26. ~Caterina~
26
~Caterina~
“This is truly amazing. Thank you,” I uttered, completely taken aback as I sat beside Julian up at the kitchen island, while he debriefed me on everything that had transpired with Camlann Corporation since I’d been gone, getting me back up to speed on it all.
He’d done a phenomenal job with it.
Especially considering he’d also been running his own company alongside mine.
He truly was another level.
It was incredibly impressive.
“No worries,” he said, lifting a shoulder.
“ No worries?” I asked, incredulous. “It’s a huge deal what you’ve done for me, how you’ve kept Camlann on track while I’ve been gone.” I wrapped my arms around him and held him to me. “This means so much to me. Thank you, Julian.”
He chuckled at my enthusiasm and wholehearted appreciation. “It was seriously my pleasure,” he said, as I eased from him. “And with all the systems you have in place, the sleek setup, it was easy to sink into it. I’m highly impressed.”
I smiled out at him. “Thank you.” I shifted my weight. “And Hazel?”
“She’s doing well. She’s already back at work, despite me offering her some time off for her mental health with full pay and compensation. She didn’t want it. She wanted to get back to work as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“A workaholic like you, hmm?”
“I’m striking more of a balance now.”
“Well, you kind of had to. Not being able to be there physically during the forced marriage and having to operate your empire remotely. Then the whole safehouse thing.”
“Ah, so you think it’s forced work-life balance, only able to exist under similar circumstances to these?”
Before he could answer, an alert flashed on his laptop screen.
My alert.
One I’d set up months ago.
It had finally happened.
And I couldn’t quite believe it.
“Jesus, here it fucking is, Cat,” Julian said, eyeing me excitedly.
I sucked in a breath. “The Brimbank Waterfront Development has finally been announced and put out there.”
“It’s time. You already have everything prepped.”
“It’s not finalized from a partnership perspective. Between you and me, I mean.”
He frowned at me. “You already put so much work into it as a solo effort. Our partnership got derailed by everything that’s been happening. Don’t wait for me. You can’t afford to miss out on this opportunity. This is what you’ve been waiting on for a long time. It will skyrocket Camlann Corporation into the big leagues, as I’ve said before.”
“Julian—”
“ No . I want this for you. I already have a massive piece of the pie here in Tolhurst and beyond. This is your chance now to do the same without being dragged down by Santino’s efforts to derail your every move, and succeed beyond what you already have.”
“But I—”
“We’ll partner on our original idea of the mega-hub.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am, darlin’.”
“But this would be a major coup for Carver Group, too. Just turning away from that—”
“How about we make a deal, then?”
I settled in, eyeing him curiously. “I’m listening.”
He turned on his chair to face me head-on. “Those skilled workers—the innocents—displaced with the fall of Leone Realty… you incorporate a large percentage of that workforce into your expansion efforts, specifically on the Brimbank Waterfront job. The rest I’ll absorb into Carver Group. We can iron out the specifics, draw up contracts, all of that.”
I couldn’t believe it.
“Wow. First declining to accept the Social Good Award in person at the Business Forum so that I wouldn’t be overshadowed, and now being so benevolent and caring when it comes to all these employees that aren’t even yours to really worry about.”
“We do what we can, right? And I’m in a better position than a lot of people to be able to do quite a lot. To give back and to protect those whose livelihoods would be devastated without me doing this.”
“Without us doing this.”
“Really? You’d be on board with this? I mean, I’ve already put things in place hoping that you would be, but I left the way open for you to back out. Nico thought you’d go for this and told me not to worry about waiting on your go-ahead because you’d trust me to make that sort of executive decision on Camlann Corporation’s behalf, but I found a loophole anyway, just in case.”
“I appreciate you doing that and finding an out for me. It means a lot. More than you can imagine, actually.” I laid my hand on his bicep. “But I agree with your plan and I am on board.”
“Perfect.” He pulled up my proposals that I’d prepared for the Brimbank Waterfront development. “Now, because you’re not supposed to be here in Tolhurst and Stover managed to bring you in under the radar, we can’t have you submitting these directly. But I can do that for you on behalf of Camlann Corporation, if you’re good with that?”
Yeah, it was the same reason why I hadn’t been able to go to Hazel and see that she was well in person after what Marco had done, scaring the life out of her like that.
“I’ll reach out to Nova Henderson and notify her too,” he added.
“Thank you, Julian.”
“Of course, darlin’. We work as one, right? We’re a team. Through everything.”
I smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, we really are.”
As he started preparing the submission right there and then, I watched for a while, excitement rolling through me at the prospect of it all.
But there was even more beyond that now.
And I wanted him to know that.
I wanted all my men to know.
“I’m going to work on it, you know?”
“What’s that?” he asked, distractedly, focusing on the submission.
“Developing a healthy work-life balance.”
