by Bethany-Kris
The man truly was beautiful.
In a suit, and without one.
Damn.
It wasn’t as though she got very much time to enjoy him in his naked glory the night before. In the solarium, he hadn’t even bothered to take off his clothes when he fucked her except to shove his pants down just low enough to get the job done. Not that she minded, and in fact, she’d had very good dreams because of that.
And then, once they’d arrived back to her hotel ... well, because of the solarium, all she could think about was getting that man in her bed. Nothing else mattered, and she didn’t waste time getting what she wanted. Not that Marcus complained because he certainly didn’t.
Now, though, she was enjoying what she missed.
Nothing wrong with that, right?
Yeah.
“I’m helping your mom,” he replied, “but that’s not what I do for work.”
“Well, what do you do, then?”
Cella smirked at the way Marcus cocked a brow and smiled a bit at that question. Her girl was smart as hell, and quick as a whip. She would keep asking those whys or whats until she got what she wanted from the conversation. But considering Marcus had yet to realize she was awake, she said nothing and simply took in the show.
“I do a lot of different things,” he said carefully, “but right now I work the most with a bunch of maple syrup farms my family owns.”
“Really?”
Little Tiffany’s screech might have broken glass. There was one detail about her daughter that Marcus couldn’t possibly know, but he soon would.
“I love maple syrup!”
And she truly did.
Not that fake shit that was only flavored like maple syrup, no. Real maple syrup, and she swore her daughter could tell the difference just by smelling it. Cella kept a jar on hand of her daughter’s favorite kind, but it was getting terribly low.
“It’s real, right?” Tiffany demanded on the call. “Because my Uncle Ren tried to tell my ma it was real, but it wasn’t.”
In the background of the call, someone, it sounded like Renzo, said loudly, “Listen, not everyone knows there’s a difference, Tiffany.”
“Everyone should know it!”
Cella couldn’t help it, she laughed, finally making Marcus aware that yes, she was awake and watching him. His grin turned on her, that intense gaze of his softened more than usual. Maybe it was because he was currently talking to her daughter, but whatever it was, she liked it.
A lot.
Tossing her a wink, he went back to the conversation with, “Very real—I promise.”
“Can I see the farms?”
“Not the one I’m currently working on because we only recently bought it. But ... I think I could make something work for another farm, so you could come in and see how everything is done. Would you like that?”
“Um, yes.”
Marcus laughed in that sexy way again.
Or maybe because it seemed as though he liked her kid that she found attractive.
Who knew what it was?
“Then, we’ll make a date,” he promised. “Now, would you like to talk to your mom?”
“Yes, please. Thank you, Marcus. It was very nice to talk to you again.”
Cella pressed her lips together to hide her smile as she sat up in the bed, dragging the sheets with her to hide some of her nudity as he crossed the room. He shrugged one bare shoulder when she took the phone, but Cella was quick to cover the speaker to ask him, “She kept calling?”
“I thought it might have been an emergency after the fourth call, so I picked it up. Sorry, if I crossed a—”
“It’s okay.”
“She’s a sweet kid.”
Yeah.
She really was.
Cella took the kiss he dropped to her lips—one that didn’t linger, but damn, she still felt it all over—before taking her hand off the speaker and microphone. “Good morning, baby.”
“I miss you, Ma.”
“I’ll be home soon.”
“I know. Hey, guess what Marcus said I could do?”
Cella shook her head, but couldn’t help but eye the man across the room who looked a little too smug with himself. For what, she couldn’t quite say, but she wondered if it might have anything to do with the fact he just basically made sure she would be coming back to Toronto, and not for the penthouse, but likely with her daughter to spend more time with him.
After all, no parent liked to break their kid’s heart.
Or a promise.
“Yeah, a maple syrup farm, huh?”
“It’s gonna be awesome,” Tiffany breathed, her excitement clear.
“No doubt, baby.”
Cella finished her conversation with Tiffany, promising to call her daughter as soon as she got on the road, so the kid could watch the clock. Because she would. Once the phone was forgotten to the sheets, she turned to Marcus who was now sitting on that chaise again, still in nothing but his boxer-briefs, and looking like absolute sin.
And temptation.
Yes.
Her greatest temptation.
“She doesn’t do that, you know?”
He arched a brow. “Pardon?”
“Tiffany. She doesn’t talk to men outside of the family often, if at all. I can count on one hand how many she will talk to. I think it’s partly because she’s never really had a male figure in the house what with her father dying when she was still a baby. It’s another reason why I’m nervous about her starting school when I suspect there’ll be male teachers, and—”
“She talks fine with me.”
Right.
Then, Marcus asked quieter, “Did I cross a line? I didn’t mean—”
“No, of course not.”
