Chapter 36
hear me out
MARCO
There was nothing quite like waking up in the middle of the night to find your fiancée wasn’t in the bed next to you.
Or in the room next to yours.
Or any room in the house for that matter.
My heart hammered against my chest anew just thinking about it.
Didn’t Capri give a shit about answering her motherfucking door? Soon she wasn’t going to have one at all because I was going to destroy it.
I had been put through a wringer before the sun had fully risen, and now this bullshit straight out of what would have been a horror film because doorbells and knocking on doors didn’t mean anything to my sister.
Sticking my face in front of the doorbell camera, I snarled before calling her name.
My morning had been garbage. After finding out Brooklyn was nowhere to be found, I had immediately went to my phone to check my messages. I had seen none from Brooklyn. Only a couple from Lorenzo.
And a saved voice message from him I certainly hadn’t heard before.
From there, it had become obvious Brooklyn had heard it.
And that I was a dumbass because I had never brought Lorenzo up to speed on my decision to drop the CEO thing, which meant Brooklyn now knew my motivation to become CEO had been primarily to get out of our arranged marriage.
And she also now knew that my father had played her father.
The whole thing had caused a lot of adrenaline to pump through my body, which couldn’t have been good.
That was the kind of stuff that gave a man an early heart attack.
Not that knowing that did anything to calm the blood that was flowing through my veins at a speed that rivaled that of a rip current as I pounded my fist on Capri’s door with urgency.
That must have done the trick because the next thing I knew, Capri opened the door, her lips pursed as she greeted me with a heavy dose of attitude. “What would you like, perfect stranger?”
My right eye was literally twitching. I wanted to be anywhere but here, especially at this hour. I should have been in bed with Brooklyn, worshipping her body before ruining her pussy with my cock in mind-blowing morning sex. Yet, that wasn’t the case.
Rubbing my temples, I tried to find my zen, but it was difficult. “Capri, I am so not in the mood for your crap.” That was as calm as I was getting.
Tapping her door, like she was really deliberating over something, she went on to angle her head skyward. “You have to be a stranger because my dear brother would never screw over my best friend and then neglect to tell her about it.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Goddamn it. I know you like to nose around in other people’s business but maybe go on a reality show or something.”
Placing a hand on her hip, she wasn’t budging. “I’m not letting you in.” I respected the level of devotion she had to Brooklyn, but at this very moment, it did nothing more than fan the flames of my anger.
“Fine. Send her out,” I demanded, my voice gruff. Honestly, I didn’t care where I talked to Brooklyn, just that I did.
She gave me a bored expression before dragging her attention to her nails, probably in a move just to piss me off further. “She doesn’t want to see you.”
Jesus. I was getting nowhere. I was here. I had found Brooklyn, and I still couldn’t talk to her. I pulled my phone out to call her cell. I wasn’t holding out hope that she’d answer when she hadn’t before, but I could try again.
Somehow, someway, I needed to speak with her.
She didn’t have all of the facts. Because I never got to share them with her.
Because there never seemed to be a right time.
Not that this exact moment seemed like the right time, but I no longer had any other choice.
Maybe I should have just torn the bandage off sooner, then we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
“I only recently found out myself. I didn’t know what Father was doing.” My last-ditch effort was to appeal to Capri’s pathos. It was sorely lacking, but it was all I had.
Her head turned as she looked at something inside, and my pulse ricocheted, thinking about how it might be Brooklyn. “We don’t believe you,” she said.
“We?”
She nodded. “Brooklyn’s standing next to me.”
Figured she would make me work for it. Not that I didn’t deserve that.
It felt like someone had their fist wrapped around my heart and they were squeezing it.
Any tighter and it would turn to dust, but any less and I would feel as dead as I had when I had woken up to her empty side of the bed.
“She’s listening?” I heard the desperation, and I didn’t care.
I was desperate for her to hear me out. After that, she could decide whether she wanted to walk away or stay and be with me.
Because sometimes I screwed up. I screwed up a lot actually.
I was going to try to be better about it.
I had tried to be better about it. But to make a promise to someone that I wasn’t going to screw up ever again…
That would be nothing but dishonest. It would be like waving something someone really wanted in front of their face and then taking it away forever. In that way, I vowed to never hurt her.
Capri exhaled loudly, like all of this was costing her in some way. It was costing her nothing, but it was making me feel like I was losing my mind. “Yes, but not anymore. Goodbye, Marco.”
She couldn’t have been serious. Before she could shut the door, I shot my hand out and stopped it.
I felt adrenaline coursing through me in such a way that I felt like I could have reached out my hand and stopped a truck.
“Wait!” I shouted. I didn’t want to resort to it, but if I had to, I would physically move my sister out of the way.
“Kiki, please, you have to hear me out.”
This was a form of torture. I just knew it was. A sick one, but one nevertheless.
Brooklyn slowly came into my line of sight, and I could have sworn angels were singing.
