Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3) (29 page)

Sort of like they had been.

Through the haze of his lust, he said, “I’m going to marry you, Emmy.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Of course you are—all you have to do is ask, Cal.”

He asked.

After she’d fucked him dry, licked him clean, and did it all over again.

He asked.

They had always been a little dirty like that, anyway.

He loved that the best, too.

Two Months Later …

Calisto knocked on the door marked with a large, white satin bow, and took a single step back. He shifted the weight of Cross on his hip, letting the nine-month-old toddler chew on the very tip of his tie. He figured it didn’t matter much if Cross wrinkled it, considering it would be hidden by his jacket for most of the day, and underneath his vest.

He was more a dress shirt, tie, and slacks kind of man. He liked his leather shoes, sure, and cuff links weren’t half bad, either.

But for the most part, he didn’t do the three piece suit thing.

Today, Calisto did.

Today was important, though.

“Baaa, maaaa, gaaa, baaa, daaa,” Cross babbled, grinning a mostly toothless smile. He had a few teeth, all in the front, but his back ones were being stubborn. “Daa, daa, daaaa.”

Calisto glanced down the hallway, noting a few guests waiting to be let into the main floor of the venue so they could find a seat and sit down. Some looked his way at the loud babbling of his son.

As much as it pained Calisto to do it, he corrected Cross for the benefit of other ears that might be listening. “
Zio
, little man.”

“Daaa.”

Calisto sighed. “Yeah.”

It was harder on him than he thought, but it was for his son’s best interests, and Emma’s, that they keep all that had happened a secret. And so, what people knew were the details they stuck to, and didn’t allow anyone to dig any further into

Cross had a father—Affonso Donati—the bastard who had run off, abandoned his Cosa Nostra family, left his young wife with signed divorce papers, and a young baby and two step-daughters to look after. He had done so without a word to anyone, and Calisto was left cleaning up the mess.

Or, that’s how the story went.

It allowed Cross the ability to grow up without being looked at as the product of an affair, as a literal betrayal in the flesh. He would never be looked down upon because of how he had been brought into the world. He would be loved and adored all the same, with a mother and
step
-father, who was also his uncle to the outside world, that would raise him together, as he deserved.

And Emma … Emma would never be called a whore, or mocked because of mistakes they had made together. She would never be shamed for birthing a child that belonged to a man who wasn’t her husband.

She would still be respected as Calisto’s wife.

Because he was marrying her.

Today
.

It was such an important day.

Balancing Cross on his hip once more, Calisto knocked again on the door, wondering why no one was answering. That time, he heard the heels click across the floor, and a smile instantly began to grow on his face even before she swung it open to reveal who was interrupting her time.

Emma’s eyes flew wide at the sight of Calisto and Cross waiting for her. The fitted, lace mermaid style wedding gown she wore was a blush cream and tight to every one of her curves. Calisto couldn’t stop his wandering gaze if he tried.

“You’re not supposed to be here!” she whispered.

Calisto’s gaze snapped back up to hers, and his grin deepened into a smirk. “Weren’t we in bed together last night?”

Emma reached out and smacked a hand over his mouth, quieting him instantly. He laughed under her sweet smelling palm, and kissed her skin. With a small smile, and happy eyes, she let him go, reaching for her son. Cross’s arms were already wide and wanting his mother.

“Maaa, maaa,” the baby babbled.

“Someone was being demanding about wanting to see you,” Calisto said. “He gets antsy when you’re gone for too long.”

“You couldn’t send him over with someone else? You have a room across the church to stay in.”

Maybe so.

But …

“Maybe someone else was getting antsy, too,” Calisto said quietly.

He was always like that with her now, and with Cross, too. The longer he was away from one or the other, the worse his attitude and restlessness became. He loved them far too much to be away from them. They were his place—his one good, safe, and happy place made just for him.

Emma pursed her painted red lips, leaned forward, and pressed a hard kiss to his mouth. She murmured against his lips, “I love you, but I will see you at the end, Calisto.”

His throat tightened.

She had no one to walk her down the aisle this time.

But she was free to choose, and she was choosing him.

Sometimes, even the bad guys won.

“At the end, Calisto,” Emma repeated. “I will find you there, I promise.”

He kissed her again, lingering for as long as he could.

“At the end, Emmy.”

Calisto

There was something to be said for the way a man raised his family. Because at the end of it all, when a man was driven to his final resting place, there wasn’t very damn much he could take with him. Sure, he could line his casket in gold, and rot inside a silk lined grave. His tombstone could be the biggest in the cemetery, the one people saw first before any other.

But those were just things.

Unimportant, forgettable things.