All Cella’s feelings were hers. Just hers alone to handle, not his. It wasn’t his fault that she didn’t know if this felt like betraying her dead husband’s memory, or not, and she certainly wouldn’t make him think otherwise. Or hell, maybe it was the fact that she didn’t feel badly about this that had her in a strange headspace. Whatever nonsense her heart wanted to produce about this wasn’t something she would put on his shoulders. And once she had time, she might sit down and try to figure it out.
What else could she do?
“So, you made a date with my daughter, huh?”
He stood from the chaise, all lean and tall but so fit and looking damn good. She would be a liar if she said every step he took toward her on the bed didn’t have her entirely entranced. Once he came to the edge of the bed, he put his hands on either side of the mattress beside her, and leaned in close so that their lips barely grazed.
An almost kiss, but not quite enough.
“And you, too, I hope,” he murmured. “Because it won’t be as fun if you don’t join, too.”
Instead of agreeing, she pulled him into bed with her.
Wasn’t that a good enough answer?
• • •
Cella admired the stained-glass windows of her family’s church, finding herself far more interested in that, than in whatever the priest was saying from his pulpit. Her lack of attention in church wasn’t normal. Growing up, she came here once a week, every single Sunday, never failed. She took confession here ... sat in these pews with the rest of her family.
She loved the church.
Its smell.
The parish.
All of it.
And yet today, all she seemed to want to do was stare out the window that faced the graveyard to the east of the church. Because for the last week, since she’d left Marcus in Toronto and returned home, her mind had been on only one thing.
Her dead husband.
And if she was doing the right thing.
Or if it even mattered.
These were things she didn’t know, and since she also wasn’t sure how to broach the topic with someone else, Cella decided it was just better for her to stew in her feelings alone. At least that way, she wouldn’t have anyone else’s judgments abou
t her life choices. And at the same time, she also didn’t have anyone to vent to.
What a wonderful mess this was.
“Cella, sweetheart?”
“Hmm?”
Looking to the side, she found her mother and father were already standing from the pew where they had been sitting beside her. She tried at least once a month to make the six-hour drive to her parents’ to attend church with them. Usually, she attended a parish that she found in Rochester with Tiffany, but she still found herself coming back to this place often.
More often than she cared to admit.
Sometimes, for William.
Just to say hello.
Sometimes, to be with her parents.
Of course, the Sunday dinners after church didn’t hurt, either. She was never one to say no to food, but especially not when her mother or aunts cooked it.
Still, at the sight of her parents standing, it made Cella realize she had dazed out even more than she previously thought. A quick look around the church confirmed that, in fact, Sunday mass was over, and the church had just begun to empty of parishioners.
Damn.
“Distracted?” her father asked, grabbing his sunglasses from the pew.
Cella cleared her throat, quick to stand up and grab her purse as she did it. “No, of course not. I’m just—”
“For the last fifteen minutes of service,” her mother interjected with a kind tone, “you didn’t even sit or stand when you were supposed to, Cella.”
Yeah.
Shit.
She tried to brush it off. “Things on my mind, that’s all.”
“Lucian, give us a minute, would you?”
Her father raised his brows at her mother’s request, but just as quickly nodded and dropped a kiss to Jordyn’s forehead before heading out into the aisle where he met up with his brothers. It was only once her father and his brothers were far enough away that they couldn’t hear the conversation between Cella and Jordyn that her mother turned to her with that soft, gentle smile still firmly in place.
“Would this have anything to do with the man Tiffany keeps talking about every chance she gets?”
Would it?
Because yeah, it was pretty damn hard for Cella to pretend like there wasn’t a lot more going on with Marcus Guzzi than her family knew when he was the first and last thing her daughter seemed to want to talk about every chance she got.
Not that Cella complained.
She adored that.
Her daughter liked someone she had an interest in. Shouldn’t that be a good thing? Shouldn’t that mean this could be something amazing if she was just willing to see it through?
“Cella,” Jordyn urged softly.
Her gaze turned to the stained glass window again, and the graveyard she knew was hidden by a high, stone wall and an wrought iron fence.
“It’s been months since I visited William,” Cella said, glancing back to her mother. “Almost a year, actually.”
“You’re busy—you have your career, a business to run, and a child to take care of.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Your love for him isn’t determined by how many times you make a six-hour drive to sit at his grave, Cella.”
Of course.
She knew that.
And still ... “When is it okay for me to move on?”
Jordyn dragged in a quick breath. “When you feel ready.”
“When is that?”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be something you just know, baby. At least, not for everyone. We’re all different people. Maybe it’s something you just do. It is about him, isn’t it? Marcus?”
Cella held tighter to her purse, hoping it hid the trembling in her hands. “I don’t know if it is that, or if that’s what I want it to be. But he’s made me think about these things, or at least consider them, when I haven’t done that before. He’s there ... no one’s ever been there for me in that way since William died, and I don’t know how to move forward.”
“But you want to.”
It wasn’t even a question.
Her mother didn’t need to ask it.
Cella didn’t need to have an answer.
