Chapter 40 Sofia
SOFIA
Five months later…
With a wide smile splitting my face, I took a couple of steps forward.
Then stopped.
Oleg chuckled, pausing with me as he held his arm out.
It seemed like a complete circle was closing for him to walk me down the aisle.
He had been so skeptical of my being in Andre’s household at first, but now, he accepted me as a friend, as his boss’s partner, and as a family member he’d always trust.
Anya paused the music. She waited at the piano in the big ballroom at Mikhail and Claire’s residence. Her fingers poised above the keys, she raised her brows. “Do we need a take three now?”
Oleg shook his head, still chuckling.
I growled lightly. “No.”
Baby Owen babbled from the side while Mikhail held him. He waved his pudgy little arms and tried to grab Claire’s dress. She hissed as he got a handful of her hair and she canted over.
Picking up a fistful of white fabric to hold my dress up higher, I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“I think this would be take four,” Esmeralda said from where she sat in a wheelchair off to the side.
Behind her, Thomas, the driver’s son who’d helped me get her to freedom, shook his head. “No, it’d be take three.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Andre said, watching me ruefully. “Just get over here already.” He pointed at the open space in front of him.
That was it.
I lost it. Cracking up and laughing hard, I bent over and had to reclaim another handful of my dress. My too-long dress.
And it would be the fourth attempt to get this thing going.
“Don’t. Don’t laugh,” Anya warned. “You’ll—”
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, laughing harder. “I’m not going to pee in my wedding dress.”
With how big my belly swelled with this baby, though, my bladder was tested daily.
“Sofia…” Andre warned, laughter in his voice too.
“Okay. Okay.” I held up my free hand, raising the bouquet. I cleared my throat and tried to get a straight face again.
Mikhail sighed and gestured for Anya to resume—or restart—playing the music.
The first time I tried to walk down the aisle to Andre with this very small group as witnesses, Rose bawled when she dropped her pacifier. Natalie blushed so hard as she calmed her daughter down, and we began again.
The second time Oleg and I walked down the space between the chairs they’d set up, Renee blew her nose so loudly that it made Owen cry. The grumpy maid who’d seemed to judge me a year ago when I arrived was a blubbering, bawling mess, crying profusely at seeing me and Andre marry.
This third time, I nearly tripped over my dress.
“I told you I was too short for this dress,” I told Anya.
“You’re not too short, you’re too pregnant,” Claire quipped.
“Ahem.” Andre shot his sister a look.
She smiled and resumed playing.
No more takes were required. I held my head up high, proud and excited to be the one and only woman who’d have this sexy Mafia man waiting at the end of a makeshift aisle.
Finally.
At last, I’d shed the stain of being a Giovanni and would have the privilege to call myself an Orlov. To officially and legally know I was his.
In the aftermath of that fateful night that ended with Uncle Roberto’s death, a marriage, even a hasty elopement, was the furthest thing any of us could focus on.
Andre had been intoxicated with that dart-like bullet he’d gotten at the Giovanni nightclub. Other Orlov soldiers had suffered from it too. No long-lasting side effects lingered, but I wasn’t marrying the man I loved when he wasn’t one hundred percent with it.
His shoulder had to be stitched back together again.
This time, I let Claire handle it, in her clinic instead of how I’d done that sham of a surgery in his bedroom.
It had ended up being a bit more intensive than anything I was equipped to do as a nurse, and I felt like it was only right to let him recover before we’d marry.
So many other things had to be dealt with as well.
Esmeralda suffered a setback, suffering from a stubborn infection and nearly dying a few times.
She was still with us, stable enough to watch me marry the man of my dreams. While there was no escaping how little time she had to live, I woke up every day with the promise to do as she asked and embraced all that my life could offer me.
When the time came to say goodbye, I would be able to know that I’d done all I could to remove the pain and suffering she’d faced before.
With my uncle gone and many of the Giovanni force dead, there was a little bit of an upheaval with what would happen to his failing empire.
