by Bethany-Kris
Cella nodded. “Yeah, and my Uber took the wrong exit.”
“Ah, well—”
“Uncle Marcus, come on!”
He looked over his shoulder to find his namesake was jumping up and down on the spot, waiting for him. Marc was a lot of things, but patient wasn’t one of them. He quickly turned his attention back on Cella, still unsure what was about to happen between the two of them, but she smiled at him and shrugged her shoulder.
“We can chat later,” she said, “I’ll be here.”
“Yeah, sure.”
But what would happen then?
• • •
Marcus had been wrong. For one reason or another, more guests began to show up to the small gathering as time went on. Mostly a few family Capos that he knew his father considered friends with apologies and excuses already on the tips of their tongues for as to why they hadn’t gotten there sooner.
It didn’t escape Marcus how Gian was quick to accept the apologies but also turned each man to him as though they also owed him an apology. Should speak to your boss, his father would say before turning his attention back on his wife.
For now, with the party in full swing, Marcus had the chance to stand back and observe the rest of his family the way he liked to do. And currently, that included his mother who stood in the middle of the playroom with her grandchildren running all over the place shouting at the top of their little lungs with Cella beside her.
“Here I was,” Cara said, “trying to sneak my way onto your waiting list, and you already had a whole project going on for me.”
Cella smiled. “Well, thank your husband for that.”
“Oh, I will, but that’s not the point.”
“I couldn’t tell you. That would have ruined the surprise.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you like it?” Cella asked.
Cara took a moment before answering that question, but only as long as she needed to look around the playroom with the huge jungle gym that reached the ceiling and allowed the kids wall to wall play space. “This room scared me for a long time.”
“I was told that, yes. I hoped you could make better memories in here now.”
“I will, thank you. And yes, I love it more than I can explain. Then again, Gian does have a way of outdoing himself every time he tries when it comes to showing his love for me. It seems like an extra gift for me in this that I was able to properly meet you, too.”
The two women quieted, and Marcus felt a presence come to stand next to him in the doorway of the playroom. Beside him, Chris crossed his arms over his chest and smiled at Maria who helped her two-year-old sister, Mia Cara, climb to the second level of the jungle gym.
“Have you spoken to her?” he asked.
Marcus shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Doesn’t seem like you to avoid—”
“Not avoiding, Chris. There are just other things to handle first.”
“Right.”
His brother didn’t particularly sound like he believed that statement, but he didn’t press. Marcus was grateful because honestly, now just wasn’t the time. He hadn’t lied.
“I spoke to her when she came into town a little while back to do some last-minute things here,” Chris said.
Marcus took in a deep breath. “Oh?”
“Seems her lack of calling was a miscommunication on my part. Sorry about that.”
“Huh.”
Maybe that was what she meant in her message.
Did it even matter?
He still wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. So, whether or not she had called during their time apart didn’t really make a difference to the fact everything about them at the moment was still hanging up in the air.
Unsteady.
Completely uncertain.
The conversation between his mother and Cella drew Marcus’s attention back to them for the moment, and thankfully away from the thoughts filling his mind. He didn’t want to feel that doubt—for her, he wanted to be sure of everything.
Even if right now, he knew nothing.
“And what gave you the idea for this room?” Cara asked. “It’s a bit unconventional, as everyone has said to me tonight at least once. Not that I care what they think because I love it. Gives the babies something to do with me when we’re here.”
Cella grinned. “Well, exactly that—your grandkids. How much you love them, I guess. Marcus took Tiff and me to an indoor playground in the city while we were here, and I thought something like that might be just right for a room this size with as many grandkids as you have. Not to mention, whatever other babies might come along.”
Cara laughed. “I’ve been told to stop asking for more because it might be off-putting.”
“Oh?”
“Apparently, I ask too much. Speaking of your daughter, why didn’t you bring her?”
At that question, Cella hesitated.
Not for long, though.
“I had some other things to handle here, and I wasn’t sure that it was the right situation for her to be around, that’s all. She’s young ... adult issues aren’t meant for children.”
That felt like a punch to the gut.
Not that Marcus hadn’t thought about Tiffany or considered her since the maple farm incident because he did. All the time. A lot like her mother. Thing was, he wasn’t her father. He had no say in what happened in her life. There was nothing he could do about the fact that even though he’d fallen in love with that little girl and her beautiful soul, her mother took her away, too.
That was Cella’s choice to make. It still fucking hurt, but he understood.
Like his mother just knew he was standing in the doorway, Cara peeked over her shoulder to glance his way. Cella followed, looking his way as well.
Instead of just standing there seeming more foolish than he already felt, Marcus turned on his heel and headed into the hallway.
So, maybe Cella wasn’t the only one who liked to run sometimes.
21.
