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Cesare rolls his eyes and starts to examine his cuticles. I swear he has his fingernails buffed once a week. “Worry about yourself, Nero, don’t worry about me.”
Every member of the Valenti family has something going on whether they want to admit it or not. Mateo has been chasing the woman he was engaged to before he was thrown in prison. Luca is blackmailing or being blackmailed by someone, I can’t remember which. Stefano always has half a dozen women swarming around him like bees to a flower. And Cesare was hailed in the newspaper for saving a woman’s life at the grocery store, a woman that looks suspiciously like the one whose pictures hang in his office.
The Valenti boys are dangerous and they always have something up their sleeve. I’ll never understand how we got here. We used to just be five little kids racing around the idyllic gardens of our parents’ estate, playing tag and hiding behind statues. Now we’re queuing up to get married and start a family.
There’s a knock on the hotel room door just a few seconds before it starts to open. My father walks in with a teary-eyed smile and starts telling me how proud he is of me in Italian. It’s been a while since I’ve used the language and my understanding is rough, but I know what he means when he wraps his arms around me and pats me on the back.
“Do you have it?” I ask when he stops going on and on about how lovely everything looks.
Dad pats his breast pocket and then both his sides. It takes him only a second to pull out the little black box. “I had to get your mother an even bigger ring to replace this one, but she was so happy to hear that you were getting married.”
I take the box from him and open it. Inside is the Valenti family engagement ring that has been in our family for over a century. It’s been passed down from generation to generation, only to wind up in my hands. My brothers will never get the family ring, but I’m happy to pay for them to start their own. In a hundred years’ time, there could be a dozen or more Valenti family rings running around, gracing the fingers of the women we love. But this one is mine and it is beautiful.
“She’s going to love it, son,” father says as he claps a hand on my shoulder. “She’ll love it just because she loves you.”
I worry about that some days. Calliope has only been with me for two months. Half the reason she’s here is because of the requested guest of honor: her father. I wanted revenge so badly that I was willing to sign the rest of my life away to the police chief’s daughter to get it. But the other half of the reason Calliope is here is because somewhere in between revenge and retribution, I found a woman that I wanted to be with. It was less about signing the rest of my life away and more about being with someone I truly loved.
“I love her.” The words slip out of my mouth and form a crease on my forehead.
“No shit, buddy,” Stefano says with a roll of his eyes. “Or else you wouldn’t be marrying her.” He doesn’t know about everything, not yet, anyway. I haven’t seen him long enough to tell him the saga. But in a way, he’s right.
If I hadn’t liked Calliope, keeping her trapped in my mansion would have been different. I might not have shoved my cock down her throat that first night. I might not have impregnated her with my child. I might have been more willing to blackmail Chief Jackson instead of embarrass him. Calliope is a beautiful, submissive, different sort of girl. I’ve never known anyone like her before. But if she’d have been someone else? Who knows if I’d have followed through with my threats?
A man can only allow himself to go so far for duty. I don’t think I’d have married Calliope if she wasn’t what I was searching for.
“I have to do something,” I mumble after a second. I snap the box closed and head for the door.
“Wait,” father calls after me, “where are you going?”
But I don’t have time to slow down and tell him. I need to see Calliope. I need to talk to her before she walks down that aisle. She’s on a floor above me and I race up the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. I can hear laughter and music coming from her room as I approach.
Fist poised to knock, the door opens before I get a chance and I see my mother standing there with a laugh primed on her lips. She has an ice bucket in her hands and when she sees me, she almost drops it. “Nero,” she says my name like a swear word, “what are you doing out here?”
“I need to see Calliope.” I can’t stress how much I need to see her. How I need to talk to her almost as much as I need to take my next breath.
Mother chastises me and pulls the door behind her until I can’t fully see inside the room anymore. “It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. Go back to your room. You’ll see her later,” she urges
I press my hand to the hotel room door to stop my mom from shutting it completely. “Please,” I beg, “I need to talk to her.”
She sighs heavily and backs into the room, leaving the door cracked as she finds my bride. I hear her telling Calliope that I’m outside and want to talk, but that she doesn’t have to see me before the wedding if she doesn’t want to. I almost bang my head on the door frame at my mother’s insistence on sticking to tradition.
“No, no,” Calliope insists, “I’ll see him.”
My heart soars in response and I burst through the door before anyone can stop me. “I need to talk to you,” are the first words out of my mouth and the whole room gasps in response. “Just a couple of minutes. Alone, if it’s okay.”
My mother glares at me. “You better not be backing out of this wedding, Nero. I didn’t raise you like this!” She rewards me with a waggling finger that says I better not embarrass her.
“It’s not that, mother. I just need to tell Calliope something before we go to the church.” After ensuring that I don’t plan to walk out on my pregnant wife, everyone filters out of the room slowly. I’m left in a sea of wedding finery, snacks, virgin mimosas, and my bride-to-be standing there in a wedding dress.
Grace wanted her to look like Cinderella and her wish came true. Calliope stands there in a dress with a tight bodice and a flowing skirt. Her hair is curled and pulled away from her face, pinned with beautiful, real pearl accessories. “Is everything okay?” Calliope asks, the hesitance in her voice a contrast from the confidence she had just moments before.
I cross the room and stand in front of her. “I love you, Calliope Jackson. That’s it. You are everything that I have ever looked for and everything I hope to cherish for the rest of my life. No one else fills my soul like you. No one else makes me feel whole.” I recite my vows to her in the privacy of her hotel room. “You are the love of my life and I want nothing more than to share my triumphs and challenges with you for the rest of my life. I promise that I will make the struggle I put you through worth it. Worth the energy, worth the time, and worth your love. Because we are far from normal, but I hope that that’s the tie that bonds us.”
Her tongue parts her lips, leaving them wet in its wake. The shine of tears makes her green eyes watery. “You’re crazy, you know that,” she whispers. “I’ve known it since the day we met.”
I pull her closer until the fabric of her wedding dress crushes against my suit. “Crazy for you, Calliope.”
She stands on her toes, taller now that she’s in heels. She plants the smallest, most intimate kiss on the side of my mouth. “What more could a girl ask for?”
