by Bethany-Kris
She disappeared behind one dressing room door, locked it, and hung the six dresses she had picked up on the hook. For a long moment, Emma just stared at herself in the mirror. She had long become accustomed to the mask staring back at her—it had been a part of her daily ritual from the moment she woke up as Affonso Donati’s wife.
The flawless makeup.
Perfect hair.
Clothes without a wrinkle.
Smile in place.
Unhappiness tucked safely away.
Complaints invisible.
Emma didn’t like being alone with this person staring at her in the mirror. It felt like someone else—someone who wasn’t her—was watching her, judging her. Her reflection was simply a distraction for everyone else around her, to keep them from looking too deeply, where they would find her sadness sat upon a throne of disappointment.
People saw her as a queen.
Emma felt more like a prisoner.
And that … that was an awful way to live.
Needing to get the hell away from those thoughts as fast as she possibly could, Emma reached for the first dress hanging off the hook, and pulled it from the hanger. She wasted no time taking her clothes off, and slipping on the silk blue dress that hugged her curves. Despite not being able to do a lot while pregnant, she hadn’t gained a great deal of weight, which meant she didn’t have a lot to lose after Cross was born.
Her hips were slightly wider, and her waist wasn’t as tiny as it had been, but she wore those changes proudly. She did put the small gym room in the basement of the Donati home to good use at least once a day when Cross was feeling up to sitting in his bouncy chair and watching his mother run on a treadmill.
That, more than anything else, had helped to flatten her stomach back down.
Emma found she loved running. It was freeing, even if she was running to nowhere. She could push her limits, run until her legs ached and her lungs burned. She didn’t have to stop until sweat covered her clothes and she just couldn’t move anymore.
It was a sort of relief that she hadn’t known existed before.
She was grateful for it, now.
Emma tried on another two dresses before a soft voice called out, “Is there an Emma Donati back here?”
A brief flicker of fear passed through Emma.
Still, she called out, “Dressing room number four.”
She heard the soft click of heels just outside the door before the woman tossed a red garment into the room, and it landed in Emma’s arms. Then, one of the store’s bags with their logo was also thrown over the door. She stared at the red dress, unsure and wary in her heart.
“Your husband asked me to bring this one back, Mrs. Donati,” the woman explained. “He said you would understand why. He has paid for this dress, and asked that you put your clothes in the bag, and come out with the red dress on. He’s ready to leave when you are.”
Emma blinked, feeling tears prickle at her eyes.
Affonso hated red.
Calisto loved it on her.
But how would he have gotten past the enforcer?
Where had he even been for two and half months?
Emma stopped thinking, she just pulled the red dress on, surprised that it fit her well. She then quickly tossed her purse and clothes into the bag with the store logo on the front, grabbed the door and flung it open.
Calisto
Calisto glanced up from the confirmatory text message he had gotten, explaining that the enforcer who had been watching Emma was thoroughly distracted and out of the store. He’d been waiting for this morning for a long while—two and a half months, actually.
Careful preparations.
Quick escape routes.
Plan Bs, and Cs, if needed.
Backtracking and self-doubt until he was satisfied with his choices.
Today should have been perfect. Had everything gone according to plan, it should have went off without a single bump in the road.
And yet, something was wrong.
Something was missing.
His son wasn’t in Emma’s arms when she flung open that dressing room door.
Calisto thought for sure that she would have baby Cross with her, as he was still young, and whenever he had been watching her over these last couple of months, she always had his son with her. When he had gotten word from Wolf—the one and only person he truly trusted in the Donati family—that Emma was out with her enforcer, the man forgot to mention the baby wasn’t with her.
This had been his one shot.
The one chance he had to get Emma and his son away from Affonso before Calisto rained hell down on him. He’d hoped to take them without issue, keep them safely hidden away, and then bring them back out when the threats were finally gone.
“Cal?” Emma whispered.
Calisto lifted his gaze to meet hers, and a look of pure astonishment colored up her beautiful features. Just like he thought, that red dress he’d picked off the rack as he came into the store fit her like a glove. She was still so beautiful to him. As he stared at her, feeling the waves of her surprise practically wafting from her, there were a lot of things running through his mind. All of the things he had wanted to say.
That he loved her.
He wanted to thank her for his son.
She should know he was sorry for forgetting her.
And maybe he wanted her to know that he was fixing it—all of it.
Or trying to.
Instead, Calisto smiled. “Emma.”
Whatever hesitation she must have felt was gone as she opened the dressing room door the rest of the way and flew into his embrace. Calisto’s back was to the wall, but he still wasn’t ready for the impact of her body slamming against his. Her hands found his face, grabbing tight and forcing him to look at her.
Emma didn’t move.
She just … watched him.
“You remember, don’t you?” she asked.
