“Your father is asking if we will all go with him to Mass tonight.”
Mirabella turned to her father. He went to Mass faithfully, and she’d gone with him her whole life. But her faith had never been quite so fixed as his, and since she’d been with Paolo, she hadn’t attended once.
“To Christmas Vigil? All of us?”
“The Church welcomes all, Mira. And these children … they should know God.”
Paolo made a sound which might have been a scoff. “What do you think, Bella?”
She honestly didn’t know. God was an abstract concept in her mind, something that was real but not important. She’d attended Mass with her father all her life because it made him happy that she did, but she’d gotten little from the experience.
Except for one thing: the service itself. A Catholic Church was always beautiful, and the rhythms of the Mass itself had a lyrical, soothing quality she enjoyed. The music was lovely. She’d taken much from that weekly respite from the world. And here, in this world she’d struggled so much to embrace, that respite might be all the more important.
For her, and for the children Paolo sheltered. They needed to see that beauty, she thought. Especially now, during this holiday. Whether they embraced their faith or not, they needed to understand reverence.
“Yes,” she said, squeezing Paolo’s hand. “I think it would be good.”
Paolo smiled—not a twitch but a true smile. It faded quickly, and Mirabella saw the shudder in the muscle on the most-scarred side of his face, but it was a real smile.
“All right, we’ll go. The priests will think they’re under siege, but that’ll be half the fun.”
They did go—all of them—and the priests did seem a bit … surprised to see Don Romano and his ‘whore’ lead into the sanctuary a motley collection of criminals, whores, and orphans. Other parishioners were wary as well. But Paolo led them all to sit in the back, and he drew Mirabella and her father to sit with him in the last pew, so he could keep an eye on his people.
After, Paolo didn’t linger outside the church for a word with the priest. They simply all said their Good nights, their Merry Christmases, their Buon Natales, and then went home.
In bed, in the small hours before dawn, Paolo and Mirabella made slow, sumptuous love to each other. When it was over, he drew her close and hugged her hard.
“Buon Natale, amore mia,” he whispered with his nose in her hair.
Mirabella’s breath stilled. It was the first time he’d used such an endearment. Oh, if only she could be sure he would embrace the feeling that had rooted between them deep and true, she would wrap herself around him and never let go.
And then he added, in soft English, “There’s something I’ve wanted to say, I’ve said it before, but not the right way. Tonight at Mass, I knew how I should say it. I understand more about what’s important because of you. I am a better man with you. You bring me peace, even when you rage at me. I feel … light … with you in my arms. I know what this is I feel. I love you, Mirabella.”
She wrapped herself around him and meant never to let go.
In the morning, when Mirabella opened her eyes, Paolo lay facing her, watching.
There was a small black velvet box on the pillow between them.
Seeing her eyes open, he smiled. Such a beautiful man he was.
“Merry Christmas, Bella. Marry me. Marry me for love.”
She snatched the box in her hand but didn’t open it. Instead, she scooted as close to him as she could get, wrapped herself around him, and said, “I would marry you for nothing else.”
XXI
Holding her arm snugly and with a hand at her back, Paolo helped Mirabella climb the rise, and they faced the cove ahead. A breeze gusted up from the water, and she raised her free arm to hold her hat in place.
That hat was a wonder—broad and tall, cream with a brightly patterned red silk band and a white ostrich feather. She didn’t usually wear one, but for this important weekend, she and her father had made her a new traveling wardrobe. The hat went with a sleek red dress and a cream car coat. In Paolo’s eyes, she looked every inch the society lady.
And she was absolutely beautiful, even more than usual, with this beautiful scene as a backdrop.
It was a bright, warm mid-April day. The cloudless sky gleamed a true, brilliant blue, and clear water danced with the shore. Sea birds called as they flew. The ring he’d put on her finger sparkled in the bright sunlight.
He couldn’t imagine a more perfect day to bring her to this place. Winter had broken weeks ago, and construction crews had been hard at work on the first phase of his plans: creating a Main Street for this area, so that it might someday become a town. He’d shown her all of that, and she’d been interested and curious, clambering through construction zones without a care for her pretty clothes, asking lots of questions, speaking to the foremen herself and expecting answers—and getting them. She’d asked a few things Paolo hadn’t thought of himself.
In the months since Christmas, Mirabella had been steadily working her way to his side in business. He’d seen it happening and had let it, because her counsel was invariably useful. He’d maintain a line between her and his darker work, if only because he needed his private space to be free of blood. But in his legitimate work, she was a help to him. She was smart, curious, and keenly aware of details—and unafraid to say what she thought.
It would damage his reputation if he truly pulled her to his side, so she could never sit with him in a meeting, but he spoke far more with her about business than he’d intended, and he went to those meetings better prepared for negotiations because she’d listened and given her opinion in private.
He’d often thought his circle of advisors wasn’t quite wide or diverse enough; Joey would never challenge him, and Nello was probably too careful when he did. Only Aldo spoke truly freely, and even then, he made sure he chose his words.