It had taken Calisto years to learn that it wasn’t what he would take with him when he died, but what he left behind. Those things were the important, poignant moments that would never be forgotten, that would carry his legacy beyond his grave and tombstone, and they would come from him.

Well, a part of him.

“Almost ready?” Emma asked.

Calisto felt her hand on his arm, her fingers squeezing gently. She was there, getting him through the emotional hell this day was.

He never thought it would be this hard.

“Cal?” his wife asked softer.

Calisto glanced up from his wrist as he slid his watch in place and cuffed the links together. He’d been staring at the same spot for minutes, and only now realized it. “No, Emmy, I’m not ready.”

Emma smiled, soft and sweet.

She was always sweet.

Always would be.

Her hand came up and cupped the side of his cheek, patting lightly. “This is a good day, Calisto.”

“I know,
bella
.”

“A
happy
day.”

Calisto sighed. “I am happy.”

“You could look a little happier,” Emma suggested.

Pursing his lips, Calisto chuckled dryly. “This is the best I can do right now.”

“It’s not the end of the world.”

“It’s the end of something, Emmy.”

She kissed his cheek, fast and fleeting. He wanted her to stay there and kiss him a little bit longer. Keep his mind occupied with the softness of her lips and the warmth of her breath on his skin. She was damn good at her distractions, and he’d learned over their two and a half decades together that her little talent for occupying his mind during rough times was a gift.

Some people might have seen it like a curse.

He knew it wasn’t.

But Emma had other things to do.

More important things.

At least right then.

She patted his cheek again.

“Not the end of the world,” Emma repeated gently.

“I know.”

“It’s just a wedding.”

Calisto let out another hard breath. “Yeah.”

“And she’s happy.”

Jesus.

His wife was not letting him go down without a fight, apparently.

“She’s happy,” Calisto echoed.

Emma smiled brightly, kissing his cheek once more before using her thumb to wipe away a smudge of lipstick. “And what does that mean, huh?”

Calisto forced back the lump beginning to form in his throat. “If she’s happy, I’m happy.”

“Tommaso is a good man, Cal.”

Well, he came from a good man.

And Calisto liked the kid enough.

Frankly, Tommaso Rossi wasn’t so much a kid as a man. A man who was marrying Calisto’s twenty-two year old daughter today. A ceremony that would take place in the very same church where both Calisto’s children had been Christened, where they had grown up in pews listening to a priest, and where Cal and Emma were married almost two and a half decades before.

That helped.

For some reason that Calisto just couldn’t explain, it helped to know he was giving away his only daughter in a place that he cherished and respected as much as he did her very breath and soul.

“Are you good?” Emma asked.

Calisto straightened his vest and tie before grabbing his suit jacket off the hanger that hung waiting for him by the mirror. “I will be,
dolcezza
.”

“This day has been coming for a long time, Cal.”

He knew that, too.

It didn’t make it easier.

“Go check up on Camilla,” he said, hoping Emma would listen.

He didn’t want her worrying over him any more than what she already was. He would be fine. His daughter was twenty-two. Camilla wasn’t a child now. She was a grown woman who had been engaged for two years and was finally ready to take that plunge.

“You sure?” Emma asked.

Calisto nodded. “Absolutely. I want to see you in your dress before anyone else, however.”

Emma winked at him. “I can do that.”

“I knew you would.”

Once his wife was gone from their bedroom, Calisto stared back into the mirror. He took a long, hard look at himself, taking in the changes to his appearance and how the years had aged him. Other than the light dusting of salt just behind his ears, and a few lines at the edges of his eyes, he was still the same man.

Sometimes that shocked him the most, but he wasn’t sure why.

Well
, he thought. The years had treated him well.

Still, he sometimes wondered if he had done enough in his life. When he was on his final ride, being laid to rest, would he leave the best pieces of him behind?

Or would they go with him?

“Daddy?”

Calisto turned fast at the soft voice. He found Camilla standing in the bedroom doorway and twisting her hands together like she was nervous. A smile edged at the corners of his mouth at the sight of her in her makeup with her hair done and a long robe covering her up.

She looked just her mother—she had Emma’s features, and her sly smile. But she had Calisto’s eyes and his demeanor. Most times, Camilla’s cold, aloof attitude was enough to turn people away. She didn’t make friends easily, and she didn’t like a crowd.

She did better in her own space.

And maybe that was why Calisto found it so surprising when Tommaso Rossi had approached him three years earlier with a request to take Camilla out on a date when the young man had been visiting from Chicago. His daughter had always been too busy for boys, and when she did make time for them, they bored her easily. She could just as quickly use a man as a toy to play with before discarding as she could a new tube of lipstick.