The obvious answer was “yes”.
Calisto went with something different. “I’m sorry I ever forgot you at all, Emmy.”
He swore he watched months of heartache, silence, and pain fall off her shoulders with his words. Her gaze, once a fiery green, had been dulled the past few months, but brightened instantly. Her smile grew wide, matching his.
Calisto felt better than he had in a long while, and all it took, was this woman in his arms. From the very second he’d remembered all of the things that he had forgotten, his mind focused in on one thing above the rest—Emma. He could only imagine how lonely she must have felt.
Scared.
Desolate.
Caged.
There had been a brief period where he fought with his anger where she was concerned. He thought if only she had told him the truth—taken him aside during the many times he asked her if there was something he was missing.
But then he quickly thought of the bullets that nearly killed him.
And the man who probably tried to do it.
Affonso.
Calisto wasn’t angry at all.
Not with Emma.
He suspected she had done what she needed to.
How could he blame her for that?
“I missed you,” Emma said softly.
Calisto caught the one tear that fell from the corner of her eye with the pad of his thumb. “I never really went anywhere. I was always around.”
“But you weren’t at the same time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” she replied. “Where have you been?”
Calisto tilted his head to the side, smiling slyly. “Around. Watching. Planning.”
“Planning?”
He lifted one hand, gesturing at them. “Planning, Emma.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
He didn’t really need her to, not right then.
Calisto tipped Emma’s head up and quickly dropped his head to press a soft kiss to her mouth. He’d thought about kissing her, touching her, h
olding and having her every single day. Nothing really prepared him for the shock of love that flooded his system when her lips parted for his without question, and her tongue struck against his hard, letting him deepen the kiss until his lungs burned with the need for air.
Even then, he didn’t stop.
He didn’t think about the customers that were walking in and out of the dressing room as he tangled his hand into the strands of her hair. All he could feel were her soft lips and the heat of her mouth pressed to his.
No, he just kissed her until the streaks of her tears hit the corner of his mouth, and he was forced to pull away so he could wipe them away again.
“Ti amo, Emma—I always loved you, even when I couldn’t remember you,” he told her.
Emma blinked away the tears coating her lashes. “I knew you did. I was just waiting for you to remember, too.”
Calisto glanced to the side, knowing they didn’t have much time. “We have to go—at least get out of the store. After that, we’ll be clear.”
“The red dress?”
“He’s not going to be looking for red, you know.”
Emma shook her head, smiling slightly. “Why today?”
“It was the right time.”
Except it wasn’t.
Something was still missing.
“Where is my son?” Calisto asked.
Emma stilled, almost like she hadn’t expected him to say that. She didn’t answer, either.
“I was starting to figure it out before I got my memories back,” he explained when she stayed silent, “but I knew for sure after. The math wasn’t all that hard to do, for one thing.”
“I was scared,” she whispered. “Affonso knew—he would have killed me had it been any other man’s child. He almost did the night he found out.”
Rage skipped over Calisto’s body.
He pushed it back down.
Not yet, he told himself. That will come.
“Where is Cross?” he asked again.
Though, he was pretty sure he knew.
“At home with Affonso and Sherry. He wanted me to go out and get some new clothes, but he wouldn’t let me take the baby today. He uses him to scare me sometimes—manipulate me—that’s all it is.”
Calisto was going to ask her to explain that a little more, but his phone dinged with an incoming message. Checking the device, he decided his questions would have to wait.
“Come on,” he said, twining their fingers together.
Emma didn’t hesitate to follow as he led her from the dressing rooms, and out of the store. He was careful not to look back at the enforcer he knew was coming their way, but would probably pass the woman in the red dress by without so much as a second glance.
“Where are we going?” Emma asked.
Earlier, he’d had a clear answer to that.
Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“Somewhere to talk,” he decided on saying.
Somewhere he could think …
The hotel Calisto had been using as a safe-house of sorts wasn’t actually all that far away from the mall he had tracked Emma to. It was only a few blocks away, which at first, he thought would make things easier.
Once he had Emma safely inside the confines of the room, Calisto paced the length of the floor, needing to get his thoughts in order.
Things should have been perfect.
One of two isn’t bad.
Except the second person he should have had with him was his son.
Fuck.
Calisto froze on the spot when he noticed Emma standing in the middle of the hotel room, staring at the tiny bassinet in front of the large windows overlooking the busy street. She looked over the other items resting on the table—anything his child might have needed for a week or two stay with his mother in this very room.
“You thought I would have Cross,” she said quietly.
He didn’t want her to worry. That was the last thing either of them needed. He could worry enough for the both of them without her adding to it.
“I’ll have him soon enough,” Calisto said. “It was just a minor bump in the plans.”