Mirabella threw her challenges right in his face.
“What do you think?” he asked now, because it was, in his mind, the most important question he had for her, one of the most important he’d ever asked her. Second only to the question he’d asked her on Christmas morning.
So much had changed for him in the months Mirabella had been his. For years, he’d been tormented by dreams of his failings and the harm that had befallen his family because of them. Now, that dream rarely came, and when it did, Mirabella was in bed with him, and all he had to do was pull her close, and he calmed at once.
The boys and girls he sheltered loved her, and she was giving them lessons that would be useful to them for more than the work he could offer. The basement had quieted noticeably—the boys were now as likely to be reading or doing other lessons as sparring or generally raising boyish hell.
And the girls. Paolo himself had never spent much time or attention on the girls—they needed shelter, he sent them to Carmela, and paid her to shelter them. When they came of age, they could stay and work in the bordello or go on and make a different life for themselves.
Now, though, in these few months since he’d agreed to let Mirabella work with the children, the girls were thriving in wholly new ways. Since Christmas, four of the girls had gone on to secretarial school—what Mirabella had taught them had given them the confidence to apply and had helped them make a favorable impression when they were interviewed.
It had never occurred to him that shelter wasn’t enough, or that being able to read, write, and figure numbers wasn’t enough. He had made his way with barely that much education. All the rest of it, he’d used those meager skills to teach himself.
What would his life have been if there had been someone like Mirabella when he was younger, who’d seen what he’d needed?
No matter. His life was this, and he had made it himself. He had wealth and power. He was founding a town. Uptown men might hate him, might whisper out the sides of their mouths about him, but they feared him. When respect was impossible, fear would do.
And
, most importantly, he had Mirabella. He had love.
For years, he’d turned his back on the feeling, on the idea he could ever have love, would ever deserve it. He’d embraced the idea of the Beast and let it define him.
But this woman, who’d met him while he’d brutalized her kin, had seen through that somehow, had peered deeper than Paolo had wanted anyone ever to see.
She challenged him constantly, with her fiery temper and her sharp tongue, with her keen insights and bald honesty. Their relationship was a wild mix of confrontation and communion, a continual negotiation until they were both stripped bare before each other, all their secrets and vulnerabilities exposed.
He had never trusted another soul ever in his life the way he trusted her.
Dear God, he loved her.
“Bella,” he nudged, because she hadn’t yet answered this crucial question. “What do you think?”
She was still surveying the horizon, where the low strand of islands hulked between the cove and the Atlantic. “It’s beautiful. What you mean to make here?”
Her English had improved dramatically since she’d been working with the children, and she was very nearly fluent. She said she still had to translate in her head most of the time, she couldn’t quite think in English yet, but her willful battle against the new language had been fought, and English had won.
“Nothing yet. A house, one day.” He didn’t like the uneasy flutter in his belly, but it didn’t stop him from answering her question.
She turned to him. The way she held her hat on her head against the breeze charmed him, and he cupped her face, simply to touch her.
“A house? Just one? For who?”
He took a breath before he answered. “For us.”
She frowned, and that flutter in his belly became a drumbeat. He could see her working through his words, making sure she’d understood him—but her understanding of other people’s English had been strong well before her own English had been. She’d understood him.
“For us?” she repeated. “To live?”
“Someday, yes. What would you think of that?”
She turned to the water again, and Paolo dropped his hand.
“And your business? It is in the city.”
“For now, it is. But I want more. That’s what all this is about—another seat of my empire.”
In order to keep his family strong while he’d spent so much to make this dream, Paolo had expanded his dark work in the city. His hands had been bloodier and grimier in the past several months than ever before. But this dream would help him rise above the filth.
“Empire? I—what is that?”
“Impero.”
She turned back to him, her frown deepening. “You mean to be imperatore? Em … em-per-or?”
“That’s the right word, but no, not that. I mean … my territory, but much bigger than the Five Points. When my businesses are strong enough, and this project is successful, I want to live here, in the fresh air, away from the squalor. How would you feel about that?”
“What about the children? They … depend for you, Paolo.”
She’d made him see how much. She’d made him see he’d built a family.
“They rely on us now, and we won’t abandon them. If we come here, I’ll see to it they’re protected just as they are now.”
“If we come?”
“Yes, if. Before I can make a move, what I’m building here needs to work. I need to know I can be distant from my city businesses and keep them running. And I need to know if you would live here with me.”
“If I say no?”
“I would be disappointed, but I won’t force you to live where you don’t wish.”
She walked a little bit away from him, toward the shore. Then, on a bed of shore grasses, she sat down. Paolo went to her side and sat with her.
“You will make us a house,” she mused.
“I will pay someone to build it, but yes.”
“A house to be just as we want.”
“Yes.”
“And our children will play on the shore.”
Now the drumbeat was in his chest. “Do you want children, Bella?”