She looked tired, circles under her eyes, her feet clad in slippers, and her hair mussed from the bed.
She was even still wearing her pajamas. Man, why hadn’t she just woken me up so we could have talked about this?
Had she honestly thought this was a better idea?
That wasn’t to say I wasn’t grateful that she had a place to go, that she had a best friend like my sister to run to in a time like this, when I apparently grated on her last nerve or made her second-guess us.
Truthfully, I was grateful. Extremely so.
I wanted Brooklyn to have a good support system, especially with our daughter on the way.
It was important. She should feel like she had other people to talk to besides me.
Like I had my brothers, mostly Lorenzo and Dom, but still.
Nodding her approval, she gently placed a hand on my sister’s arm, swiveling her gaze inside to give Capri the boot. Not exactly how I would have done it, but then again, that was probably because Brooklyn was far better a person than I was. “It’s okay, Capri. Really, you can go,” she assured her.
Snubbing me, she only looked to Brooklyn. “Tell me if you want me to get rid of him.”
With that, she retreated back inside, but before she was completely out of earshot, I said, “Brooklyn has a mouth on her, and she definitely knows how to use it. So, I’m sure she will.
” Focusing my attention back on the one person who deserved it, I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated.
“Kiki, please, I only found out about what my father was doing through Massimo, and that was only because I went to Elio to try for a vote of no confidence with the board. That was all before I decided I didn’t care about being CEO because I didn’t want to get out of this marriage.
This relationship. We said we would try, and we did.
” If she didn’t know the timeline, she may as well have known nothing.
This was a lot more nuanced than some contract and arranged marriage deal our fathers had made with one another.
She shook her head, her lips thin lines. “I thought we did more than try. I thought we succeeded.”
The way she said that had my gut twisting.
“We did.” I didn’t want her to doubt that.
After I had found out about her near brush with Santo and I had come back here as quickly as I could, everything changed.
I realized I had been going about this all wrong.
We had been. “I only didn’t tell you because, well…
because I’m an idiot.” There was really no other way to put it.
I should have put less stock in perfecting the details of what I was going to say, and how I was going to say it, and when I was going to tell her.
That was my fault, and if it meant the end of us, I would regret it for all eternity.
Fussing with the bottom of the soft honey-blonde hair that was framing her face, draped down her chest, covering her cleavage, she said, “You’re not an idiot.”
I appreciated what she was doing, but she was giving me far more credit than I deserved.
“No, I am. I got so caught up in the loyalty I have to my family that I tried to figure out a way to not break that while also not breaking my loyalty to you.” I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Obviously, I failed.” Epically.
She narrowed her gaze, taking a step closer to me and placing a hand on my cheek. When she looked at me like this, it was like she could see right through my skin straight to my bone, and it sent tingles down my spine. “I have to come first. That’s the only way this is going to work.”
“I know.” I curled a fist at my side for not acknowledging that before.
“I know that now. You and this baby, you’re my family first.” Santo and everyone else would just have to accept that.
And if Santo didn’t like that, then he should remember he had set all of this in motion in the first place.
At one time I would’ve cursed him out over it, but now…
now, dare I say, I felt like I needed to thank him. Not that I would be doing that.
“Just take me home,” she whispered, her voice cracking slightly as her lips curled upward in the most delightful smile.
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me. I’m pregnant, and I’m tired of standing on my feet. Just take me home because I forgive you. I understand your stupid logic and where you were coming from. I appreciate it, all of it.”
Heat soared through my body, and I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I will take you home, but first, there’s something I need to do.” It couldn’t wait. I didn’t want it to wait. “You would probably argue—”
I dropped down on bended knee.
“—that I should have done this a while ago, but better late than never, right?” I looked up at Brooklyn expectantly, her hand covering her mouth as she squealed.
When she withdrew her hand, the River may have had some competition with how wide Brooklyn smiled. “Still no ring?” She wiggled her naked finger at me. “It doesn’t matter. Yes, yes, always. Always yes.”
“You didn’t even let me ask my question.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Will you be my date for the next event that comes up?” Gasping, she swatted my bicep, and my eyes went there as I laughed. “Serves you right for not letting me finish.”
Standing there, with one hand on her belly and one hand on her back, and tears in her eyes, she heard me out. “Will you marry me?”
“Of course I will.”
I got up and our lips met in the gentlest of kisses. There was no urgency when we had the rest of our lives to be together.
When we broke apart, she smacked her lips. “So, this is the second time we’ve gotten engaged, and you still don’t have a ring for me. What’s your problem?”
A thunderous laugh rolled out of me. “There’s a good reason for that,” I said, tugging her to me so we were flush against one another.
“I want us to pick your ring together. Then when we do, it can be the first piece you place in your new walk-in jewelry vault I have being installed in our brownstone as we speak.”
Her eyes flared. “Did you just say jewelry vault?”
I nodded.
“You sure do know the way to my heart, Marco Deluca.”
And I’d protect it with my life.