Dangerous Beauty: Part Two: A Mafia Princess (16 page)

Katherine looked over with a sheepish grin and reddened cheeks. “We should probably go,” she said, starting her car.

Carter waved to them as they left.

“Making new friends?”

Carter smiled at Nathan as he walked over. “One friend,” she replied. “I think she likes me a lot. It was fun. I was being myself, and she really seemed to like me—
for me
.”

Nathan smiled. Once in front of her, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her lips. Carter moaned into his mouth. His kisses never failed to make her knees weak.

Nathan let out a deep moan of his own and pulled back from the kiss with a smile. “You are so sexy, baby.”

Carter smiled and looked into his eyes. “Why am I being followed, Nathan?” she asked.

She didn’t want to squash the mood, but she wanted to know why Nathan had left the store abruptly and put her under the watchful custody of a large number of security men. She had a feeling something was going on.

Nathan’s expression went blank before warming once again. Carter’s brows furrowed in confusion. Was he hiding something from her?

Nathan leaned forward and kissed her lips, then her cheek, then her ear. “Because I’m an underboss, baby. And you are my wife,” he said against her ear.

Carter wrapped her arms around his neck and let him lift her until they were face to face.

“But I’m fine, Bubby. I can protect myself,” she said.

“I know that, Carter. But giving you security when I’m not around to have your back gives me peace of mind. I just want you to be safe, honey, that’s all.”

Carter nodded and looked into his eyes. “And there’s nothing you’re hiding from me?”

Nathan just chuckled and kissed her. “Carterina Salerno, it’s your birthday. Let’s go spend an obscene amount of money on whatever you want.” He started to carry her across the parking lot. “We can go to lunch afterward so I can refuel, and then I’ll take you home and give you a few more orgasms before the guests arrive,” he finished with a sexy smile.

Carter smiled and fought against laughter. “You have this all planned out, don’t you?”

Nathan smirked and nodded his head.

***

“Dammit, Nathan! I can button up the shirt myself!” Carter yelled, hitting Nathan’s hand away from the buttons on his shirt. “I can’t believe you ripped my dress,” she muttered.

Nathan sat in the driver’s seat while Carter straddled his lap. He gripped both of Carter’s swinging hands and pinned her arms behind her back. “Let me do it, Carterina. Stop fighting me, baby.” He kissed the sweet spot on her neck, and she moaned.

He wanted her again. He would never be able to get enough of Carter.

“You’re so damn sexy,” Nathan said against her neck. “We’ll never make it out of this car if you keep moaning like that, baby.”

They’d just had the sexiest car ride home that had ended in the most incredible sex. Nathan went straight animal once they’d made it home. They didn’t even make it out if the car.

It all started when Carter decided it’d be fun to try on some lingerie at a boutique in Pleasant View. Nathan had been barely able to sit in his seat while Carter tortured him the way she did. She even wore his favorite set out of the store, under her dress. She had teased him relentlessly as they drove home. And once they’d made it past the gate to the front of their home, Nathan attacked.

Carter’s dress was completely ruined. Nathan had ripped it to shreds trying to get to that sexy body of hers. Nathan’s pants zipper and button were gone. Carter had gone straight for what she wanted, and it turned Nathan on like nothing else. By the time she lowered herself on him, he had been unable to control himself. Nathan had taken her, hard and rough.

Carter chuckled. “Then stop kissing me there. I don’t think I can go another round. I need a nap.”

Nathan laughed. “I’ve worn you out?”

“Yes!” Carter said, dramatically falling on his chest. She looked up at him with an impish grin through her messy hair. “But in the most amazing ways, Bubby. You can wear me out like that any time.”

Nathan growled, and Carter laughed. God, he loved her laugh. It was as beautiful as she was. For a long moment, he stared down into her eyes, taking in her natural beauty. Her flawless face was completely void of makeup. Her long, thick, black curls were messy and frizzy from perspiration. She wore his shirt. It hung off her smooth, brown shoulders, nearly revealing her perfect, full breasts. She was the picture of perfection, and she wasn’t even trying.

He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her soft body. “What time is everyone arriving today?”

Carter shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You still want that nap?” he asked tenderly against her skin.

He felt her nod, and he chuckled softly. He looked out the window of the car and figured the warm weather and soft, breezy wind would allow him to go ahead and do what he wanted to do next. He finished buttoning his shirt— that now covered
her
body— and opened the car door, knowing that the men surrounding the house were a distance away.