She smiled prettily at him—and rolled her eyes. “Of course, silly man. Do you?”
They would be married in two months, but this was the first time the question of children had come up, since that first night, when he’d been a beast.
“With you, yes. Bella, answer my question. What would you think of living here?”
“My father? He could come, too?”
“Of course, silly woman,” he teased. “If he wants to come, I’ll sell the shop he’s in now and stake him in one here.”
Paolo had grown quite fond of Luciano. He was an uncomplicated and truly goodhearted man who loved Mirabella unconditionally and had pulled Paolo into his affections as well.
He’d raised Mirabella as his own. He’d married her mother to save her from the consequences of the scandal of an illicit affair and an illegitimate child, and he’d devoted himself to them both. Not unlike Paolo’s own brother-in-law, who had married Caterina in a similar act of goodness and caring.
Paolo had despised Dario for being the one who had saved his sister. He’d despised his sister a little for turning to Dario for saving. His hurt and fury had been ferocious and overwhelming. But now, he’d come to understand the situation differently—and the people, including himself.
Rage was motivating, yes. Much of his success was due to his fierce need to repay damage done to him. But rage was also blinding, and maddening. It was a force of destruction. Few problems could be solved that way in the long run.
He had a niece he didn’t know, the child born of his sister’s rape. But that child was loved, by her mother and by the man who’d claimed her as his own. She was family, and Paolo wouldn’t recognize her if he saw her. He hadn’t seen her in almost six years.
In fact, he also had two nephews he didn’t know—one of whom he’d never laid eyes on.
That was a problem he meant to solve this weekend. If it wasn’t too late to repair damage so old.
He’d face that question later in the day. For now, he still had a different question pending.
He slipped his hand around his beautiful, vexing woman’s slight waist and squeezed her close. “Mirabella Montanari, I asked you a question, and all you’ve given me is more questions. If I build you a house here, will you live in it?”
She reached up and flicked the brim of his hat. “If you not hear my answer in my questions, you not smart like I think. Of course I live here with you. I live anywhere with you.”
Paolo’s sister and her family lived a bit farther downshore from the place he’d staked his own claim. He’d left some distance between them for two reasons: first, where Caterina lived was already fairly developed. It hadn’t been incorporated yet, but everyone called it the same name. It was a town, in every way but officially, and that didn’t give Paolo enough room to do what he wanted to do.
But the most important reason had nothing to do with the area. He didn’t want to be too close to his sister, in the event that the rift between them couldn’t be healed.
Paolo had never tried to heal it. His sister had, and Dario. Even Dario’s uncle had made his own attempt. But Paolo had hardened his heart and closed off that part of his life, and his identity. They had found him inferior, so he had had no use for them, either.
Of course, that wasn’t really what had happened. He had found himself inferior and projected his own self-loathing onto his sister.
Not until he’d had Mirabella, a woman who’d seen him as the Beast and fallen in love with him anyway, could he see how he’d warped his feelings for his sister all on his own.
He pulled the Mercedes up to the little storefront. He’d given Cosimo the weekend off; this time was for him and his woman—and, perhaps, his family.
Mirabella looked, then laughed and turned to him. A scarf that matched the silk band of her hat was wrapped over it,
holding it to her head in the car, and she wore the goggles he’d bought her. She could not have looked more charming if she’d tried.
“La Bellezza Bread? The name she was called?”
“Yes. I don’t think she’s known that way here, but that was how she was known when she met her husband.”
“The baker.”
“Yes. Dario.” As if saying his name had summoned him, Paolo’s brother-in-law opened the shop door. Wearing the garb of a baker—white trousers and shirt, white apron, a white cap on his head—he squinted warily at Paolo’s car.
It had been most of a year now since he’d come to this shop at the end of a day touring Long Island properties. Dario had been guarded, but he’d invited Paolo home, to see Caterina and their children.
On that day, Paolo hadn’t been ready to make amends and try to rebuild what his rage had destroyed. He’d declined the invitation.
He could only hope another would be forthcoming on this day.
With that thought, he lifted his hand.
Dario lifted his in answer. Paolo got out of the car and turned to help his woman from the car as well.
“Paolo,” Dario said and stepped away from the door, meeting Paolo and Mirabella halfway. He didn’t offer his hand, but when Paolo did, he shook readily.
“Dario. Hello. I’m glad to see you.”
Dario smiled vaguely and turned his attention to Mirabella. “Hello, ma’am.”
“Mirabella, I’d like to introduce you to Dario Laterza, my brother-in-law. Dario, this is Mirabella Montanari—my fiancée.”
Dario had been offering his hand and a smile to Mirabella, but at the word fiancée, he froze and turned to Paolo, his eyebrows high.
Despite his significant lack of practice in the skill, Paolo sought to lighten the moment. “Yes, we’re all very surprised.”
Il Bestione (The Golden Door Duet Book 2) Page 26