Cella’s heart seemed to drop into her stomach as she watched Marcus turn on his heel and leave after hearing her say that she chose to leave her daughter behind because of unfinished business here. Of course, she understood that probably hadn’t been what he wanted—or even expected—to hear, but it was the truth.
Sometimes, that was a hard pill to swallow.
That didn’t mean she wanted for him to hear it like that. It would have been far better had she been able to take Marcus aside, have the conversation that had been weeks in the making for them, and then explain why she hadn’t brought her child along for this.
Nothing could be easy, though.
Before Marcus could disappear out of Cella’s sight, his father stepped in his path with another man at his side. Just like that, Marcus’s disposition changed from an expression of sadness to one that held no emotion at all. He nodded at whatever the man said while the guy waved between Gian, and himself.
It looked like business as usual.
She was reminded all over again how no matter where Marcus was—as long as he wasn’t alone, or just with her where no one could see—he still had a part to play. A man who constantly wore a mask, and didn’t allow anyone to know there were things happening in his life that they had no idea about.
He didn’t allow them to know.
It didn’t matter.
Not if he hurt.
Not if he wanted to go.
He was who he was, and he needed to be that person even when it was the last thing he wanted to do.
The clearing of Cara’s throat brought Cella’s attention back to her. With the kids making a ton of noise and having all sorts of fun while ignoring their parents’ pleas to be careful it was easy to be distracted from the handsome man just twenty feet away who still had her whole heart, even if he didn’t know it.
“I was you once,” Cara said quietly.
“I’m sorry?”
“Walls so high. I couldn’t let anyone over those walls.
That meant I might get hurt again. This life ... it might take from me again. And if it did, would the next thing it took from me be something I couldn’t afford to give?”
Cella’s inhale rattled in her chest. “You had a twin, didn’t you?”
Marcus told her that once when she noticed a picture in his home. He’d never explained in detail about how Cara’s twin died, just that she had when she was young.
Cara nodded once. “People couldn’t tell us apart unless they knew us very well. We lived together from the time we were born up until the day she died right beside me on marble steps. Every time I look at marble now, I see blood in the grain. It’s not the same, I’m sure, as losing your husband because of this life, but it still felt like a piece of my soul was taken from me until I met Gian.”
The woman shook her head, turning to watch the kids come down the big red slide one by one as she continued with, “People called me silly—naïve. They expected me to just understand I couldn’t not be who I was. I couldn’t walk away from this life, and this person it turned me into. And so it terrified me. I was scared to death of what it meant to want a man like the one I have. He stayed, though. Just like a pillar in a hurricane. Nothing moved him, and I kept going back for safe shelter.”
Cella didn’t quite know what to say to that, so she opted to say nothing at all. Cara didn’t seem to mind because the woman turned to her with another one of her soft smiles. The one that felt like a mother’s smile. It spoke of a woman who had watched life evolve around her, and she was proud of all that had become of it.
God.
Cella wanted to be that woman.
Ready.
Unafraid.
Strong.
“There came a time,” Cara said quieter, “where I began to realize that I needed to stop looking at Gian as though he was the one who had to be worthy of me. He’d already been that. Stood by me when I turned him away. Loved me when I swore I didn’t love him. And I didn’t need to be worthy of him, either, when he already showed me that I was. See, it’s once you start demanding that this life be what you deserve that it starts to give back to you, Cella.”
“I think I knew that,” Cella replied, fingering the thin shoulder strap on her dress just to give her something to do. “From the start, he was just there.”
“When you didn’t expect him to be?”
“Exactly like that.”
Cara nodded. “And falling never felt so natural, hmm?”
“Easy, really.”
Because it had all been easy with Marcus. Maybe so much so that she found it just as easy to run away. Things that didn’t take work could sometimes be the simplest things to leave behind. It was only now that she had learned maybe it had been this way for them together because life was finally starting to give her something back after all it had taken from her.
He was what she deserved and that’s why she was here. Because Cara was right. Lucia had been right. She wanted to be happy. Would be. And she was ready to fight for it.
“Go,” Cara told her as music started to play from somewhere else in the penthouse, and Gian called out for the woman of the hour to come dance, “and take what you deserve, Cella. Don’t you think it’s time?”
She did.
• • •
“You know, gold really does suit you.”
Cella felt those words just as much as she heard them. Strange how that worked, but then again, it had always been like that with Marcus.
In her determination to find him after everyone gathered in the large sitting room to dance and share drinks—because he seemed to just disappear—she hadn’t realized he’d done that purposely. He left the crowd to hide in the shadows, and it was almost disconcerting how well he blended into them as she nearly walked right on past. She figured maybe he’d slipped away from the rest of the party to take a phone call, but considering she found him standing there as though he were waiting for her ... well, that changed everything.
She admired the sight of him in his three-piece suit, the red vest and tie he’d opted to wear bringing out the golden tan of his skin even more.
