Page 76 of Forbidden Property
More details trickled back to Buffalo. Angela Taviani married a twenty-one year old named Felice Gravina, and this marriage more than any other has raised hell over here in Buffalo since Angela is her father’s eldest daughter and there appears to be the most disagreement over her marriage. The biggest problem doesn’t appear to be the kidnapping, but the concern that Felice Gravina is an offensive husband for Angela to parade in public.
Since my connection to the family is through the Taviani branch, I hear very little about Cosima Corsini. I know that she lived with her brother Michael for a while and she was dating a woman prior to her kidnapping. I’m pretty sure she married Martino Gravina. Nobody here speaks about their family’s response much, but it’s assumed that because of what happened to Flora and the fact that there ought to be a truce, something big will happen next.
Michael Corsini is the underboss of the family, so he outranks Renzo, which I’m grateful for ever since he rescued me and I got Roman back, and had to face the reality that if he leaves here again, he may not come back in one piece. I haven’t been able to sleep without Renzo in bed next to me ever since he brought me back from Pittsburgh.
He never touches me sexually and our relationship hasn’t reallychangedfrom the friendly co-parenting we were doing before. Except… it has. Because I can’t go to bed without him. And he’s bringing me over to his mother’s house with Roman on Sunday afternoon for us to have a cappuccino and discuss the future.
“Renzo was never a good boy once he started to walk,” Barbara says. “Roman might be the same. A little boy with very nice eyes.”
Her only comment on Roman’s skin tone has been that he looks Sicilian. Everyone in Renzo’s family has otherwise accepted our son without any negative concern for his racial or cultural background.
Renzo joins us in the parlor with a second cappuccino for his mother.
“Are you complimenting me again?”
She clicks her teeth and shakes her head. “No. And you told me that you had something very special today.”
“I do,” Renzo says in mock offense that his mother would doubt his words. “I just needed you to have a second cappuccino first.”
His mother sips the drink as Renzo takes our baby off my lap. Once his mother sets down her coffee, he hands her Roman who delights in the closeness to his grandmother. Roman loves my mom just as much, don’t get me wrong. But it’s special to see him light up in the arms of a woman I didn’t know would accept him.
Barbara kisses the top of Roman’s head as Renzo steps away from her and then kneels in front of my seat on the mid-century style bouclé off-white reading chair draped in a woven blanket from Renzo’s Italian university.
He stares at me for long enough that I begin to feel concerned.
“Hello?”
“I’m savoring the moment,” Renzo says, reaching into his shirt pocket for a small, light blue box.
“What moment?” I ask him, glancing at the box with a nervous flutter immediately starting up in my chest. I don’t wantto make any assumptions… but it looks like Renzo Taviani might be holding up a ring.
He hasn’t opened the box yet and I don’t want to assume. Just because he’s been acting like a father every day and even sharing a bed with me doesn’t mean…
“Geralynn, I want to marry you. I had to have my mom here because… if you say no… I don’t think I’ll react well. But I have to ask and I have to give you the choice because… I love you.”
Renzo’s eyes are so wide and soulful that I feel like I’m seeing him in an entirely new light from before. Roman laughs, oblivious to the scene before him except on some deep subconscious level. Barbara shushes him and bounces him on her lap, giving Renzo’s words plenty of opportunity to sink in around me.
“I love you too,” I say more freely than I ever have before. I mean every word of it too. Renzo has proven himself to me in so many ways. He never forced me to come around to loving him despite his instincts to pin me down and force me to stay. Even now, the father of my child who shares a bed with me every night gives me space to choose.
Space that wasn’t offered to us in the first place.
“I need an answer,” Renzo asks with a trembling voice. “Please, Geralynn. Will you marry me?”
His mother can’t help an excited squeal. Not like it influences my choice in any way. I already knew what I would say when he asked. Renzo opens the box and shows me the ring for the first time. The word flies out of my mouth before I catch the silvery flash of titanium metal.
“Yes!” falls out of my mouth. “I’ll marry you.”
Renzo chose the largest pink diamond I’ve ever seen for my ring in a teardrop cut. The white diamond pavé band makes the ringsparkle even more. It’s perfect. He takes my hand and slips the ring on my finger.
“Perfect,” he murmurs. “This is perfect…”
We both stand up and fly into each other’s arms. Within seconds, we kiss each other so passionately that his mother begins to clap. I feel no shame or embarrassment, just pure love and happiness. Roman imitates his grandmother, clapping his hands together, and I feel deep in my heart that even if I might have lost my best friend, I gained a family in the strangest and most unexpected place…
“I love you, Renzo,” I whisper again. “So so much.”
“I love you back, Geralynn. I think I always did.”
Epilogue
