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The server came back at that moment to take their order. As soon as she’d gone, Marcos took hold of Molly’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “No, I am. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you.”
“You have every right.”
She shrugged. “You’re not a jerk.”
“I was.”
“But you’re not anymore—other than when you get jealous about Grady. That’s crazy, it’s almost an insult that you could think you have any competition there. It makes me feel like—I don’t know what, but something pretty stupid, to admit that you’ve never had any competition.”
He squeezed her hand. “Neither have you.”
She scowled at him. She didn’t want them to keep going around and around having the same conversation about him and Caterina.
He shook his head. He knew what she was thinking. “Caterina was never your competition. She was my mistake—and I was hers.”
Molly nodded. “I’m glad you said that.”
“Which part?”
“That you were her mistake. I’m not inclined to like her very much, but there are always two sides to a relationship. I’d love to think she was a bitch and you were the poor unsuspecting male, but …”
“No. I don’t blame her. I can’t say I don’t blame her at all. But I was just as responsible as she was. On paper, we were a good match. In our hearts, we didn’t match at all. She’s not a bad person, I don’t mean to make her out to be the villain. It was just a bad situation—for both of us.”
Molly nodded. “Thank you for explaining that. I didn’t want to think of you as the poor dumb guy who got taken for a ride by the evil witch and didn’t want to think that you were denying all responsibility and blaming her for everything either.”
“No. I was blinded by my own stupidity, not by her.”
“Okay. So, how about we change the subject? Do you want to show me your house after breakfast?”
He smiled, no doubt as relieved as she was to leave talk of Caterina and Grady behind. “I’d love to. I think you’ll love it. And if you do, we can come up here for the weekend whenever you want.”
She chuckled. “How about the midweek, since weekends are my busy times?”
“We can come whenever you want.”
~ ~ ~
Marcos looked around the room. It was full of the important people in his life. His cousin, Cameron, and his bride-to-be, Piper, looked happy. The rehearsal had gone well, with lots of laughter and few screw ups. Marcos could see that the two of them had a great future ahead of them.
He smiled at the sight of his mom talking to Molly. She’d always loved Molly and had made her displeasure known when Marcos had come home to Sicily without her. She’d even sat him down on the night of his own rehearsal dinner and told him it wasn’t too late to back out. At the time, he’d thought her overly emotional—that she didn’t understand how important the family was to him. Now he understood all too well that the family was what she’d been talking about. She wanted a happy family and couldn’t care less about social standing or reputation. She only wanted her boys to be happy.
He turned as someone came to stand behind him.
“Is it going to work out?” Pete pinned him down with his icy blue gaze.
“I hope so.”
“You don’t know? You haven’t closed the deal yet?”
Marcos laughed. “It’s not a deal, Pete. It’s the rest of my life—the rest of hers. It’s not about negotiating the details.”
Pete smiled. “I know. Hell, I know all about it.” He turned and looked across to where his wife Holly was standing talking to Mary Ellen.
“Holly’s good for you. She reminds you that there’s more to life than deals and negotiations.”
“She does. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and I know it.” He shook his head. “I almost let her slip away before we got married. I almost fucked it up.” He held Marcos’ gaze for a moment. “I can’t stand to think about how it would have been.”