It all depended on her mood.

Calisto just … let his daughter live.

The girl grew up to be perfect, no matter what he wanted for her. She did what she wanted—what she needed. And he was happy to let her.

God knew she had fought damn hard when she first came into the world. Camilla’s birth had not been like her brother’s. Cross had been their little miracle. He was determined to stay in his mother’s womb for as long as he could, regardless of what the doctor’s said or thought about Emma’s weak cervix. But Camilla … she came early at twenty-nine weeks.

Too early.

Her lungs weren’t ready. Her stomach couldn’t digest properly. She’d been just under two pounds with limbs as thin as Calisto’s fingers. And when she cried …

Jesus, when she cried it was like airless sobs with no sound.

She couldn’t even make noise.

Calisto had felt so guilty every time he visited his daughter in the NICU, watching her struggle for life and breath. He’d asked for the second child, despite knowing how much risk there was for Emma and the pregnancy. But he wanted that baby with her—another baby.

He had to keep Cross’s paternity a secret to save his son and wife from the shame of their affair, but he wanted just one child that people saw as his.

It was selfish.

But he had more love to give.

And that wasn’t selfish at all.

The guilt was a killer, though. He had felt like his daughter’s struggles were his fault, and his burdens to bear. He’d asked for her, and then she’d nearly made her way straight into a grave before she could even live.

So when she did survive, when he finally brought Camilla home all swaddled in pale yellow with her sweet pink cheeks and soul-black eyes looking up at him, he knew right then.

He was never going to make choices for her.

He’d never push his wants on her.

She’d live as she wanted to—on her terms only.

Calisto made sure to give his daughter that as much as he possibly could.

This entire day—her wedding and marriage to Tommaso Rossi from the Chicago Outfit—was just one of those things. He’d thought his daughter was too young, and that maybe Tommaso was just another one of Camilla’s play things that had caught her attention for longer than the previous ones.

Calisto wanted her to take more time, to grow up a little more and explore the world. Find other things that might occupy her heart and her mind.

Something other than love at twenty-two.

But he didn’t say a thing.

Calisto had smiled, gave Tommaso the okay for a date, and let Camilla take it from there.

Now, here they were.

“Daddy?” Camilla asked again.

“I’m almost ready,” Calisto said, smiling at his girl. “And you’re not even in your dress. We have to leave in …” He glanced down at his watch. “Forty-five minutes, Camilla.”

“I’ll get dressed in a minute. I wanted to see you first.”

“For what?”

Camilla twisted her hands together a little more. “I just …”

Calisto took a step forward. “Nervous?”

“A little.”

“That’s normal, Cam.”

She nodded. “I know. But I was standing in my room and Ma was rushing around like she does.”

“And?” Calisto pressed.

“And I realized that it was going to be the last time I was standing there while she did that. At least, for a little while.”

Because she was leaving after the wedding, Calisto thought.

A honeymoon to Cancun, a business trip to Sicily, and then a flight back to Chicago. That’s what awaited Camilla and Tommaso after their wedding. She wouldn’t be coming back to New York. Not right away. Not for a few months, at least until a holiday rolled around and they made their way down for the occasion.

Camilla had a brand new home, built just for her, waiting in Chicago from her husband. She had the status of a future boss’s wife waiting for her, a whole new world to learn, and people to surround herself with.

She had every reason to be nervous.

Every single reason.

“You’re going to be great,” Calisto told his daughter.

Camilla’s gaze jumped up from the floor to meet her father’s. “I didn’t say—”

“You don’t have to.”

“Chicago is cold, Daddy.”

“So is New York.”

“It’s wet.”

“Lay off the suede boots,” he joked.

Camilla smiled slightly. “You know, you’ve never tried to talk me out of this. Not even once.”

He’d thought about it a lot. He’d considered all the different things he could say to his daughter that might make her understand how heartbreaking it was for him to give her away. More than anything, he wanted her to stay right there with him so that he could keep her safe.

But that wasn’t freedom.

Calisto would never cage his children.

Not like he had been.

Not like Emma had been.

“Why would I?” Calisto asked. “It’s what you want to do. Isn’t it?”

“Of course. I’m just thinking too much right now.”

“It’s okay to be overwhelmed, Cam.”

Camilla took a couple of steps inside the bedroom and perched herself on the edge of her parents’ large king-sized bed. “You don’t mind if I stay in here with you until Ma comes to find me, do you?”

Calisto turned back to the mirror, making sure his tie was straight. “Never.”

“And you’ll drive me to the church, won’t you, Daddy?”

His fingers stumbled on the knot of his tie. The quietness of her voice stunned him for a second. It wasn’t like her to be so soft spoken.