After they got themselves situated, he held out his hand for her to take. Just as he knew she would, she took it without any hesitation. He led her around their large mansion, across their massive backyard, and to the entrance of their garden. Carter silently followed as she held tight to his hand. They navigated through the garden until they came to the big white gazebo. Retrieving a blanket, Nathan spread it over the plush sofa swing and then took another larger blanket in hand. He grabbed Carter’s hand once more and led her to their swing. He lay back, and she curled up next to him, resting her head against his chest.

Nathan covered them with the large blanket and wrapped his arms around her protectively. He kissed the top of her head. “This time when I wake up,
мое красивое Роуз
, you will still be in my arms,” he whispered.

Carter was the first to fall asleep just like she always was. Her soft snores had become something that Nathan couldn’t fall asleep without. Nathan smiled, happy, holding his wife as his eyes began to close. He soon drifted off into a dreamless, deep, comfortable slumber.

“I found them, Angelo.”

“Where?”

“I told you they would be out here. Carterina said it was their favorite spot. It’s where he proposed to her.”

“I remember them saying something like that. I just thought they were in their bedroom or something.”

Angelo and Anastacia navigated through the garden, until they came closer to their sleeping offspring.

Anastacia smirked. “As usual, I was right, and you were wrong.”

“Your arrogance becomes less charming with age,
Bella
,” Angelo said, rolling his eyes.

“So does your attitude. I swear you haven’t changed a bit since the day I met you.”

“Lies, Anastacia.”

“You’re right, Angelo. Back then you were a grumpy young man, and now you’re a grumpy
old
man,” she said playfully.

Angelo knew she was laughing at her own stupid joke. “It’s nice to see you still think you’re funny.”

She snorted. “Think? Please, Angelo. I’m hilarious, and you know it.” She looked at him over her shoulder and smiled wickedly.

Angelo came up beside her and smacked her behind “Well, get your hilarious ass up there and wake them up. Everyone will be here soon. They need to get ready.”

“You do it. I’d rather just sit over here and admire this incredible garden that probably cost you a fortune.”

“It did. But he and his mother just had to have it.”

“It’s gorgeous. The upkeep is probably just as expensive as the plantings were.”

Angelo shrugged. “No idea. Nathan has been taking care of this place since I gave it to him years ago. The upkeep has been on his dime. He takes care of it better than I ever did.”

“You taught him well. He’s a good boy, Angelo.” Anastacia said, looking up at him with her dazzling smile. She’d been smiling a lot more since she had reunited with her daughter. She even laughed from time to time.

“I can’t take all the credit. She had her faults— we both did,— but Anya was a good mother to Nathan while she was alive. She taught him many lessons I wasn’t capable of teaching him, things I didn’t even know myself.”

“Aww, look at you— being all sweet,” Anastacia teased.

Angelo chuckled. “Really? What happened to the grumpy old man?” he asked with raised brow.

Anastacia shrugged. “I suppose you have your moments. Now wake them up— after I take a picture.” She took out her cell phone.

“Ana, you’re not taking a picture of my son and his wife sleeping!”

He tried to take her phone, but Anastacia was too quick and snatched her hand away just in time.

“Shhh! No, Angelo— I’m taking a picture of my daughter and her husband sleeping!”

“Same thing, Anastacia! Your daughter is my son’s wife!”

She smiled. “I know. It’s still so crazy to me. I can’t believe it. They came so close to being brother and sister, and they don’t even know it. I mean, had you not have cheated on me …”

“…I didn’t cheat on you Ana …”

“… we probably would have made it …”

“… you told me we were over …”

“… but that doesn’t really matter now …”

“ … I got drunk with Cesare in Moscow where I was trying to get business started for myself and … well you know the rest …”

“You’re an asshole, but it was all for the best, my love,” she said calmly, a genuine smile still on her face. “I love my baby girl more than anything, and you love your son the same way.” She turned to look at Nathan and Carter, still sleeping soundly in each other’s arms. “For whatever reason, those two are supposed to be here, together. It’s okay for us to acknowledge our falling out as worth it for the sake of our children, Angelo— no matter how much it hurts sometimes. We weren’t meant to work out back then.”

“And what about now, Ana?” Angelo moved closer to her. “Are we meant to work now?”