It felt like, in a way, that the answer was already there staring her in the face. She just chose to ignore that nothing was ever going to be black or white for her here because her situation was not the norm. No young woman should be forced to bury her husband before it was his time with a baby on her hip.
“I don’t want to feel guilty for being happy,” Cella muttered.
Jordyn’s bright smile widened. “The only person you need to worry about making you feel guilty for that is yourself. The rest of us? We only want what you want. And William? He wouldn’t want you to pine the rest of your life away—he’d never ask you for that, Cella. The only thing he ever tried to do for you was to make you happy. So be happy.”
It was such an easy answer.
A complication simplified like nothing at all.
Well, to someone else looking in.
But to Cella?
Not so simple.
Marcus Guzzi was anything but simple, and the way he just swept into her life when she was least expecting it was the perfect example of why.
He was the kind of man who wore three-piece suits with diamond studs in his cufflinks, who opened doors or pulled out chairs for her, and exuded control and charm with every conversation. Always the gentleman. Forever the most enigmatic man in the room. Respected and revered. He was also the kind of man who could make her forget her own name, strip her of shame with a heated word, and could make her beg with nothing more than his stare.
In another life, a man like Marcus would have been everything perfect for Cella.
In her life, though?
A man like him was terrifying.
“Would you watch Tiffany for me? Her booster seat is in the back of my car—just switch it over and take her to dinner. I’ll meet up with you after.”
She watched the windows again.
In her mind, she saw that graveyard.
“You don’t even have to ask,” her mother assured. “And say hello to William for me, okay?”
Her gaze darted back to her mother.
Jordyn only shrugged, though.
She just knew ...
“It’s strange, you know?”
“What is?”
“To miss two different men for reasons that have nothing to do with each other.”
Jordyn’s smile faltered for the first time. “Only one is here, though.”
Right.
As for the other?
She just wanted to keep his memory alive. Not hide it. Or pretend like it hadn’t been once upon a time.
Was that too much to ask?
7.
“Hmm, okay, did you get that last email?”
“I did,” Marcus replied to Cella, clicking to download the attachments so that he could preview a few of the sketches and blueprints she had drawn up for three of the rooms in his parents’ penthouse. “Give me a second to get it all up.”
“How big is your computer screen?”
“It’s a laptop.”
“Not big enough, then.”
Marcus barked out a laugh. “You don’t know that—it could be plenty big enough.”
“Not for the small details. They get lost on a screen less than twenty-two inches. I know, it’s why I make sure all my clients that demand to approve every single last detail know they’re going to miss notes and certain things if they don’t view it on an appropriately sized screen.”
“You take this too seriously, woman.”
He swore he could feel her smile through the phone when she replied, “Or you just don’t take it serious enough, hmm?”
“Well—”
“I mean, what would you say if I was like, Marcus, drop your Capos and replace them with whoever I demand because I said so, and I clearly think I know more about your business than you do. What, huh?”
; Marcus sucked air through his teeth, still waiting for the preview of Cella’s attachments to come up on the email as he replied, “You know, not all my work revolves around the mafia, no?”
“Mmhmm, but I assume you’d be even less likely to accept someone else’s direction for that side of your business than you would the legal.”
“Wrong.”
His word came out in a murmur.
“Pardon?”
Marcus chuckled. “It wouldn’t matter what business it is, I would still tell someone to stay out of my work. So, before you get all proud and say I told you so, Marcus, I will just say this ... later, when I am at home and have my larger computer screen, I will go over these emails again. Just to make sure I see all your little details for the rooms.”
She quieted for a moment.
He let her have it.
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
Finally, the previews came up for the attachments. He was seriously regretting spending this working day in the office of one of his restaurants because the internet connection here was the shittiest he had ever seen, and there wasn’t one goddamn excuse for it.
Next thing on my list.
His ever-growing list.
It still hadn’t stopped.
“I am not such a prideful man that I can’t admit when I am wrong about something,” Marcus replied, moving his cursor over the screen to move it back and forth. Several pictures laid out ideas similar to what Cella had planned for two of the bedrooms in the penthouse, not to mention the main bathroom guests would be using. “And what do I do with the blueprint type stuff?”
“Mostly dimensions and where things would go based on the size of whatever is going into the rooms. I need to measure the other spaces as well, but I tend to work on two or three rooms at a time, and while those begin to have work done, I move onto the other spaces.”
“Ah.”
Well ...
“I think my mother is going to like this.” He smiled at the one spare bedroom that looked as though roses and stained glass would be a prominent decorative feature. “Where on earth are you going to get stained glass to frame, anyway? I like the roses in that room, also.”
She laughed nervously.
Still, he heard what she tried to hide.
That heat.
Because fuck yeah, he bet she was remembering their moment in the solarium just as well as he currently did. Quite frankly, the memory of that and the night that followed in her hotel room was the only damn thing that got him through the last two weeks of not seeing her.