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Now, Mom and I try to have lunch together once a month. Slow to heal, but we’re on our way.
“Maybe Lacey is still thinking about what happened last year, when she had to pretend to be your mistress,” Wes jokes. “It was a fun joke around the agency or a while.”
“She played the part well enough. She certainly had me fooled!” Mrs. Folders clasped a surprised hand to her chest, but we all know better. The old woman is a mischief maker.
“I never tried to fool you, I’ll have you know,” I say, “I was only being polite and helping you.”
“Well, I thought you were involved romantically with this one.” She winks at Marco. “Who wouldn't be? Look at his face!”
Wes’ wife murmurs her agreement and earns a sour look from her husband.
Marco loops our hands together and lifts mine to press a kiss against my knuckles. “She is now. Romantically involved, I mean.”
“And I did what I had to do for the job,” I say. “Wes knows. I’m nothing if not loyal to my job and anything it entails.”
Wes and I have finally been on our upward trajectory. The last year has been a whirlwind professionally and personally for both of us—a new baby daughter for him, and a promotion for us, as partners.
A move for me, and a whole bunch of my toiletries joining Marco’s in the bathroom. He isn’t too happy about having to share the closet space, even though most of my outfits are jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts, besides the occasional ballgown I like to try on to seduce him.
Those are the nights when Natasha Moretti makes another appearance in our lives.
Healing. Happiness. Loving the way things are playing out. Thriving the way we all hope to thrive. It’s such a change from this time last year, and as I crowd even closer to Marco, snuggling against his side, I can’t imagine anything else for me. It’s like every path, every setback and stumble, led to this exact point.
Where I’m meant to be.
It’s a point where Christmas music plays softly from the stereo, where presents are heaped around the lower boughs of the very real tree.
“My excellent skills at pretense are what saved Christmas. Or didn’t you hear?” I have to be careful what I say, because Mrs. Folders, the neighbors, and my mom have no idea what actually happened, or the integral part I’d played in the takedown of Stefan and the rest of the Zicari Syndicate.
Marco excluded. He’d managed to get off any pending charges on technicalities. Another miracle. Wink, wink.
“You might be a good actress, love, but you don’t ever have to play a mistress again,” Marco says with a swipe of his thumb over my knee.
I turn to Marco, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I want you for my wife.” In Marco’s next breath, he’s down on his knee in front of me, holding my hand with one of his and reaching into the pocket of his pants. “Lacey—”
“Oh my god!” Wes’ wife slaps a hand across her mouth. “You owe me fifty bucks!”
“A real Christmas miracle, more like,” Mom says in a hushed tone, warning the others to quiet down as her eyes go teary.
The rest of the room fades away until it’s only me and Marco, the two of us together in this bubble of absolute bliss. He finagles the black velvet box open, the diamond nestled inside shining.
“Lacey, you came into my life in the most unexpected way. We started this thing by playing pretend, but it quickly turned into something real. Very real. Now, I know you’ve got your work husband,” he says. Wes chuckles a little, but the sound fades into the background as well. “But I want to be your actual husband. I want you to be my wife. Mine, forever.”
Tears prick the backs of my eyes until they leak out, trailing down my cheeks.
I’m too cynical to believe in happy endings, or the happy ever afters that fairytales promise, but I’m damn sure going to make this life count.
“Is that a yes, Lacey?” Wes shouts. “Don’t torture the poor guy.”
I peer down at Marco, feeling drunk on the absolute happiness flowing through me. “Yes. Of course. I mean, yes, I’ll marry you.”
Grinning, Marco slides the diamond onto my left ring finger before standing again and lifting me into his arms. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him as everyone claps and cheers around us.
It’s hard to believe it was just last Christmas that I was pretending to be a mafia mistress. And now, by this time next year, I’ll be an ex-mafia’s wife.
I’ll be Marco’sactualwife.
Damn.
A Christmas miracle indeed.
The End
