by Bethany-Kris
“Yep.”
“And—”
“You’re kinda makin’ me late, Daddy,” Cece said seriously, “and I gots a place to claim.”
Their little princess.
Already head of the school.
Cross laughed, and nodded. “Fine. Go ahead.”
Cece blew kisses as she turned for the school. On the last few steps before she reached the waiting principal, she glanced over her shoulder, and gave a little wave.
Cross was still kneeling on the ground. Catherine could feel his fucking stress.
“Don’t you move or stop smiling at her,” she warned him, barely letting her lips move as she said the words. “Make her think you’re sad about this day, and it will ruin it for her, Cross.”
“This is killing me, Catty.”
“She is going to be fine.”
“Should have red-shirted her for a year.”
“Nope,” Catherine said.
Then, Cece was gone.
Catherine let out a sigh of relief. She made it through this morning without a breakdown from their daughter, and without one from Cross.
Winning.
Cross stood with a heavy sigh, and turned to face his wife. “Are you happy, now?”
“Very. And no, you cannot wait outside this school all day for her.”
“I wasn’t …” She gave him a look, and Cross added, “You know what, never mind.”
“I give it until lunch time before we get a call.”
Cross smirked. “Not even.”
She should have trusted his judgement. They were called at eleven.
Cece punched a boy right in the throat after he pulled her hair. And she did it with a smile, apparently.
Five months later …
Catherine shrugged her coat off in the hallway, and kicked the sky-high Prada heels aside. The house was strangely quiet, but she didn’t think much of it. She hadn’t been home since dropping Cece off to school that morning, and it was closing in on noon. Nazio would likely be napping.
So why did she smell peanut butter?
“Cross?” Catherine called.
“Kitchen, babe.”
She found her husband loading dishes into the dishwasher. Nazio was nowhere to be seen.
“How did that meet with Miguel go?” Cross asked as she passed him a plastic cup.
“Good. We’ve got things under control. The girls are satisfied.”
“Business good?”
Catherine smirked. “Very good.”
“How good?”
“You’re such a numbers man.”
Her husband straightened to his full height with one of his sinful smirks. Leaning over the open door of the dishwasher, he gave her a quick kiss and said, “Good numbers, babe.”
“Same thing.”
“Good numbers get me hot.”
“Mmhmm.” Catherine tapped his cheek with her ring covered fingers. “The numbers were very good this month.”
Cross nodded. “That’s great. In case nobody tells you, Catty, you’re kickass at what you do.”
“Am I?”
She knew she was.
She liked it when he told her, though.
For the most part, they kept business out of their house and marriage. He did his thing. She did hers. Life gave them plenty of other nonsense to bicker and work out. Business was not ever going to be one of them.
“Crazy good,” he told her. “And that gets me hot, too.”
Catherine laughed, and pushed away from the counter. “You’re something else.”
“Help me get little man down to bed, and I’ll show you something else, babe.”
She bet he would.
She couldn’t wait.
Also …
“Speaking of Nazio,” Catherine said, looking around, “where is he?”
Cross’s gaze instantly flew to the other side of the kitchen where a pile of their eighteen-month-old son’s toys sat untouched in the corner. Cars, trucks, and trains. All the things that Nazio loved to push around on his chubby little legs.
Usually, with his leather jacket and a beanie on his head.
The kid had quirks.
Like his sister.
“Where did he go?” Cross asked.
Catherine’s heart leapt into her throat. “I just got home, how would I know?”
“Well, don’t shriek at me.” Cross darted across the kitchen, and headed out into the hallway. Catherine was right on his heels. “Nazio, come to Daddy!”
“The back door is locked, right?”
“Jesus, Catherine, he can’t even reach that!”
“Stop shouting at me!”
“Nazio!”
“Do you smell that?” Catherine asked.
Peanut butter.
It was stronger now.
Stronger than when she first came in.
Cross sniffed the air, and passed her a look. “Is that …?”
“Peanut butter,” she said, “yeah.”
“Oh, fuck.”
This was not the first time.
This was not even the fifth time.
It was probably not going to be the last time.
Anything Nazio got his little fingers into, he made a mess of. Baby oil. Baby powder. Vaseline. Cross’s shampoo he once left sitting on the edge of the tub instead of higher on a shelf. Cece’s nail polish. Rice.
Anything.
“This is your fault,” Catherine told Cross.
“Is not!”
“It is, and you’ll be the one cleaning it, too.”
“Will not.”
“You sound like a ch—”
“Hi, Da. Hi, Ma.”
Catherine’s eyes stretched wide at the sight of Nazio inside Cross’s office at the very back of the house. Their son’s teeny, tiny fingers were caked in peanut butter. Thin streaks of the brownish, tan butter covered the walls up to about two feet—Nazio’s height. His black tufts of hair were chunked with the gunk. Cross’s desk, a mess. The light cream carpet? Totaled.
Everything.
A mess.
Peanut butter everywhere.