Anastacia looked up at Angelo, and their eyes locked. She felt the same butterflies in her stomach that she had felt the day she first saw him when she was sixteen years old. Angelo Salerno was many things to her, but their past was complicated. They had too much unfinished business, unanswered questions, and unresolved fights for them to know if there was actually a chance that they would ever be able to be in a relationship. Relationships had never really been easy for Anastacia anyway— she wasn’t cut out for them. Falling in love with Angelo was something she had never planned, and it had surprised the hell out of her when she finally admitted it to herself. Once love had entered their relationship, so did fights, breakups, and trust issues. And after Anastacia had found out a Russian prostitute was pregnant with Angelo’s child, she had helped him one last time before finding comfort in the arms of his best friend. Yes, things were still very complicated.

Anastacia touched his face lovingly and answered his question with complete honesty. “I don’t know, Angelo. I wish I did, but I don’t like to make predictions about you and me. We’re too unpredictable. I’m too unpredictable, even to myself.”

“Do you still love him, Anastacia?”

The question was abrupt, and it kind of caught Anastacia off guard. She knew he was talking about Cesare. She searched for anger in his eyes— or anything that indicated he was judging her for her feelings. This was the reason she hated showing emotion. Anger surged through her. Was he judging her for being human? For trying to move on after he broke her heart? She took her hand from his face and turned away from him. “You wake them up, Angelo. I’m going inside,” she said as she began to walk away.

Her efforts were halted when Angelo grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him. Anastacia fought off her natural reflexes in an effort not to hurt him. It had been a long time since she had been handled like that, and it had only been by Angelo, Robert, or Cesare. No other man would dare touch her in such a way. She’d kill them where they stood.

“Ana, it was just a question—”

“It sounded like a judgment to me. What happened between us never would have happened had you not done what you’d done—”

“It was okay for Cesare to have a son on the way, but not me?”

“He wasn’t married, Angelo,” Anastacia said, trying to keep her voice low, “and he told me the truth. He stayed in Italy with me and Abriana until she had Kyle, and for a year after that. We were together that entire time. He didn’t love her— he loved me!”

“I loved you! You know I had to marry Anya to get my son to America. The entire fucking Luchini family was after me!”

Anastacia gripped Angelo’s shirt and dragged him further away from Nathan and Carter. Once they were a distance away, she turned to him and pressed her finger against his chest.

“You think I don’t feel shit? That I’m some cold bitch with no heart? Well, I have a heart, Angelo! And you broke it! You hurt me worse than anyone could have ever hurt me, and I hated you for it. Cesare was there when I needed someone— not in America, like you. I couldn’t come to you because Paolo would have found you then. I was protecting you— even after you hurt me!”

They stood, staring each other down, until Angelo let out a sigh and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her tightly.

He buried his face in her hair. “You’re right, Ana. I apologize. I’m not judging you,
Bella
.”

Anastacia tried to resist, but it was no use. She melted into his embrace and rested her head on his chest. “This is why I said I didn’t know, Angelo. One second we’re okay, and the next, we’re fighting about things we can’t change,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m not judging you. It was my fault— all of it. Just … Just tell me that you still love me, Ana. I need to hear you say it. I don’t care about the rest. Whatever it is between you and Cesare has nothing to do with you and me. I don’t want to know. I just need to know that you still love me— that I am not the only one still in love after fourteen years of being apart.”

He kissed her forehead, and Anastacia wrapped her arms around his waist. She stood on the tips of her toes, and Angelo leaned forward to kiss her lips. “I love you, Angelo Salerno. I have since I was sixteen years old. You were my first love— how can I not love you? How can I ever stop loving you? I know you think I’m cold and emotionless— and I can be, I know that. But there are very few people I have come across in my life that I can truly say I love. You are one of the few. I hate you half the time, but I do still love you,” she said honestly.

Angelo leaned forward, capturing Anastacia’s lips in a deep passionate kiss. Once parted, Anastacia smiled at him.

“One day, they’re going to catch us. We need to be more careful. From now on, we fight in places they are not.”

Angelo looked at Nathan and Carter, still sleeping peacefully without the slightest idea that he and Anastacia were there. He would have reprimanded his son for not being aware of the changes in his surroundings had this not been his home, had he not kept it properly secure for himself and his wife.

