Page 97 of Bobby

The cousin is a spitfire in her own way. We don’t talk to each other much, but when we do, it’s short and not sweet at all. She seems to think the entire Leone family is beneath her from the way she doesn’t hide her disapproving looks. The only one of us she keeps a stone face around is Mama.

“Where is your fiancée? Thought she would be here by now.” Tommy says with a smirk.

We all came down to Kansas as a group four days ago to help with the wedding, as well as spend more time with our sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. However, Bianca and her cousin said they would join us for the ceremony only and flew by themselves.

“No clue.” Vinny doesn’t look shaken by the news, nor does he seem to care.

My heart aches for my brother, knowing he’ll never get to experience the happiness love can bring.

“Daddy!” Lily’s typical high cry of warning is all I get a second before she jumps onto my lap.

“Hey, princess. Have I told you how amazing you were today?” Mama let the dream go of Willow being in the wedding, but she was delighted with her bambini being two of four flower girls. The Hounds brought in their two who’ve known Milly’s man almost their entire lives.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes. Like ten billion times.”

The boys join me in laughter at my daughter’s antics.

Daughter. Not one, but two. And I’d burn cities for them.

A lot has changed in three weeks. Time has flown by, but the memories of each day have lasted.

I kept my word, and the night we came home after our Thanksgiving meal with Mama, the girls moved in with me. Four days later, I asked Willow to marry me. She only said yes because I asked nicely and let her pick out the ring. Well, sort of. She chose a modest one, so I tripled the size but kept the style the same. I apologized for it, of course. Over and over again.

We’ve been living in happiness ever since. The kind of bliss that makes a man paranoid he’ll lose it. And I don’t apologize to any of my girls for the amount of security I have on them at all times because of it.

We might not have set the date yet, much to Mama’s dismay, but we’re happy. And Willow figured out a way to make Mama happy by saying she didn’t want to steal the magic away from Milly. That our engagement, while known, will be put on the back burner, as will any talk of a wedding, until after Milly is married.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that Mama has already booked four wedding venues for us to look at the day we get back to New York.

“Did you need something, princess?”

“Yes, Daddy.” Lily started calling me that almost the moment she moved into my home. Ivy took a little longer. I think it helped when I sat them down the day before I asked their mama to marry me and spoke to them about it.

“You want to marry Mommy?” Ivy asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?” Ivy is always the quizzical one of the two, and Lily, for all her energy, stayed silent as her older sister interrogated me to see if I was good enough for their mother.

“Because I love her. And I love you both too. I want to spend the rest of my life making you all happy.”

“Will you make me call you Father?”

That was the only time she ever mentioned anything somewhat related to her father. A man who Danny confirmed was dead. Along with his wife, but that wasn’t on us. She took some pills. Wasn’t even pregnant, it turned out. And her father’s company? It’s struggling. Bankrupted by Trevor and Jessica, it appears. We might have no love lost for the family, but I quietly paid for Jessica’s funeral and expenses. One burden not put on her father, who’s a good man. I’ve offered him some work. Not much, but enough to keep him running his small business. Nothing too big or grand like he once had. Some lessons still have to be taught, even if he wasn’t the one to make the mistakes but sired the one who did.

“I’d never make you call me anything you don’t want to. Love isn’t forced. It’s earned. I’m your friend first and always. Anything else you want me to be is up to you, but you will always have my love and my protection. That will never go away. Ever.”

After that, Ivy has called me just about anything. Bobby at times, Dad at others. It’s not as often, and I’m planning to keep my promise, never forcing it. She might never really call me Dad other than a handful of times in her life, but she’ll feel a father’s love for the rest of her life.

“Can we adopt Marco?”

Choking comes from my second-in-command as he looks over at us from across the table.

“Don’t you think he’s too old?” Tommy asks as he pulls Payton, who wandered closer to my brother, onto his lap.

“No one’s too old for a mommy and a daddy,” Lily protests with a strict headshake.

“How do you know he doesn’t already have one?” Danny asks with a soft smile reserved only for his nieces and nephew.