Nazio, his father’s little twin, blinked up at them with a toothy grin and soul-brown eyes. “Hi, Da. Hi, Ma.”
A record on repeat.
Sweet as could be.
He probably didn’t think he had done a damn thing wrong.
“Hi, baby,” Catherine told him.
“Naz,” Cross said, plucking the now empty peanut butter jar up from the floor, “who made a mess in Daddy’s office?”
Nazio pursed his pink lips, and narrowed his eyes. “Cece.”
“Nazio.”
The eighteen-month-old didn’t even blink at his father.
“Cece.”
“Naz.”
The baby shrugged.
“Nazio,” Cross repeated once more, “who did it?”
Peanut butter covered the baby. He looked a right mess. Catherine had all she could do not to burst out laughing, but mostly because Cross would be the one cleaning it.
“Who did it, Naz?”
“Cece,” Nazio said.
“Cece is at school.”
Nazio shrugged.
Cross let out a breath. “You did it, didn’t you?”
“Cece,” Nazio repeated again.
“Now, Naz.”
The baby shrugged again.
Blaming his sister, or shrugging it off when he was caught was Nazio’s best defense.
“Well,” Catherine said, “who left the peanut butter jar open where he could reach or climb to it, Cross?”
Silence answered her back.
She was not surprised.
Not the fifth time, after all.
“Hmm?”
“Cece,” Cross said, refusing to meet her gaze.
Catherine tossed her hands up. “And you wonder where Nazio gets it from.”
“Well, no. I don’t wonder, really. I’m quite aware that this is what people call karma, Catherine.” Cross wet his
lips and surrendered with, “Okay, this one was my fault.”
Their life was still unruly.
Just now, in better ways.
Catherine wouldn’t change it for the world.
Effortless: A Legacy Novel
Tommaso Rossi + Camilla Donati
Releasing January 2017
*This is an unedited snippet of Effortless: A Legacy Novel, a standalone contemporary erotic romance featuring Tom Rossi and Cam Donati. There may be typos, grammatical errors, or otherwise.*
“At least wait until I’m not looking to eye-fuck my sister,” Cross said under his breath. “That’s the respectful thing to do, Tommaso.”
Tom heard Cross’s warning loud and clear, but it still took him a couple of extra seconds to tear his gaze away from the platinum and purple-headed blonde across the room. He knew Cross had a younger sister—nineteen or twenty, somewhere around there—Camilla. Although, he had never met the girl.
No, not a girl.
Definitely a young woman.
Very much woman.
All woman.
Tom’s gaze darted back to the woman in question as Cross stopped to chat with somebody. He figured his friend’s attention was distracted enough that he wouldn’t notice or mind Tom sneaking one more peek at Camilla Donati.
Petite in stature, she would barely reach his chin and that was with her heels on. And speaking of the heels … Those damn things had spikes all the way around the straps, and they looked made for some kind of fun and sin.
There were at least another thirty women in the room. All dressed in some variance of skirts, dresses, or jeans that hugged their asses tight enough to make Tom wonder how the fuck they could even breathe.
Yet, something about Camilla kept his gaze drifting in her direction.
Edgy makeup, with crystals placed along the cut line of her eyebrows. Red lipstick so dark it was bordering on a black crimson. Round, large brown eyes that someone else might have mistaken as innocence staring back from them.
He didn’t see innocence at all.
Not the way she was looking at him.
Pretty wasn’t the right word for her delicate features and naturally pouty lips. Pretty made him think of fragile lace and inexperience.
Alluring was more like it, with just enough of a touch of sex to color her up.
Like a rose.
Attractive, silky smooth, interesting and beautiful. Just enough sexy to make it impossible to resist touching it. Hidden dangers in the form of thorns ready to injure and scar.
“She single?” Tom asked when Cross finished with his conversation with the stranger. He couldn’t even help it. The words came out before he could stop them. “Your sister, I mean. Is she?”
“Kind of makes you look like a lovesick fucker when you keep staring, Tom.”
“Your point?”
Cross sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “Cam doesn’t know what a relationship is, so yeah, she’s … available.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Not my business, that’s what.”
Tom didn’t press for more. “Why aren’t you pounding me into the ground right now for even looking at her? She’s what, nineteen, or—”
“She’ll be twenty soon.”
“Didn’t answer my question.”
Cross shrugged. “Cam does Cam, man. She does whatever the hell she wants to do, and nothing anyone else says has much effect on her. As long as she’s having fun, nobody’s bothering her, and she doesn’t need me to step in, then I step way the fuck back. She’s my sister, not my property.”
“So you wouldn’t mind—”
“Literally not talking anymore about it because I don’t care and I don’t want to know.”
Good enough for Tom.
“I mean,” Cross added quickly, “she doesn’t usually mess with my friends, so good luck with that, huh?”
Tom chuckled.
He didn’t need fucking luck.
She was still looking at him, too.
“Zeke!”