Emma spun on her heel. “But you thought I would have him today, didn’t you? That’s why you asked me where he was.”
Calisto swallowed hard, knowing Emma wasn’t going to let up unless he gave her the truth. “Yes, I did. I wanted to have you both safely hidden away for however long I needed until this was over.”
“And what is this exactly?”
No, he wasn’t going to lie.
“Affonso, that’s what.”
Emma didn’t even bat a lash. “I didn’t want to leave him—I haven’t left Cross alone at all since he was born.”
“I know, and what I don’t know, I’ve been informed.”
“By … Wolf,” Emma said.
Calisto nodded, offering nothing more. The less she was involved in his plans, the better. For now, anyway. Wolf, however, was just one of the allies Calisto was using to get what he wanted, and to do what needed to be done.
“But you’re here, and I’ll rest a bit easier knowing that you’re safe at least,” Calisto explained. “I hoped to have Cross here as well. It would have made it a lot quicker to finish this all out, but I’ll handle it.”
Emma’s brow furrowed before she said, “No.”
“What?”
“You can’t … You think I’m going to stay here without our son?” she asked.
Tension climbed over Calisto’s shoulders at the heat in her tone. “I know you’ll be a hell of a lot safer here than you would be—”
“Absolutely not,” Emma interrupted quickly, a fire in her eyes. “He’ll take him from me if I don’t go back home tonight with a damn good excuse about where I was today—do you understand that, Calisto? He will take Cross from me like he’s promised to do from the very beginning.”
“Emma—”
“Or worse, he’ll kill him. A dead son is better than no son at all, right? That’s what he would tell your mother. And that’s exactly what he’s been telling me. Do not ask me to leave our son with him knowing what he might do to him.”
Calisto let out a slow breath, willing his emotions to calm. He’d waited months to approach Emma at a time when he knew was safe for them both, and he didn’t want to fight with her.
Love her.
Touch her.
Taste her.
Hold her.
Anything but fight with her.
He missed this woman more than he could explain. For almost a year, he had felt like he was lost in some sort of haze, all the while knowing that he was without something important, even if he didn’t know exactly what it was.
She had been that important thing.
Calisto loved her.
Entirely.
Wholly.
Crazily.
He loved her.
How he had forgotten the one soul made for his, he didn’t know.
“I will figure it out,” Calisto said, taking a step toward her. “I will get Cross to you—to us—the very second I can.”
Emma opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to the punch.
“I will, Emmy. I promise.”
“You don’t seem to understand, Calisto,” Emma said as his palm came up to cup her jaw with a gentle touch. “This isn’t a question—there is no choice here, and you can’t make me stay based on a promise.”
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to our son.”
“I’ve been his only one, Cal!”
Calisto quieted, surprised by her outburst.
Emma squeezed his wrist, stepping closer as she said, “I have been the only person loving and protecting that little boy from the moment I knew I was pregnant with him. He only had me, just me. You didn’t even know I was pregnant before the accident, but I was still left alone to keep him safe. You can’t snap your fingers and make that disappear for me, Calisto. Don’t ask me to sit and wait. Not for my baby.”
“Mine, too,”
he said softly.
“Please.”
The idea of allowing Emma to go back into what he considered a dangerous situation was out of the question for Calisto. He didn’t even want to consider it.
But he knew Emma, too.
She seemed compliant from afar.
Sweet, even.
Fragile, maybe.
The woman was stronger than anyone knew. She had strength that was built upon by years of feeling alone. She had fire in her soul.
And he loved that.
It wasn’t such a surprise to him that Emma refused to leave Cross behind, even for a short time with the knowledge that he would be brought to her as soon as possible—and safely. She was their son’s one person to count on, to love and comfort him. When his father hadn’t even known him, he had his mother.
She wouldn’t leave Cross behind.
Not like she had been.
“Emma, just consider—”
“I can’t,” she interrupted quietly. “Please understand why, Cal.”
It would make things a great deal harder—maybe even more dangerous. He would have to rethink, and plan all over again. It would be like starting over at square one.
“I do understand,” he finally said.
Calisto dropped his hand from her face, unsure of where to go next. Emma must have not liked that he let her go, because she was back in his arms before he’d even blinked once. In that one second, as her arms linked around his neck her hands tangled into his hair, and he swallowed her in a hug, time ceased to exist. The world stopped moving.
All was almost right.
He needed his child, too.
For now, with Emma in his arms, this was as close to perfect as he was going to get.
“I don’t want you to go back,” he murmured into her hair. “I want to keep you safe, like I should have been doing for all these months. I’m sorry you were alone again—you should never be alone when someone loves you.”
Her lips pressed feather-light to his neck, making heat dance over his skin. It was hard to ignore the way the heat traveled lower instantly, and the way he could feel her soft curves molding perfectly against his.