Page 89 of Cross + Catherine: The Companion

“Juan is outside,” Catherine said. “Are you going out to talk to him again, or are you good with letting Cece—”

“She’s good to go,” Cross said with a little wave. “Juan and I have talked.”

Smirks passed between the men at the table. All except for one, but he wasn’t quite a man yet.

Nazio, that was.

Their resident twelve-year-old genius just scowled.

Cross ignored his son, and went back to his wife. “Tell Cece to stop by and say goodbye to me before she goes, babe.”

“All right.”

Really, Cross just wanted to see his daughter before she went off on her first date with Juan. Give her a kiss. Reassure himself that she would be fine.

Of course, Cece would be fine. She was far too much like her mother and grandmother—with a good dose of her father, too—to be anything but fine. Cece could more than handle herself in a bad situation.

And … well, she was sixteen.

Cross’s daughter had started having boyfriends around fourteen, or so, but nothing that had ever been serious, and she never really seemed very interested. It seemed like his only daughter was waiting on something.

Or rather, someone.

Juan Lopez.

Cross wasn’t too concerned about Juan and Cece finally beginning their … thing. The two had certainly waited long enough, and Cross was more than aware that Juan had been very careful to respect Cross’s choices and requests about his daughter. Hell, the two worked together at times—like Miguel and Catherine did—but Juan’s interest in Catherine’s business only went as far as Cece’s involvement a lot of the time.

Funny how that worked.

With Catherine gone from the kitchen, the card game continued.

“Talked to the boy, did you?” Dante asked, smirking.

“Kind of like the way you talked to me,” Cross replied.

Kind of.

Calisto passed a look between the two men. “I’m sorry—at some point you had a chat with my son when he was a teenager?”

Dante’s gaze never left the cards in his hands. “Yes, he was pursuing my daughter, and had the arrogance of a … well, you know how he was, Cal.”

“And how did this talk go down, exactly?”

“He took me into a soundproofed room in the basement,” Cross said, “and threatened me.”

Dante grinned. “Fun times.”

That was one way to put it. Now that Cross was the man on the other side of that equation—the father of a daughter being pursued—he understood exactly why Dante had done that to a younger him.

And he didn’t blame the man.

“Anyway,” Cross said, throwing his hand of cards down to fold them, “if anything, that memory of Dante and I gave me an idea for Juan when he requested to take Cece out.”

Chuckles passed around the table.

All except for a still-scowling Nazio.

“I still don’t like this,” Naz grumbled.