31. Samantha
SAMANTHA
After that, things move pretty quickly. Papa keeps Ricardo in the panic room for a week, but he feeds him and goes to talk to him. Lets me talk to him.
Ricardo apologizes to me. To my father. To Dante. He tells me about how his mother’s terminal, how the experimental treatment probably won’t even save her. How he feels like he did this for nothing.
Papa finally lets him go. He exiles him from the state, but Ricardo has money left over from Luciano to disappear.
Vaughn goes radio silent with Reese for a while, but eventually, they pick things back up. Sofia and Dmitri are still off and on.
And as for me and Dante?
Well.
We’re getting married.
Dante insisted, the morning after we woke up the next day.
“I’m going to make an honest woman out of you, Samantha,” he said, like it’s the eighteen century, and I giggled, threw my arms around him, kissed all over his face.
He laughed and laughed. He put his hand on my stomach.
Kissed me there. Didn’t even try to push me away.
Papa takes a little time to convince. “You just started seeing each other in my eyes!” he protested.
“I know, but I want to do the right thing,” Dante insisted.
“This isn’t a shotgun wedding. I’m not that old-fashioned.”
“I’d marry her anyway,” Dante said, turning to brush his nose against mine.
I cupped his face and kissed him. Papa groaned. “You and Mama taught me what love feels like, Papa. This is it,” I said quietly, and Papa cracked a smile for the first time since it happened.
Three days later, he’s building a nursery and calling wedding planners. It takes three months to plan, and I feel as big as a house. I say as much to Dante the night before our wedding, climbing into bed with a groan. Dante’s t-shirts don’t swallow me anymore.
He puts a hand on my belly. The baby kicks at his hand. “You’re gorgeous. Glowing.”
“If you say I’m glowing one more time, I’m going to hit you.” I blow my bangs out of my face. “I invited Vaughn Ricci, by the way.”
He gapes at me. “You did what?”
“She’s not her father,” I say defensively.
Dante hums, putting an arm around me and drawing me closer. “I guess not.”
“She’s not even in the life anymore, not really.
” Luciano’s men all scattered after his death, only loyal to him out of fear.
Once Ricardo skipped town, they followed suit.
Vaughn inherited the mansion. All his legitimate businesses.
A trust fund. She'll do well for herself as long as she stays out of trouble.
“As long as she occupies that pretty boy of yours,” Dante jokes, and I do smack him, then, lightly on the shoulder.
“You’d better not hit him again.”
“I have no reason to hit him. Your dance card is always full these days, Mrs. Bianchi.”
“I’m not Mrs. Bianchi yet.”
“Close enough.” His hand creeps up my thigh and I spread my legs.
“It’ll have to be from the side again, I can’t lie on my back anymore,” I whine.
Dante chuckles and gets behind me, pulling me flush against his chest. His erection presses into my lower back. “I don’t mind. I’ll fuck you any way I can, tesoro.”
He lifts my leg over his bicep and presses into me. I gasp and turn my head against the pillow. Papa knows now, but there’s no reason for him to hear.
He thrusts into me slowly, holding up my leg higher as I press back against him with a whimper. “Don’t treat me like spun glass. I won’t break, Dante.”
“I know it. My strong girl.” He leans down, kisses along my neck as he thrusts harder, making my stomach knot with pleasure. I cry out his name when I come around him, clenching hard.
Dante grunts, thrusting harder and harder, making me nearly squeak out a moan. He thrusts deep, spilling inside me. I hold onto him like I never want to let him go.
I sigh happily as he pulls out of me, turning to curl into him. He puts an arm around my waist, the baby steadily kicking against the weight of it. “Little soccer player,” I say sleepily.
“Not soccer. Maybe basketball.”
“Why not soccer?”
“Just doesn’t feel right. I think she’s going to be a girl.”
“A girl? Why?” We’d decided to keep it a mystery, even when the last ultrasound tech said she could tell.
“Because a girl with your big brown eyes would have me wrapped around her little finger.”
“I think a boy with your eyes would do the same,” I tease back, kissing along his jawline.
Dante smiles and tilts his head back for more access.
The next morning, I slip out early, not wanting him to see me get into my dress. I’m getting dressed over at Sofia’s so that he won’t see me before the wedding. Reese and Vaughn are already there, Vaughn perched in his lap. Reese’s face has healed up nicely and now there’s not a scratch on him.
“How are you feeling, Mama?” Vaughn asks.
“Tired and ready to have this baby in my arms instead of in my belly.”
Vaughn smiles. “I think you look so cute. I wonder if I’ll look cute pregnant.”
“You’ll look beautiful,” Reese gushes, taking her hand and brushing her knuckles against his lips.
I roll my eyes. “You two are disgusting.”
“How do you think you and Dante act? It’s so gross,” Sofia groans. “I can’t invite Dmitri, so please tone down all the mush.”
“No promises,” I tease as I step into my dress.
It’s a traditional white one, because who cares in this day and age?
It’s off the shoulder, the train embroidered with my mother’s favorite flowers, lilies.
As we pile into the car, Sofia and Vaughn have to stuff my train into the limo before getting in.
Reese is covered with the fluffy white tulle, and Vaughn starts to giggle before the champagne is even opened.
I meet Papa at the bottom of the stairs. Dante’s waiting up at the top, the whole house outfitted with lilies and white fairy lights. Papa’s eyes are already wet when I take his hand. “You look incredible, cara mia.”
“You too, Papa. Where’s your girlfriend?” I’m teasing. I met Olivia a few times at the house, and I think she’s lovely. Keeps Papa on his toes.
“She’ll be late. Her son is in town. She’s meeting him at the airport and then they’re coming to the reception.”
“Good. I want you to have a date. You’ll be so lonely home without me.”
He frowns. “The honeymoon is only a week. I can make it a week.”
“Not alone, you can’t,” I tease, and he laughs, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.
“Maybe not. Olivia will stay with me.” He pauses. “If that’s okay with you?”
I smile. “Of course it’s okay.”
We make our way up the stairs as the DJ cues the wedding march, and Dante’s ice-blue eyes meet mine as I step off the top step.
They fill with tears as he takes in my dress, the huge baby bump.
I wave a hand in front of my face as he takes my other one.
“Don’t cry, you’re going to make me cry,” I hiss.
“I can’t help it.” He chuckles thickly, wiping at his eyes with his free hand while still holding mine in the other.
“We’re gathered here today—” the priest starts, and I look into Dante’s eyes. My stomach drops and then starts to cramp, but I ignore it. “I’ve been told you want to say your own vows.”
Dante nods. He looks down into my eyes. “I loved you from the first moment I saw you, Samantha. I wanted you then and I want you now, and every second in between. I choose you and our family every moment, and I’ll keep doing it until the day I die.”
My heart aches it feels so full, and my bottom lip trembles. “Dante, I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but once I did, it felt like everything else fell away. Like everyone else that had ever touched me was a mistake. I’m completely yours, and I always will be.”
There’s more I want to say, but pain rips through my lower back, around to my stomach, and something splashes on the floor between my legs. I look down to see bloody water trickling down my thighs.
“Oh my God,” Vaughn breathes, having come up the stairs behind me to join the wedding party. “Your water broke.”
Doc rushes to me. “This baby’s coming soon. We’d better get you to a hospital.”
Dante stares down at the bloody water on the floor. I cup his face and make him look at me. “It’s okay,” I say, but my voice is strained. “I’m going to be okay.”
But then another pain rips through me.
I scream bloody murder.