“You and Nico both have that issue.”
“But you don’t. You work hard and play hard.”
He eyed me as he continued typing. “You’re asking me to teach you a thing or two where that’s concerned?”
I grinned. “I am. Do you think you can handle that? I can be a bit stubborn.”
“Just a bit?” he asked, chuckling.
“Hey.”
He shook his head. “I’m fucking with you. Nah, it’s not stubbornness. Anyone calling it that is an ignorant shit and clearly doesn’t know you. It’s determination and a shit-ton of perseverance. Maybe a little tunnel vision, too. And, Christ, darlin’, I really fucking admire that about you.”
“Aww, amore mio,” I crooned, nuzzling against his arm.
He turned to me slightly, nuzzling back, while he continued with the submission.
And it was really nice just being with each other in that way, taking one another in, and savoring the closeness of it all.
I’d felt that way with all of us having every meal together for the last few days. All six of us had sat down together and just shot the shit, talking about casual things, business aspirations, random things. Anything that didn’t concern this war. Just sinking into a sense of normalcy while we could, while we had a brief reprieve.
The guys had been right when they’d first encouraged me to let go of the burden once in a while and focus on enjoying each other, focusing on the good, when things were hard, when all hell was breaking loose externally.
And now those moments were everything to me.
I’d even been able to catch up on Levi’s life in great detail. His relationship with Brianna, Mason, and Colton. It had been great to reconnect with him like that. We’d been at too much of a distance for too long. As bad as things had been to have called Levi in, at least a positive component had come along with it, and that was being able to strengthen our friendship, something that meant a great deal to me, but something that had faced some strain with the craziness going on in both our lives.
“Done,” Julian announced, pulling me from my thoughts. He pulled from the laptop and turned to me, giving me a double high-five. “Congratulations, darlin’. It’s begun.”
“What’s begun?” Nico’s voice came from the kitchen doorway, and we looked to see him and Milo standing there eyeing us curiously.
They’d just gotten out of a video call meeting with Carlo, discussing their alliance, as well as providing each other updates on the current situation within the city.
“Cat’s just submitted her proposals for the Brimbank Waterfront development. All that shit’s out now and she’s in.”
“Damn, that’s worthy of some major celebration,” Milo said, walking into the room, with Nico doing the same. Milo told me, “He’d been in the process of planning a Welcome Home celebration for you, but you came back here without any warning, so it couldn’t be put into effect. But we could do it for this instead?”
I eyed Julian. “You were planning a whole celebration for me?”
“Yeah.”
I stoked his hair. “You’re truly unbelievable, you know that?”
“That’s our Sunshine,” Milo chuckled.
“We should celebrate,” Nico said. “On the quiet, though, given the situation,” he added, giving Julian a look, because he was known well for going big with everything.
I shook my head at the three of them. “It’s just a submission. I didn’t get it yet.”
“We’ve all seen your proposals. You’re a shoo-in, bellezza.”
“Absolutely,” Nico uttered.
I chuckled. “I appreciate your faith in me, but let’s just wait. Never celebrate until a deal is done.”
“It’s not always about the destination, Caterina,” Nico told her. “The journey is also worth recognizing along the way.”
“Like this journey of ours? This intense, crazy, and amazing journey that is our relationship?” I smiled out at them all. “Huh?”
“It certainly has been intense,” Nico said, coming over and planting a kiss on the top of my head.
“Intensely amazing,” Julian added, tickling me and making me giggle.
It had all the guys chuckling. Apparently, they loved that sound from me.
Milo came behind me and stroked my hair on his way to the kitchen counters. “So, are the two of you going to take a break for lunch, or what? Lev’s going to be down in a minute. He’s taking a break from working on a couple of college assignments and then video calling his loves.”
“What about Joe?” I asked.
“Outside training with himself again,” Milo told me.
I frowned. “Has he said anything to any of you?”
“About what?” Milo asked.
“I mean, do you think he’s keeping his distance intentionally?”
“I think he’s observing the situation,” Nico spoke up.
“To what end?” Milo questioned.
“Isn’t it impossible to know with him?” Julian cut in. “Besides, he shouldn’t even be training at all. I told him to take it easy where that stab wound is concerned.”
“There’s no way that’s happening,” I told him. “He’s used to working through much worse conditions.”
“Given what you told us about the content of your conversation with him while you were stitching him up, Julian, it stands to reason that Stover is likely figuring out where he fits into Caterina’s life. Right now and also going forward. He was dropped into our dynamic, so it’s a lot to figure out from that outside perspective, especially when he’s missed a lot of the changes in his own daughter,” Nico spoke.
A silence fell over the room as I absorbed his words and what he was suggesting.
It was a strong possibility.
But with Joe, there was usually more than just one thing going on at a time.
