28. — epilogue.
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Salvatore
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Lingering in the doorway of the newly decorated nursey, Salvatore listened to the conversation happening on the other side of the room.
He didn’t think the two doing the talking would mind.
After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he sat on the outside of their private bubble, taking the two of them in.
“They’re precious,” Vanna said, her tone twisting the last word with an excited sweetness. Something he was not used to hearing from her. “I can’t believe this is the first time I’m seeing them.”
“Whose fault is that?” Carina asked back, although not unkindly.
“Well...”
“I called, Vanna. So did he. We wanted you to come.”
“Maybe I thought you’d want to enjoy your babies without me and another kid in tow.”
“You’re lying.”
Vanna leaned sideways a bit, enough to bump her bare shoulder against Carina’s, before she straightened again and peered between the two rocking, white bassinets. “Okay, so maybe I didn’t know how I’d feel, and I needed the time.”
“That’s fair. Probably closer to the truth, too.”
“That is the truth!”
Carina just laughed, but she turned in her woolly, dark blue gown, a careful choice for a winter wedding, to find Salvatore quiet in the doorway. “Hey, babe.”
Vanna passed a look at him over her shoulder, greeting simply, “Salvatore.”
“Vanna. How are things?”
“Quiet. Different. Nice.”
“I heard the executor of Giorgio’s estate has begun liquidating the remaining assets.”
He didn’t bother to ask how the investigation into the apparent murder-slash-suicide of Giorgio, his son, and the other man in the equation had been going, as he already knew.
Vanna reached into the bassinet belonging to Dove. “Apparently. Nico should expect a good half of it, split between him and Carmen.”
“And what about you?”
She shrugged, never turning to look at him and Carina as they met in the middle of the room to embrace. He pressed a kiss to the top of his wife’s head, careful of her already slicked back chignon and the makeup on her face.
“He made sure I would be taken care of,” Vanna informed like she was ordering coffee and not speaking of the death of her husband. “Which means I won’t have to return to my father for anything significant, anyhow. That’s what counts.”
Salvatore cleared his throat, knowing the woman wouldn’t want to get too deep into that topic. “Well, in the meantime, if you do need something,” he replied while Carina squeezed his hand.
Vanna looked back at him one more time, nodding. “Thank you.”
“Just not this thing,” Salvatore clarified, only half joking, as he tilted his head toward Carina at his side.
Her hand swatted his back.
Vanna only laughed, her eyes darting between the two before her attention went right back to the twins in their beds. “No, uh, I don’t think I can...compete. I learned that a while ago, Sal. No worries there.”
He didn’t worry. He simply knew the past because it painted them all again and again.
Carina checked the delicate Cartier watch on her wrist. “You need to go get Frankie so we can get her dressed and downstairs. And where’s Nico?
He’s your responsibility today, Sal. You wanted this wedding to happen before she was nine months pregnant, so we didn’t have water breaking on the priest’s feet. ”
A snort echoed from Vanna.
Salvatore pushed his daughter’s wedding to the top of his priority list the moment he could stop praying that the smallest of his babies would finally make it off supplemented oxygen and be released from the NICU.
It only took six weeks for her to get those walking papers, but they assured she would a week after her birth.
His little Dove Darling got released once her weight hit five pounds, a week ago.
He’d let Carina go ahead with the wedding planning a month earlier, giving her a timeline that made her squint at him for days every time he entered a room.
She could do it, he told her. He had all the faith.
“Well, where is he?” Carina asked again.
Salvatore didn’t know, and he didn’t want to admit it because Carina would have his nuts for losing the kid with less than two hours to go until showtime. “He was with Larkin and Carmen last I saw.”
Vanna filled in details he didn’t have. “Carmen is practicing her walk down the aisle downstairs. Or she was, after I put the presents on the table.”
“Oh, I bet I know exactly where Nico is,” Salvatore muttered.
“So, go get them,” his wife replied, turning him toward the door. “And don’t forget the gifts you’re supposed to give her now, not after, Sal.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
In the doorway, he turned back again to find Carina settling in beside Vanna once more.
The low, one-inch, heeled boots she opted to wear with her dress made him sigh.
The doctors told her three months, and yet, somehow his wife snuck in a pair of wedges into the hospital closer to home that they got the babies and her transferred to a couple of days after their birth.
“So, is Sissy helping with them?” Vanna asked as Salvatore finally turned to leave.
“If I ask,” Carina replied. “But...I want to do this.”
