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On the day Caterina and I had been wed for three months, he called me home to ask if she was pregnant. “She’s forty, father,” I told him. “It isn’t as easy to get pregnant the older you get.”
He kindly suggested I go home, fuck my wife’s brains out, and stop fooling around with the psychology shit. He wanted me to be her loyal stay-at-home husband, not an unemployed college student.
Less than two years later, she was dead. It was a pity because I was coming around to love her in the way that a married man and woman should love one another. But before I got to explore all the romance and intimacy we could have had, she passed away, leaving me with an inheritance I never expected: her daughter.
I didn't want to parent a teenager at first. Christine was moody and sullen. She had her best friend over a lot, and when Kaye was around, Christine’s mood improved considerably. I did what I could, but I was lost. I never expected to be married at twenty-five and widowed by twenty-seven.
I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know how to care for a teenage girl. All I knew was I had to keep her fed and ensure she got to school on time. When her uncles showed up to take her away, it finally hit me that I loved her more than they did.
Giovanni wanted to take her back to Kansas City. He brought Marco as a buffer in case things got ugly. Giovanni said he had three sons and two daughters; Christine would fit in perfectly. I’d grown up in a house with a similar genetic makeup, and I couldn’t bear the thought of forcing an only child to suddenly become kid number six in a large household.
“Over my dead body.” Caterina didn’t plan for what would happen after her death. By law, everything she owned reverted to me, including her daughter. “Christine’s best friend is here. Her entire life is here in Manhattan.” She was in high school, for Christ’s sake. Now wasn’t the time to uproot her and make her start all over again, and I made sure he was aware of that. “This is where her support system is, and I will not let you uproot that.”
“I’m her family, cafone. You’re a little fuck boy that my father bought and paid for. You’re nothing to her,” Giovanni laughed. Marco stood behind him and offered a nervous laugh in agreement.
Though Giovanni's words hurt, he wasn’t wrong. Leonardo Lucatello paid my father a fortune for me to wed Caterina. She was older, and everyone knew what happened with her first husband. But despite the tradition of taking a mistress, I never fucked around on Caterina. The day I found out I was arranged to be wed, I ended all my relationships. I never looked at or touched another woman until the day my wife died.
“I’m her stepfather whether you like it or not.” Bought and paid for, just like Giovanni said. “Where were you when your sister was dying? Because I was at her bedside every. fucking. night. You know who wasn’t? Her brothers.” I was there when her hair started to fall out. I was there when she couldn’t stop vomiting. I was there when she spiked a fever that led to her final hospital stay. “Do you know who made breakfast for Christine when Caterina was too sick to get up? Me. Who was there for Christine at the funeral? Me. Who’s been there for her every day since? Me. If you’re her support system, you fucking suck.”
I was too heated to say more, but it didn’t matter. Christine came out of nowhere and announced that she wanted to stay with me because it was what her mom would have wanted.
I still didn't know how to take care of a teenager, but I was willing to learn. I would do whatever it took to keep Christine safe and happy because she was right: it's what Caterina Lucatello would have wanted.
Chapter 3
Christine
“You’re a dick.”
Niccolo crosses his arms over his chest and tilts his head to the side. Caution blazes in his eyes, resignation stalking every line of his posture. “Because I don’t want you to risk your life to go to your little friend’s house?”
“No,” I respond with a petulant tone. “Because you think you can control me even though I’m eighteen.”
His upper lip curls into a smirk as he shifts his weight from the balls of his feet to his heels. “You live in my home, dolcezza.”
“The home that you inherited from my mother.” I match his body language movement for movement. “Because your poor famiglia was so disappointed that their son wanted to become a professor, they had to marry him off to the first woman that would take him.” A roar of thunder booms outside, the rumble punctuated by the crack of lightning.
Niccolo’s arms slacken to his sides. His voice rings out with ferocious intensity as a stream of curses and insults pour from his mouth in a torrent of Italian.
It’s been a few years since I actively studied the language, but I make out phrases like ‘little brat’ and ‘you’ll learn to respect me’. I bide my time in silence until he stops to breathe, his face red hot with anger. “Are you done?”
His eyes narrow, the pupils expanding like pools of blackness until they consume his gaze in a feral glint. His steps echo menacingly as he moves closer, the air thickening with an ominous energy.
My throat tightens as if a clawed hand grips it from the inside, and I step backward from him. The back of my knees collide with the edge of the couch, making me lose balance. I tumble, arms flailing in all directions. My elbow catches on the forgotten bowl of popcorn, upending it dramatically. As I fall onto the sofa, kernels fly everywhere, coating the floor and furniture in butter and salt.
“You are not going to Kaye’s house. I don’t care if it’s on fire and you're the only one that can put it out,” he deadpans. "The streets are flooding, and the storm is getting worse. You’ll stay where you are, and you’ll like it.”
I crush popcorn into the couch cushions as I scramble to my feet. Niccolo turns his back on me, but I follow him. He strides down the hallway toward the kitchen with his shoulders straight and head held high. “She’s my best friend, Nic. She said Xavier was outside her house, and then her phone died. What if—”
Niccolo turns around so quickly that I slam right into him. The impact knocks the breath out of my lungs and nearly topples me. If it weren't for his strong arms reaching out to grab me, I'd crash to the floor. “What if you call an Uber and get into a wreck on the way there?” He roars over my arguments. “What if you take my car and wrap it around a tree?” The emotion in his voice is palpable, reflecting his passion as he speaks. “You aren’t leaving, Christine. Go to bed.”
I am suddenly aware of the thin cotton shirt stretching across my breasts. I’m not wearing a bra, and my nipples peak through the fabric. Goosebumps swell on my forearms from cold and nerves, but mainly desire. “It’s not even 10:00 p.m.,” I challenge.
He releases me, and his breath comes in deep, even pulls. He closes his eyes as if to pause time while he regains his calm. “Don’t whine, Christine. It’s childish behavior for a young woman. And you know how I get when you act childish.”
My breath catches in my throat as I remember the last time we were in a position like this. The smell of his warm skin and the sound of his breathing force the memory to play out again right before my eyes.
Chapter 4