For now and for the sake of keeping the peace, I’d let it be.
If it went on much longer, though, we’d need to have words.
I hadn’t come back here with him and insisted on him staying right here, only for him to back away. If it was just him trying to get his bearings and do right by the situation, I got that, but anything else… no, that wouldn’t sit well with me.
Like him maybe planning to leave and disappear into the ozone again.
Now I knew he was my biological father, I couldn’t just let that go. It meant something to me. It had definitely impacted me. I couldn’t have him simply taking off again.
Was that what he was doing, why he was keeping a distance? He’d already decided to do that after we were done with this Erebus situation? Was this his way of preparing me, to make the break easier, by keeping away now all the while that he was here?
Had he decided that after he’d been unable to help me with my monstrous side and Nico had needed to step up instead?
“Caterina?” Nico called.
I looked out to see all of them eyeing me with concern. Julian was stroking my arm.
“Fine,” I told them. “I’m fine. Just thinking about it. Him, I mean.”
“Of course. It’s still a lot to take in. It hasn’t been that long since you found out the truth about him,” Nico said.
“Or if he’s just here until the war is over and Erebus is gone,” I uttered.
“I really don’t think that’s it,” Julian told me.
I arched an eyebrow. “You don’t?”
He shook his head. “He wouldn’t have said all that stuff when I was fixing him up. He certainly wouldn’t have cared about treading carefully here.”
Milo added, “And he could’ve escalated things with Nico instead of backing down.”
I nodded, absorbing what they were each saying. “Valid points. You’re right. Yeah.”
Julian wrapped his arm around me. “You know,” he told Nico and Milo, “Cat was talking about wanting to strike a work-life balance once all of this is over.”
“Really?” Nico asked.
“I’m liking that,” Milo said. “For you, too, Nico. Well, once everything is in place and you’ve established your rule. Should take a few months for things to settle, just like Carlo predicted during our meeting just now.”
Nico nodded. “I agree on both counts. Especially the balance aspect.” He looked out at me. “What were you thinking of doing with more downtime from work?”
“The three of you,” I rebutted with a sly wink.
“Damn,” Milo exclaimed.
Julian whistled.
And Nico smirked.
“And taking up some hobbies. Exploring things I’ve yet to because my whole focus, until you guys came along, was on work.”
“Maybe building upon our family, yes?” Nico filled in for me, where I hadn’t been able to finish my sentence and actually put the words out there.
“Down the road a little, once everything there… settles… yeah.”
A charged silence descended, one wrought with heavy emotion.
Sadness.
The weight of loss.
I couldn’t stand it, and in the next second, I was shooting to my feet, to startled looks from all three of them.
“This is no longer working for me,” I announced. As their expressions moved from startled to perplexity, I told them, “The separate rooms situation. Only crashing in the same room after we fuck.” I grinned out at Nico. “I’m going to sell my apartment, because I want to move in here officially and not as part of some sort of ruse as it originally started out as. Because I want to be with the three of you always. Here with the three of you.” I turned to Julian. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s time for me to get rid of my penthouse, too.”
I smiled. “Perfect.”
Then, before they could demonstrate the full breadth of their reactions, I stayed in the excitement of the moment and strode to the kitchen door. “Come on. There’s something I want to show you—and run by you all.”
Clearly curious as hell, they all followed me out as I led the way down the corridor and then up the staircase to the second floor.
I stopped outside Nico’s bedroom. “I’m thinking renovation.”
“Oh, damn,” Milo exclaimed.
“A woman after my own heart,” Julian breathed.
I looked between them.
Milo explained, “Julian’s been pushing for Nico to renovate this and that inside the Manor for years.”
“And yet he always resists and denies my every request,” Julian told me.
“Your extremely out there requests,” Nico retorted.
“Debatable. Highly debatable.”
Nico rolled his eyes at him. “What were you thinking, principessa?”
I gestured at his bedroom and the room to its left, right at the edge of the corridor. “We make a more functional space, big enough for the four of us by combining your room and this one here, knocking a couple of walls down, opening it up, that sort of thing. Or we could combine yours and the one I’m staying in. If not here, then somewhere over on the other side of the Manor near Julian and Milo’s, if that works better. I just picked here because this is where we sleep together most. But instead of it being separate rooms going forward, it’s just one for all of us to cohabitate together.”
“With a massive heart-shaped bed!” Julian exclaimed. “Zebra-print sheets with a matching shag rug that—”
“See?” Nico cut in. “This is why I’ve shut him down in the past.”
“Hey, it’s gonna be a shared space. We need to include everyone’s styles, N.”
Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck me.”
Julian laughed. “And you’ll also have to deal with Milo’s messiness right up close.”
“I’ll work on that,” Milo vowed. “It won’t be an issue.”
“That’s something,” Nico agreed.