“You are doing it, beautiful. Look at them, you’ve already done it. What do you mean?”
Carina’s sigh sounded further away as Salvatore strolled down the hallway, but he didn’t miss her fading words, either. “Yeah, I know. Anyway, Sissy’s already said where she’s going as soon as they need her. Which, she should. Right?”
“Those two will be grateful for the help, that’s for sure.”
Eventually, he lost their conversation entirely the farther he walked down the hallway. It took him a few minutes to navigate the wing into his daughter’s side where, unsurprisingly, he found her bedroom door closed, and with a quick check, locked.
Salvatore knocked hard. A shriek followed. Then, a scuffle.
“Nico,” Sal called loudly on the other side of the door, “I know you were told to stay out of the upstairs for this exact reason.”
Frankie’s muffled, breathless voice answered. “Nico’s not in here!”
Yeah, he didn’t believe that. “Open the door, Frankie.”
“No?”
“Open the door, girl.”
“Daddy—”
“Open it.”
It took another minute.
Not a single inch of Salvatore felt shocked to find Nico grinning from where he leaned against the footboard of Frankie’s bed. His daughter, on the other hand, wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Get out,” he said.
“You got it, boss,” Nico murmured, winking at Frankie as he passed.
“Terrible, both of you. It’s tradition to wait to see one another. Couldn’t you just try?”
She just rubbed the top of her swollen stomach, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “Too late now.”
“Mmhmm.”
“What’s all that?” Frankie asked, pointing at a manilla folder and the small gift bag he’d picked up along the way to her room.
“Wedding gifts.”
“Oh?”
She beamed. That helped his annoyance.
Her and Nico...they couldn’t be helped. He’d figured that out a long time ago even if he did try to ignore it as much as he could. Stupidly.
“Sit,” he said, pointing at her bed. “And we have to do this quickly, because Carina is just about on the warpath even though we’re not behind schedule.”
“You basically gave her a little more than a month to put this together, so she’s gonna be a live wire today. It’s kind of your fault. I mean, I didn’t mind waiting until after the baby to get married, but you—”
The look he tossed her quieted Frankie instantly. “Sit, I said.”
She did, using the little stairs beside her bed to get up there. “I bet that’s the only reason we’re having the wedding here at the estate, too. Because we couldn’t get in anywhere else on such short notice, right?”
“Everybody’s got a price, Sunshine. And I would’ve paid.”
She arched one eyebrow higher than the other. “But?”
“It’s going to mean something. That I’ll have it here, that out of the hundred or so guests invited today, most of them will immediately understand why the last couple of months happened when you stand in front of them, clearly pregnant, on the altar with Nico.
Sure, I could have announced those things in another time or place, but I’d rather it be clear and unquestionable. ”
“What do you mean? What’s it?”
He smiled softly “What I’ll do for my family. Now, which do you want first?”
She eyed the two gifts he held between both hands. Technically, there were three, but she didn’t know that yet.
Frankie pointed at the folder. “Let’s see that, because the last time you gave me something that looked like that...well.”
He chuckled. Smart girl.
Salvatore set the gift bag aside on a sitting chair and then opened the folder. “Do you know there are two properties up for sale in Rose Ridge Community at the moment?”
Frankie blinked. “No?”
“Well, there were three. I closed on one yesterday.”
“What?”
“Twenty-three acres, wooded fence line along the back, and a waterfront along the south side. There’s also a guest house, a pool house, and a thirty-car garage. I almost bought it for myself just for that, but I didn’t think you’d want this one.”
“Daddy.”
He grinned at her. “Yeah?”
“Did you buy me a house?”
“You and your husband-to-be, yes. And my grandchild. I mean, I know that he has a home, and you have the penthouse, but—”
“How far of a drive between here and there?”
“Ten-ish minutes,” he whispered.
Frankie’s fingertips met her lips as the tears started to gather the longer she stared at him. “How much?”
“What it took to get it.”
He wasn’t gonna die with all this money and they wouldn’t bury him with it, either.
He stepped close enough to hand over the folder so that she could look over the details of the property sale while he turned back for the bag. Pulling the square velvet box from the bag, he spun on his heel to open it for Frankie to see.
A bracelet, matching the one she still wore for her new brother, waited. Only now, pink diamonds glittered around the band.
“Inscribed just like SJ’s,” he told her.
Frankie gasped sweetly. “I wondered!”
“There’s a ring for Nico, too. I’ll give that to him before we get started today.”
“Give it to me, please.”