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He sighed. Of course the weatherman wouldn’t know what he was talking about.
* * *
They settled onto the cabin porch as the rain steadily fell, a curtain of water cutting them off from the world. Haven watched it quietly, while Carmine strummed his guitar.
“Will you play something for me?” she asked. He started to reply, to tell her he was playing something, when she spoke again. “Something happy, please.”
He sighed. No more Moonlight Sonata. “Uh, sure. I’ll play a song that reminds me of us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s a real song,” he said. “I mean, like one you hear on the radio or whatever.”
“Will you sing it too?”
He stared at her. He could probably rupture eardrums and break sanities with his voice, but he couldn’t deny her. Not when she looked at him that way. “Okay, but this might not be pretty.”
Her smile grew. Carmine strummed the first few chords of Blue October’s “18th Floor Balcony” before softly singing the lyrics. He could feel her gaze on him, his fingers wavering, but he tried to keep focused so not to mess up. He could tell her all day long that he loved her, but this was cracking his chest open and stepping out of himself fully for her to see.
He glanced at Haven toward the end of the song, his fingers stilling when he saw tears streaming down her cheeks. Reaching over, he brushed some of them away.
She let out a shaky breath as she placed her hand on top of his. “Can we go inside?”
He led her into the cabin for the first time, and she paused right inside the door, surveying the dozens of roses faintly visible in the glow of the room. He scooted around her and turned on some music, scanning through songs when Haven brushed against him. She pulled off her coat and draped it over a chair before grabbing a rose. Bringing it to her nose, she inhaled its sweet scent as she sat on the bed, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth.
Carmine tossed his suit coat onto the table and lit the fireplace before walking over to her. Her expression made his steps falter. “You okay, hummingbird?”
Her voice cracked. “Perfect.”
“Perfect, indeed.”
He cupped her cheek and kissed her as she ran her hands through his hair. She moaned as he pushed her onto her back and leaned over her with his hands on both sides of the bed. He pulled from her mouth to take a breath and nudged her head to the side to kiss her neck.
“Carmine,” she whispered as he kissed toward her collarbones. “Make love to me.”
Strong emotions swirled through him—shock and elation, with a ton of fear—as his eyes met hers. He wanted to . . . Christ, did he want to . . . but there was no turning back from that. “Haven . . .”
“It feels right,” she said. “We’re right.”
He felt it, too. There in that moment, it was just him and her, no one and nothing else. They were all that mattered—two people, desperately in love and wanting to show each other. No master and slave, no class divides. No Principe della Mafia and his sweet forbidden fruit.
They never really felt that way, but it was hard to ignore the labels. There were reminders everywhere of the people they were supposed to be, the ones they didn’t want to be, but it was different here. Here, they were away from everything threatening to tear them apart. Here, there were no complications, no need to hide or pretend.
Carmine didn’t respond. No words were necessary. That bitch of a voice inside his head, doubting and nagging, had finally been silenced.
He gazed at her, absorbing all the love, before leaning down and softly capturing her lips with his. He kissed her tenderly as he placed his hand on her knee, slowly running it up her inner thigh. She squirmed under his touch, a whimper escaping her throat as she ran her hands under his shirt, tingles swimming through him as she caressed his bare skin.
Pulling away, he crouched down beside the bed and pushed up her dress, watching for any sign of distress. “You can change your mind at any time, hummingbird.”
Carmine paced the foyer again, dressed in a black suit and nervously twirling a red rose. Ever since he had told Dia about his plans, she had been calling it Operation Cinderella, although he thought it was more like Operation Please-Don’t-Fuck-This-One-Up. The closest he got to being Prince Charming was being a Principe della Mafia, but there was nothing remotely romantic about that.
His mind ran through all the potential catastrophes as he waited, already preparing for the worst. He might say something wrong and offend her. She might be disappointed or overwhelmed by it all. The picnic would be a disaster, with food poisoning or invading ants. If none of that happened, it would storm, even though the weatherman assured a clear night.
Earthquake. Tornado. Tsunami. Monsoon. Hurricane. Flood. Hail. Blizzard. He didn’t know if half were possible, but he imagined them all happening at once.
Eventually the clunky hunk of junk Dia called a car pulled up outside. His heart pounded hard. It was only Haven, he reminded himself. It was the girl who, somehow, saw him at his worst and still managed to love him.
The door opened and Haven stepped in. She fidgeted in a white dress, a tiny bit of makeup on her face, her wavy hair tamed and pulled back. “Buon San Valentino,” he said, holding out the flower. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