As they got into it, I tried the knob for the room beside Nico’s that I’d never been in before, speaking aloud to myself, “I really think this will be the best bet to—”
“Caterina, wait!” Nico called out.
But it was too late. I’d already opened the door.
My breath caught in my throat as I stood there frozen, my brain trying to make sense of what I found inside.
I’d expected it to be empty, given that it was one of the few rooms in the mansion that was never used.
But that had clearly altered.
Or it had at least begun to.
I stepped inside in what felt much like a trance, the surrealism of the moment taking me hostage, as I took in the huge bookcase in the shape of a tree, the cozy-looking turquoise couch, and, most prominent of all, the golden crib against the right wall.
“Oh my God,” I choked, walking to it.
Hesitantly, and with trembling hands, I reached out and ran my fingers over the spectacular crib. The extremely out there crib. “Julian,” I rasped. “You did all this?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Yeah. I was putting this nursery together as a surprise for you. I’m so sorry, Cat.”
I frowned and turned around, finding them all looking on with a great deal of worry.
And pain.
So much pain.
“It’s beautiful. Extraordinary.” I smiled out at him. “And over the top in the best way. Just like you.”
“Thank you, darlin’.” He wrung his hands. “We discussed getting rid of this stuff, or closing the room off, but then we figured this could actually be a place that could help us all process our grief over losing our baby.”
“But if it’s hurting you, we can get rid of it immediately,” Milo told me.
I looked out at Nico, who seemed at a loss, just observing quietly, clearly not sure how to approach this situation.
None of us were.
There wasn’t exactly a set of instructions for how to deal with this sort of thing. Everyone processed loss and trauma differently, and what worked for one person didn’t always work for another.
“I think it’s a really nice idea,” I told them.
I ran my hands over the crib again, taking it in, thinking about what it could have been, picturing how we could have used this room, what it would have been like to have actually had our baby with us here.
“Caterina?” Nico called carefully.
I looked out at them. “I just… I’d never imagined being a mother before, having a child, none of that. Not even getting married. It just wasn’t on my radar as something I wanted. Because of the overarching fear that was connected to all of that because of my father, that sort of thing—especially marriage—intended as a means of control, the mark of taking my choices away. But things changed when the four of us drew closer together. And when I was pregnant, I finally started thinking about what it would actually be like to build our own little family on our own terms, what it would be like to be a mom, and all the little things we would do together with our child. And then…” I shoved my hand through my hair. “And then the accident happened and in a single moment, I woke up to find all those plans I’d made in my mind, all the hope of building that little family with you all… it had all just gone away.”
“I know, Cat,” Julian uttered, emotion bleeding from him as he came to me and wrapped an arm around me.
“We all wanted this baby so badly,” Nico said. “And losing it… it hurt… it hurt a fuck of a lot.”
“Our little miracle,” Milo murmured.
It was what he’d said when I’d first revealed the pregnancy.
“She really was,” I said, smiling sadly. As I nuzzled against Julian and took that comfort from him, I realized as I looked around the room, that it really was proving to be another source of comfort. The shock of it was being replaced by a safe place to think about it all, to think about her , to start on the path of making some sort of peace with it. Peace was a bit of a stretch. But maybe acceptance. There was so much love here, so much hope, put into the place and having my men in here with me, it only served to add to that in a really soothing way. “I like being in here,” I told them.
“I’m glad,” Julian said. He pulled back a little to look at me. “You know, after what happened with my takedown of Angelo the other night, it did help me. I’d needed to do it, to face him again. It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess. But it wasn’t a miracle cure to the trauma and all the shit what he burdened me with. So, I’m going to restart my therapy sessions with Roslynn and go all in this time, not cut myself off like I had been doing. I can set you up with her, if you like. For this grief over the miscarriage, but also a lot of other trauma that Santino caused, which you haven’t dealt with over the years. It could help you feel a lot lighter.”
“Yeah, I’d like that. I think it’s a great idea.”
“Good. I’ll set it up then.”
I saw Nico looking on with a whole lot of relief.
“You’re not going to lose me,” I told him, figuring that was where it was rooted. “Not to this grief, not to Joe, not to anything or anyone. I’m here for the long haul, I swear it. Hence, me wanting to figure out the room situation.”
“I know,” he said, coming to me and sliding his hand to my cheek, stroking softly. “It couldn’t be any other way now. You belong with us.”
“No fucking doubt there,” Milo said, joining us.
And then the three of them wrapped themselves around me, holding me tightly.
Supporting me.
Cherishing me.
Loving me.
I couldn’t believe how far things had come.
Despite the pain along the way, the trials we’d faced, the obstacles we’d come up against, there was this through it all.
Our found family.
I finally belonged somewhere.
I was no longer wandering alone.
And I never would be again.
Because of them.
Fuck, I was never letting go.