“What are you doing back here?”
In the doorway of one of the spare bedrooms, Marcus shrugged. “I think you know the answer to that, Cella. This seemed like the perfect time to chat—isn’t that what you came here to do? Talk to me?”
“More than anything.”
She could tell just by the fleeting surprise that quickly left his expression as fast as it came that her response wasn’t the one he expected to hear.
“What?” she asked. “Did you think I would try to save my pride here—act like you’re not everything I want, Marcus?”
The strong line of his jaw worked as he chewed over his next words. Cella let him have those moments, knowing he probably needed them as much as she had needed these past weeks without him. Space to breathe, and time to think.
Sometimes, it brought everything into focus.
Everything that mattered, anyway.
“I wondered,” Marcus said, tipping his head to the side as he reached out to finger the low neckline of her dress, “if you came all this way today just to tell me you were done here. So I avoided hearing it—I was sure that’s what you were going to do.”
“You think I still might?”
He grinned just a bit.
Sexy and sly.
“Not in that dress, no,” he replied. “I don’t think you’d look this good to just tell me that, bella donna. You don’t seem like the type to step on my heart in heels before you walk away.”
“Oh, I’m exactly that type, but I just don’t intend to say goodbye, Marcus.”
“I’m sorry for what happened.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“I wish you didn’t leave.”
“Me, too.”
“Did it help?” he asked.
Cella stared down at the floor between them because God knew that was easier than the weight of this man looking at her when he was this close and touching her at the same time. He still did that to her. Made her lose her train of thought while at the same time, causing the rest of the world to disappear around them.
It was just her and him.
The hallway.
Them together.
Like she wanted it to be.
“The distance helped,” she admitted.
“Look at me.”
Cella didn’t hesitate to meet his gaze, and there she found the same thing that always waited for her when Marcus stared at her. Understanding. Patience. Sympathy.
His love.
At the same time, his mask from earlier was gone. Because of that, she found the man who had made her fall in love with him so easily staring back at her. All his passion, the parts of him that made her heart race and her lungs ache. This man, who felt entirely like hers and no one else’s.
Cara was right.
Cella could be the hurricane.
Marcus would be her safe haven.
Always.
“It helped,” she repeated, “because it reminded me where I wanted to be the most. It didn’t matter that I was scared, or that it felt like every fear I had was coming to life all over again. None of that mattered because I was still willing to take the risk. I still wanted to be here. I needed to figure that out, but I couldn’t do that here with you. I’m sorry if you thought differently, but I didn’t know how to explain this over a phone call.”
“Well,” he drawled, pushing away from the door jamb to stand at his full height. It made her have to look up at him, even in her heels. His head tipped down as he moved closer to her, the small bit of distance between them becoming nothing at all in a blink. “You could have started by saying I love you because that was the thing I thought I had ruined that day.”
His body molded against hers, but Cella didn’t move away. Like this, his lips were close enough that all she needed to do was lean up for a kiss, and she would have it. Instead, she waited, asking, “And then what could I ha
ve done?”
“You could have let me apologize,” he murmured, “for trying to do too much; for letting my feelings cloud my judgment in a way that I put you and her in danger; for failing because I’ve never done that before, but I felt like I did with you.”
Cella shook her head. “No, you really didn’t.”
Down the hall, the music became louder.
“Except you couldn’t tell me that,” he said, “because you weren’t here.”
And she hadn’t called.
“But you waited,” she whispered. “For me to figure this out ... to come back, you waited.”
“Of course, I did.”
“Even when you thought—”
“You’re mine, Cella. I will wait for you forever.”
“Promise?”
Marcus reached up to pinch her chin between his forefinger and thumb. Not that she wanted to look away from him, but like this, he didn’t give her a choice but to stay still. “I’m kind of tired of making promises of what could be because I’d really just like to give you whatever you want. If you ask for the world, woman, I will give it to you.”
“I really just want you.”
“I’m yours.”
That was all she needed to hear to propel her closer to him, taking away the little bit of distance so that she could finally do what she had wanted from the second the doors of that elevator opened and she found him standing at the end of the entry hall.
Kiss him.
Her lips found his, and it was like coming home again. Like finding the one place that would always be hers and was forever safe. The world around them that had felt like it was entirely off-axis suddenly tilted back into place. His lips swept over hers, soft and slow at first, tasting with soft flicks of his tongue against the seam of her mouth, urging her to open up for him. And when she did, when she took his kiss deeper, she tasted heaven.
Cella, still feeling as though she were floating, grounded herself by fisting the lapel of his blazer. She drifted the pad of her fingertips down his jaw as the kiss slowed, and his next words whispered over her lips.
“Say it—I’ve missed hearing it.”
She knew exactly what he meant.
Felt what he wanted in her soul.