“Anastacia, your daughter sleeps as hard as you do. An earthquake couldn’t wake her up. She takes her ‘lunchtime naps’ in my office, on my couch that she loves so much. I suppose I should give it to her, but then she wouldn’t come to my office to have lunch with me. I find her to be pleasant company. She makes me take breaks each day— says it will make me age quicker if I work too hard,” Angelo said through a chuckle. “She’s quite an intelligent young woman—”

Angelo stopped talking as Anastacia abruptly left his embrace. He frowned.
What the hell did he do now?

“Anastacia, what is it?” he asked.

Anastacia shook her head. “Nothing, Angelo. It’s just the way you …”

“The way I what?” Angelo egged her on.

“The way you are with my daughter— the way you love her and the way you’ve helped her. I can tell she’s dealing with the death of her father better because of you. And you were there to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. It’s just, I can’t—”

“Can’t what, Ana? I don’t understand. Do you have a problem with my relationship with your daughter?” Angelo asked, hoping it wasn’t an issue. He loved Carterina like she was his own daughter, and now, she was his daughter by marriage. There was no way he could change their relationship— no way he
would
. He had always wanted to have a daughter after Nathan, but never had the chance to. Now he had one, and he was not letting her go, especially not one like Carterina.

Anastacia shook her head firmly. “No, it’s not that. I love that you love her. I love that she has you, and you have her. It’s me.” Anastacia ran her hands down the front of her jeans nervously and swallowed.

Very out of character for her.

“What about you?”

“Ever since I reunited with my baby, I’ve been …” Anastacia made a face of disgust “ … 
feeling
more.”

Angelo wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. He knew if he did, she would storm off, and he didn’t want that. He knew this issue with emotion wasn’t her fault. It was the way her father had raised her; she was both the man’s princess … and his son.

He continued to edge her on. He wanted her to open up to him, and she was. This was rare, and he didn’t want to screw it up. “Feeling what?” he asked, hiding his urge to laugh at her discomfort with emotion.

Anastacia moved closer, as if someone was listening in on them. She put her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and looked away from him.

“Like I want to—” she cleared her throat “— cry. Not like a few manly tears, either. I mean like full blown PMS type shit. The type of crying my father would have kicked my ass for,” she said, a frown on her stunning face.

Angelo chuckled softly and turned her face toward him. “And you wanted to cry while I was speaking of Carterina?” he asked.

Anastacia shifted a little. “Yes,” she answered uncomfortably.

“Ana, there’s nothing wrong with showing emotion, even through tears. The love a parent has for a child is too intense, too strong, to fight the emotions that come along with it. You’re face to face with her now, so it’s going to be a little more difficult to fight it. Your daughter isn’t afraid to show her emotions.” Angelo chuckled at the thought of Carterina and her ‘floodgates’— her term. “She lets the tears flow freely. You have to admire that, really. I think she’d cry and kill a man at the same time. Hell, she had tears in her eyes the first time she stood in my living room when she was three years old.”

Anastacia laughed softly, and Angelo savored the sweet, musical sound. “Carterina has been a little crybaby since she was born. Her father tried so hard to get her to understand that her tears would get her nowhere, but she didn’t care. She tried to refrain from crying in her teenage years to please her father, but that lasted about a day or two.” Anastacia smiled and looked at her daughter on the swing. “I really love her, Angelo. More than I’ve ever loved anything or anyone in my whole life. She means everything to me, and I’m so proud of her.”

Angelo couldn’t keep the smile from his face. If anyone had ever told him he’d one day be sitting in the garden he had once loathed with Anastacia Stone— whom he’d also once loathed— talking about her daughter— who happened to now be his daughter-in-law— and having a good time laughing, smiling, and arguing, he would have said that person was batshit crazy. But here he was… doing exactly that.

Anastacia elbowed him in the side playfully. “Stop smiling at me like that.”

“Like what?” he said through a chuckle.

“You know like what. You Salernos and your beautiful smiles.”

Angelo pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing her back against him. “Why do you always call me beautiful? I am a man, Anastacia.
You
are beautiful. I am incredibly handsome— and masterfully sculpted by the gods,” he joked. Anastacia surprised Angelo and laughed. That was three times now. He’d been counting.

She turned to him, surprised. “Did the grumpy old man just tell a joke? And a good one, at that?” She shook her head. “Now I’ve seen it all. You’ve changed some after all.”

Angelo chuckled. “I didn’t get a sense of humor until my son hit his teenage years and became Mr. Fucking Funny Man. He and Kyle are a couple of smart-asses. I had to develop a sense of humor, or I would have beaten their little asses.”