The Rossis negotiated with Mikhail and Andre about how to handle the survivors.
No one wanted some rogue Giovanni to fill the void of leadership and begin new problems, and many meetings had been required to hammer out all those details.
I hadn’t wanted to know any details, and I never asked.
I wouldn’t. Because while he had his job and duty, I had mine.
Working in Claire’s clinic was a perfect solution for me, and I knew that someday, I’d go back to school and get my degree.
Or maybe not. I was fond of teasing Andre for how he’d been loopy and claiming he wanted five, no ten, wait, three more kids with me.
If he wanted to keep me knocked up, that was fine by me. I couldn’t wait to meet our son.
I put my hand over my baby bump, which seemed disproportionally large for someone of my short stature.
Andre smiled, noticing my protective touch.
I sighed happily, so full of love as I walked toward him. Toward my future.
Renee’s loud, messy sobbing was barely noticeable as I looked at Andre and admired his rugged features.
“For the love of God,” Mikhail drawled softly, shooting Renee an expression of pure annoyance.
She sniffled and pressed her tissues to her nose.
Esmeralda giggled.
I turned to see her past Andre as I reached him at the end of the clearance. Thomas beamed right back at me. I was so glad he had been picked up from my uncle’s place and brought here too. His father was now an Orlov driver and Thomas was hoping to become a mechanic.
Everything was falling into place. It was an idyllic closure I never imagined I could hope to have.
Free of my uncle’s control. My cousin cared for as much as she could be. A new family and friends who valued me. A husband to spoil as much as he’d let me.
Andre smiled and kissed me while George prepared to start as an officiant.
“I can’t wait to call you my wife,” Andre said.
“That’s much better than calling me your spy,” I whispered.
He rolled his eyes. “Worst spy in the world,” he teased back.
Over the months of ups and downs, we’d ended up together. With this companionship and bond we’d strengthened, we represented peace and friendship. No sign of rivalry, enemies, or forbidden affairs were on our minds now.
“I’m glad I was so terrible,” I agreed while George flipped to find the pages in the book someone had grabbed from Andre’s neglected library.
The fear that I could’ve ever caused Andre harm bothered me when I thought back to how we’d first met. But then again, I doubted I would’ve been able to change who I was. I had wanted to help him heal and nurture him, not harm him.
Because I loved him and always would.
“My wife,” Andre said while George searched for the page.
“I swear I dog-eared where these vows were…” the Orlov bodyguard said.
“I fixed it!” Maisie called out. The young girl had been quiet all through the mishaps of this wedding starting. Sergei had promised her some new fancy dollhouse if she was a perfect angel during the ceremony.
We all faced her.
“You’re not supposed to bend the corners of pages in a book,” she stated plainly.
Natalie stifled a laugh.
Sergei sighed.
George scowled, shaking his head. “Thanks…” he muttered wryly.
“All right, that’s enough,” Esmeralda said. “You don’t need fancy vows, do you, Sof?”
I smiled and shook my head.
George clapped the book shut. “Do you take him to be your husband?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“Do you take her to be your wife?” he asked Andre.
“I take her as my wife, my partner, the mother of my children. You’re my whole world, Sofia.”
He leaned in to kiss me again, but I reared back and laughed. “Wait. That’s not fair. You upstaged me. You made it all romantic and went on and all I said were two words.”
He growled lightly. “I can’t upstage you at our wedding.”
“Okay, redo.”
Andre pressed his lips in a firm line at me.
“I take you, Andre Orlov, as my husband, my protector, my hero. You’re the proof that true love and duty can coexist.” Taking hold of his tie, I pulled him close to lay a tender kiss to his lips.
“Now and forever,” he whispered against my mouth, holding me close as he nuzzled me.
Now and forever. I smiled as he stole my breath again, just like I knew he would for the rest of our lives, our lives that we’d live to the fullest with all the danger and joy we’d find along the way.