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“Don’t worry, you will,” I said, taking her hand and gently pulling her to sit on my lap.
She brushed my hair back softly; “This Gabriel guy, what are you going to do about him? I’m surprised you didn’t kill him for talking to you like that.”
Inhaling, I placed my hands on her waist; “I can’t kill him.”
“You? The great Ethan Callahan, can’t kill someone?” She gasped, leaning in to place kisses on my eyebrow and down the side of my face. “And here I thought you were all powerful.”
“I am,” I replied. Seeing her like this made me smile slightly.
“But?”
Closing my eyes, I enjoyed her lips as they sucked on my neck, “But so are the people who created me.”
She paused in her actions, sadly, and I felt her sit up. I opened my eyes to find her staring down at me. “You aren’t killing him because of your parents?”
I nodded; “I became who I am by watching my parents. They were always plotting, building the foundations for plans that were months, sometimes years, in the making. Of all the men in the world, they chose this Gabriel. For my mother to do that, to accept that, and for my father to agree to it… It means they weighed all the options, and decided he was it.”
“It for what?”
Good question. “Knowing my father, he’d want Donatella to be happy and to live as comfortably as possible. Something she could do on her own, but I still think he wouldn’t have agreed if Gabriel didn’t have wealth of his own. But my mother…”
?
?She wouldn’t want Dona to be happy?” She pouted. “I didn’t know her personally, but from her letter I could tell she loved all of you a lot.”
My mother’s love was different, though. “My mother…” I paused, not sure how to explain it. “Her love was in the future.”
“Huh?” She made one of her many faces at me.
I nodded again, feeling a bitter ache and not wanting to speak on it, but forcing myself to continue. “My mother loved us beyond our present selves. Sometimes we’d get so angry at her while growing up, not understanding why she’d push us so hard, and then something would happen and we could handle it because of how she had pushed us. She didn’t always give us what we wanted but she always gave us what we needed…The problem is she gave it to us before we realized we needed it. All three of us have these moments…” I paused again, unsure why my throat burned as much as it did. Why speaking about my mother bother me like this?
“We’ve had these moments when… It’s like we realize we can do or we’re doing something because our mother showed us how when we were younger. Back then when we didn’t understand, we fought her, Donatella especially… She thought Mom loved her less. Now, as adults, we see just how much our mother loved us, how far she went for us… But it’s too late to thank her. We can’t show her we are grateful.”
I sighed, sitting up and brushing the side of my nose. Focusing back on her as she looked at me gently, her hands on the side of my face. “So, to answer your question, she chose Gabriel because she believes he’s the best way for Dona to get whatever it is she truly wants. I trust my mother. That’s why he isn’t dead. That’s why I’m going to step back from this and let it play out between them. Whether Dona likes it or not.”
“I don’t know if you are bad brother but you are a good son…and a better husband,” she whispered, and before I could think her lips were on mine; and just like that all of me relaxed, wrapping my arms around her as she moaned into my mouth…
Day by day, Ivy was becoming my biggest weakness.
It made me wonder about Dona and Wyatt. They were romantics at heart, and like myself, whoever they fell for would be their weakness. Neither of them knew it yet, though. How could they?
As much as I distrusted this Gabriel, I knew he didn’t want Italy. He wanted her; why else would he try so hard to push her buttons, to get in her face and challenge her, make her only see him?
“Ah…” I pulled back when she licked the part of my lip she had bitten hard.
Grabbing the sides of my face she forced me to look at her; “You’re thinking, and not about me. Stop it!”
“Yes, Mrs. Callahan.” I grinned, giving her my full attention.
ELEVEN
“The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe.”
~ Leo Tolstoy
DONATELLA
I had that feeling again. That feeling that something was off. That I was missing important pieces of the puzzle in front of me. Gabriel had been in our home for three days now and had barely spoken to me or my family. He left during the day an Ethan and I both had people tail him; a fact he must have been aware of that but didn’t seem to faze him. It was where he was going that bothered me. He’d gone to the OC on the first day and volunteered from morning until closing. The staff said he hadn’t made any calls nor disappeared during that time. They all gushed about how kind and funny he was, and how the elders all liked him. The second day he’d gone to Morning Glory Hospital and volunteered there, reading fairytales to the younger kids, then playing Mahjong and Boggle with the elderly. The third day was the worst. He went out running and then sat on the grass, leaning against a tree and reading for the entire day.
