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I tug her into my lap. Her smile is the cat that got the cream. “I’m not naked. I’m wearing a robe.”
Sliding my hand up her inner thigh…damn, even better than the silk she’s wearing. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.” I undo the knot around her waist. So damn sexy.
I press my hand over our children. A solid kick is against my palm. All over again I’m in awe of the way she is growing our children within her small body. She was even sexier than I imagined, I loved how my kitten became so very needy in the last few months. Her pleas for me to be inside her kept us in our room in bed most of the day. Heaven. I became adept at doing business from my phone so I didn’t leave her.
“Your daughter won’t let me sleep. I had to get up to pee.” She grumbles as she buries her face into my neck. “It’s been over an hour and I can’t get back to sleep. I’m so tired. But I can’t get comfortable.”
“Hmm…I’m sure it’s your son.” I brush a finger over a tight nipple and she squirms on my lap. Then ruins my plans by yawning. Poor baby is far too tired, and I’ve already taken her twice since I came home before coming into my office to work. “I have things I need to do, my love. You’ll be a good girl in my lap.”
“Yes, Milos.” She hums the words into my skin. Running a hand over her hair while I study the figures, I feel her fall into sleep within minutes.
Almost an hour later I finish my work and begin shutting down, careful not to wake Celia. She usually stays asleep when I carry her to bed. My phone rings, it’s Valdez.
“Yes?” I answer.
“I finally have the information on the threat to Celia, her sister, and her mother.”
“It took you long enough. I’d almost forgotten about it,” I admit.
He clears his throat, obviously embarrassed by his failure to answer the question long ago. “There was no threat.”
“What?” I hadn’t thought there was, but it still doesn’t make sense based on what Carlo said.
“It was his second taking advantage of a situation. He was dating a nurse who worked in the emergency room. She recognized Cassandra and saw she was pregnant. The nurse told Carlo’s second, wondering what Carlo would do about his mistress pregnant. He was pissed Carlo hadn’t named him as his successor and inheritor. That’s why there weren’t any notes for so long. But his son knew about them. The son wanted to move up and was interested in using Celia to do it. He left the notes in order to make a marriage with her. Then Carina when Celia became engaged to you.”
I shake my head. “It never made sense to me. After so many years watching her so closely and never seeing anything, I wondered. I’ll talk to Carlo about it tomorrow and let him decide what he wants to do about it. Thank you.”
“I’ll send it over email now. Have a good night.”
Hanging up, I sit in wonder for a minute. I’m relieved but it feels rather anticlimactic. As I carry Celia to bed, it comes back—do I tell her the truth of Carlo’s feelings?
She snuggles into me the moment I’m in bed. “What’s the matter?”
I decide to tell her everything, keeping to my no-more-secrets promise. I haven’t regretted it once so far.
Her eyes are wide when I finish. “What in the hell?”
“Should I not have told you?” I ask.
A heavy sigh. “I’m glad you did. At the same time it doesn’t really change anything. As you once said, it doesn’t matter what you intended. If the result was the same, it doesn’t mean a thing. He never showed us the smallest kindness, never mind love. If he could pretend he didn’t care for my mother and still love her in private, there were ways he could have…”
The pain in her eyes has me wishing I could make Carlo pay for it.
“My mother wasn’t much better. For years I blamed Carlo for the way she treated us, but I don’t know, I don’t think it was all him. Something tells me even if there wasn’t a threat to us, neither one of them would have been a loving parent. My mother didn’t like to talk about her parents, but I’m guessing they weren’t so great. And Nonna said often her husband was a cruel man who raised a cruel son.” She sighs as she lays her head on my chest.
“Maybe, Ihad wondered how a man could look into your eyes and not give you everything you wanted and needed—I couldn’t imagine it.”
“Milos, what happens if one of our children is…gay? What will you do?” Her question is hesitant.
Grasping her hair, I bring her eyes up to mine. “What I won’t do is stop loving them.” She sags into me. “They will have two options and it will have to be up to them. The most painful for them is to live the lie here with us in Chicago. Marry someone they trust to keep their secret, who will allow them to live their truth while hiding it. Or the most painful for us as their family, but most freeing for them, is to go as far as they can. I would push the lie that they are no children of mine, and we would change their name for their safety. They cannot be tied to us—if it’s believed they could be used against me, then they would be. In our family we would know the truth, but the outside can never know. A few times a year we could see them, but they would—for their protection—live a life separate from ours.”
Her smile is tender. “I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve thought so far ahead. But I am.”
“Of course, after finding out for myself there is no dictating to your heart who you will fall in love with, I thought long and hard about the future of our children.” And I had for exactly the reason I fell in love with her—completely, totally, and consuming. There is no guarantee our children will fall in love with who I want them to, as my brothers sure as hell hadn’t. While I can’t come up with every scenario that might befall our children, I sure as hell can try.
“Hmm, no dictating, but you don’t regret it at all.” She is as smug as she deserves to be.
No longer a man obsessed now that there is no question my heart’s desire is as in love with me as I am with her. I give the answer she never had any doubt over. “No, my love, not in the slightest. You and that kitten were the best thing to ever happen to me.”
