back. He kissed her bare shoulder.
“We okay?”
Relief overcame her, and she tipped her head to meet his. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
“I love you. There’s no rush.”
She nodded, and he kissed her cheek, his lips lingering.
As they stood there, a plate of cake forgotten in Sabina’s hands, John came over.
“Carlo. We have a situation.”
Carlo and Sabina both turned to him. “What is it?” Carlo asked.
John looked stressed and serious. Carlo grabbed Sabina’s hand, and she saw him scan the yard, relaxing when he found Trey attacking his grandfather with a rubber shark.
“You need to come in. Luca’s got it under control for now—he headed her off before she came through the gate. He’s corralled her in the living room.”
“Fuck, John, what?”
“Jenny’s here.”
~ 19 ~
At John’s words, Carlo pulled on Bina’s arm, bringing her behind him. His urge to protect her flared hot—not that sheltering her behind his body would protect her, or Trey, or him, from whatever was about to happen.
“What the fuck?”
John nodded. “I guess she just pulled up and headed up the driveway, like she was invited. She brought a gift. You need to get in there, big brother. She’s threatening to make a scene.”
He turned around and pulled Bina close. She was looking concerned and perplexed, but she clearly hadn’t worked out the full meaning of what was going on. Neither had he, for that matter.
“I need to get in there and deal with her.”
“Her? Jenny—she is Trey’s mother?”
Carlo’s tongue froze at the thought of answering in the affirmative. “She’s…she was.”
“Carlo…”
“It’s okay, baby. Stay out here with Trey—keep him from going inside, okay? I’ll deal with her and then I’ll be back.”
The furrow in her golden brow had gotten deeper, but she nodded, and he kissed the crease away. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
She went to Trey, and Carlo and John went into the house.
The last time Carlo had seen his ex-wife had been here in Quiet Cove, at the beach, for Trey’s last birthday. Since then, he’d spoken to her twice, early on, while they finalized their annulment. He tried to formulate something in his head, to prepare something, for when he saw her again. But nothing would come; his head was too full of worry for Trey and for Bina.
As he turned the corner that brought him into the front hall, he saw Luca standing in the entry to the living room. Luca turned. He looked angry and grim.
“Sorry, Carlo. I thought tying her up and throwing her in the trunk of her car would make too much noise.”
Carlo laughed a little. “Probably. Thanks for keeping her from the party.”
“No sweat.” Luca turned and looked into the living room. “This cunt is not on the list.”
Carlo came down the hall and looked over the half wall abutting the entry. Jenny was sitting primly on the sofa, a box wrapped in bright paper with planets and stars on her lap. Planets and stars had been last year’s obsession. She saw him looking and smiled—an awkward, insincere expression. The rage and hate could have swallowed him whole. He wasn’t sure he’d even hated Auberon as much as he despised this skinny little bitch sitting here.
She looked much as she had the last time he’d seen her—rail thin, with long, straight, gold hair, dressed carefully in a long, slim, white skirt and a flouncy flowered top. She lifted her left hand and tucked her hair behind her ear—there was a ring on her finger. Not the one he’d given her, thank God. He didn’t know if it was that kind of ring at all, but it had a diamond.
He didn’t speak until he was in the room. John and Luca were both behind him, at the entry. He spoke over his shoulder. “You guys can go.”
“No.” Luca’s voice was low but firm, and Carlo turned fully around.
“What?”
“I’m thinking she’s safer if I stay. And that makes you safer. I can see it in your shoulders, big brother.” He nodded toward Carlo’s hands. “And look.”
Carlo looked down; his hands were clenched into fists.
“I’m staying. I’ll keep whatever confidence, but you need a wingman. John, get out of here, keep people outside.” John nodded and went back down the hall.
Knowing his brother was right—he felt violence heating his blood—Carlo turned back to his ex-wife. “What the holy fuck are you doing here?”
She tried that plastic smile on again—why had he thought Trey had her smile? Trey’s smile was bright and beautiful. This was just a gash across her gaunt face. Had he thought her pretty once? Lovely? Elfin? “It’s Trey’s birthday. I wanted to see my son on his birthday.”
“As far as I know, you don’t have a son. You need to leave, and you need to do it now.”
Footsteps Page 26
