Page 45 of Luca
Nonno always said I had Mamma’s spirit and stubbornness. He was convinced that deep down I was as gentle as Mamma. He was wrong. I was as rotten as my father.
Nonno’s voice reached from the terrace. The weather here was still beautiful in October, the large French doors wide open and leading to Nonno’s favorite garden. Yes, it was the beginning of October, but I knew it’d stay like this for a while.
“Do you have a plan for your woman?” Nonno asked, watching me.
“She won’t be happy,” I told him. “She doesn’t want me.” I winced. It sounded like self-pity, goddamn it.
Unwanted seemed to be an ongoing theme with me. Father didn’t want me. Mother wouldn’t live for me. And how fucking appropriate that Margaret didn’t want me.
“Then you make her want you,” Nonno declared like that solved it all. “You’re a king. A DiMauro descendant and as such you need a queen by your side. Is Margaret Callahan that queen?”
She certainly was, and so much more. She was exactly the type of queen a man needed at his side. The kind that would be ruthless and protective of the ones she loved. Of our daughter.
“She is, Nonno,” I answered.
Her loyalty to her brothers and family rivaled Nonno’s. No wonder he fell under her spell. He secured her a job at the local tavern and visited her every day, despite the owner's complaints that she was the worst barmaid he’d ever had. But he’d never disobey my Nonno so she still had a job.
Nonno grinned with a self-satisfied, knowing smirk. “Then she will be your wife.”
I waved my hand, then stood up. “Sit down, Nonno.”
“Boy, I can stand all day,” he protested.
“I know,” I agreed. “But make me happy and sit with me.”
Helping him to the wide couch, we both sat down and I stretched my legs out.
“She’s going to make a good mother for your child,” Nonno remarked. I nodded. It didn’t surprise me that he knew. The old man knew everything.
Silence filled the space between us. Nonno’s eyes were heavy. He was tired. He’d been claiming for years that he’d refused to die before seeing both his grandchildren settled. I believed him. But he was tired. He wanted to join Nonna and Mamma in the afterworld, or wherever we went afterwards.
“Will you be good to her, grandson?” he demanded to know.
“I will.”
God help me but I’d never be Benito. One way or the other, we’d find common ground and raise our daughter together.
Ironic really.
I’d had plenty of women.The wrong kind, Nonno always said. I always laughed it off. Marriage was never a consideration. Children even less so.
Until it became all I could think about. It was game over the moment I had her. Checkmate and all that crap.
But only with Margaret. It was her strength that appealed to me. Her loyalty. And her goddamn wit.
“What’s your plan?” Nonno asked.
“I’m going to become her friend first,” I declared. “Before I steal her heart.”
Margaret Callahan ruined me that night in Vegas. I might have taken her virginity, but she had taken a lot more from me.
She had stolen my heart. Or maybe it was that little girl all those years ago who stole my heart. The little girl that my father almost killed. She was the first person I went against my father for.
Now, I’m going to woo her for her heart. And losing wasn’t an option.
ChapterTwenty
MARGARET