Cross’s holler gained the attention of the man standing beside Camilla. A singe wave of Cross’s hand sent Zeke heading in their direction.
“What, you’re not even going to introduce me to her?” Tom asked.
His friend laughed at him, and hit him hard on the back.
“Fuck no,” Cross said. “I’m not helping you. I just won’t stop you. See the difference?”
“You’re a shit.”
“Not news, man.”
“A real shit.”
“I said what I said,” Cross replied.
Well, if Camilla was anything like her brother … Tom didn’t plan on going very far with her, anyway. One could only take so much Donati attitude before it drove them up the fucking wall.
Zeke nodded to Tom as he joined Cross. “Tommaso. Haven’t seen you in what, a couple of years?”
“Something like that. How’s your father?”
“Wolf is … Wolf.”
“So, riding your ass, right?”
Zeke laughed. “Every damn day.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Tom watched Camilla tip her crystal wine glass up for another sip. He saw just the tip of her tongue peek out to edge along the rim of the glass. His throat and slacks tightened to an almost painful point.
She knew what she did.
She was looking right at him.
Camilla cocked an eyebrow, and watched him through long, dark lashes. Like she was fucking challenging him or something.
The woman didn’t know who she was playing with.
Not at all.
“We’ll catch up tomorrow or something, all right?” Tom asked.
He wasn’t even looking at Cross or Zeke now.
“That girl is like a Venus Fly Trap,” Zeke muttered. “All she’s got to do is sit still, look pretty, and the next stupid fucker falls right into her snare. Watch yourself, Tommaso. Before you know it, Camilla will have you falling in all kinds of love with her, and then she’ll smile when she waves you goodbye. That’s her deal—she doesn’t know how to do anything different.”
Was that supposed to be a bad thing?
Tom didn’t think so.
“Okay, that’s enough of this,” Cross said. “Let’s get me a drink.”
Tom took one more look at Camilla to consider his next move. She decided for him with a little tilt of her head as if to ask him to come over.
“Later,” Tom said over his shoulder.
Neither of his friends answered him back. That, or he just didn’t hear their response.
Tom slid in beside Camilla, with their backs turned to the entrance of the kitchen, as she took another sip from her wine.
“So it’s Tommaso, right?” Camilla asked.
She peered up at him, sly and sweet at the same time. How did she even manage that?
“Most people call me Tom, but Tommaso passes when I’m not in Chicago, or if it’s my mother using my name.”
“Why’s that?”
“My father is the Tommas of the family.”
Camilla nodded. “Ah, I see. I’m—”
“Camilla,” Tom interjected. “I know.”
Her gaze drifted to where her brother was snagging a new bottle of unopened bourbon from the top shelf of Zeke’s liquor cabinet.
“I bet you do,” she finally said. “You know, everything they said about me is true.”
“How do you know they said anything at all?”
“Because everybody deserves a warning when it comes to me.” Camilla grinned wickedly, gave him a wink, and took another drink of her wine. “My mother likes to say I’m a free spirit. Wild-hearted. Everyone else has a compass, and it points them north to keep them settled. My compass is broken, but that doesn’t stop people from thinking they can fix it.”
“Not all broken things need to be fixed. Sometimes, the interesting and beautiful parts are the broken ones. It’s the story, not the ending, that tells the tale.”
Camill
a laughed a sexy, musical note. “You just took my easiest pick up line, and turned it into something beautiful.”
“Let’s call it a talent of mine.”
“One of many?”
Loves!
So this is—sort of—the end of Cross and Catherine’s journey. I say sort of because there’s still a companion yet to come full of outtakes and things you asked to see from them, and other Legacy couples that are still not written where they will make appearances. So … not entirely the end, but for their HEA, we have arrived.
Thank you so much for loving this couple as much as you did, and for trusting me to take you on a journey that was very much worth the trip in the end. I know Cross + Catherine was a little different from my norm, but that’s sort of what made it special to me.
If there’s anything we’ve learned from this series, it’s that things cannot forever remain the same. Change is a good thing. Change is growth. Change is healthy.
To my editor, Eli. Love you, hon. So much. Thank you for all your work on this series, and kicking ass like you do. Hugs to Mark, too.
To the girls who proofread the series, all of them, and those that beta’d the books, you have all my love and thanks.
Sasha, all your teasers made me go heart eyes because I loved them that much. Thank you for being you, and my biggest fan. And for you know, letting me rant when I need to occasionally. Every author deserves a friend like you.
To my hubby and boys—another series down, guys. 40+ titles to my name. Not sure it could be done without you, bubs. Thanks, D, for being my arrogant boy, and making that dark hole a better space for all these years.
All my love, loves. Be sly, find the arrogant boy, or be the boss bitch … but either way, do something amazing. Be someone amazing.
Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to four young sons, one cat, and three dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a spouse calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find the time.
Find Bethany-Kris at:
Her website www.bethanykris.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bethanykriswrites on her blog at http://www.bethanykris.com/blog or on Twitter - @BethanyKris.