Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
GINO
It’s been a week since Mateo got back, and after spending time at home with his wife and kids, he’s itching to get back to work. He practically begged me to let him start doing something, and I only agreed if Vanessa was good with it.
Striding into my office, he closes the door and sits across from me at my desk.
“Alright, since I was out of the loop for a year, what's going on with you and Juliet?” he asks, like that is the most important part of it all.
“Don’t start,” I grit out.
“Don’t start what? All Vanessa’s told me is you two are together, so start talking.” After silence from me, he adds, “I’m not against punching you again.”
I let out an exhale. “Fine, what do you want to know?”
“Everything. But start with how you two got together,” he says.
“It sort of just happened. At first we got close working on finding you, and she started getting these messages. I suggested we pretend to be in a relationship to get the messages to stop—”
He cuts me off. “What messages?”
“At first they seemed to be someone trying to help, but then she started getting threatening ones. Eventually they stopped, and she hasn’t gotten a message in months,” I tell him.
“Did you find out who it was?” he asks, seeming fully invested now.
“No, now that we found you, we’re going to figure it out.
We tried, but every lead didn’t work, and then they eventually stopped.
Juliet is convinced it’s two people, which seems likely considering the tone in the messages was different.
And when Drew tracked them, one was pinging all over the place upstate, where the other was somewhere in the city. ”
“Any ideas or theories on who they are or their associations?” he queries. Sometimes I hate that he’s a lawyer. He sometimes asks too many questions.
“The aggressive one seemed to be either very in tune with Lorenzo or was on his team. He sent a message to her saying they knew where you were. She tried to get more from them, but then they stopped. They must have known we weren’t going to stop looking,” I say.
“Good, but that still doesn’t explain how you two got together for real.”
“Uhh, well, a few months ago, right before the twins were born, I kissed her in the kitchen and—”
“So you finally listened to everyone for the first time?” he smiles at me.
“Shut up, asshole, but sure, I finally listened. I did fuck up.”
“When do you not?” he jokes with a smile.
“Are you here right now to just fuck with me about my mistakes?” I ask.
“That’s why I’m always here.”
I roll my eyes. “You know I couldn’t tell you any of this and tell you to go home, right?”
“You do that, and my wife will come over here and yell at you; we both know that,” he says.
“Is she still mad at me?” I ask.
“No, she’s frustrated, though. She feels like you don’t trust her.
I know how much you wanted siblings and parents and all of those things.
Those people are all here in different ways.
My parents raised you; we acted like brothers.
Now you have a sister you begged for, and you continue to keep secrets from her.
You got what you wanted for so long, so don’t keep fucking it up.
And stop assuming you know what everyone wants.
That’s not just about Vanessa; it’s about everyone here. Juliet, the rest of the guys, Kevin, Lucy, everyone. You need to stop concerning yourself with what you think people want and listen to what they’re saying.”
That’s the second person to tell me to listen.
I swallow. “I know, Juliet told me last week I need to listen better.”
“I bet you listen to her better than anyone,” he says.
I look at him. He may have been gone a year, but he doesn’t forget shit.
“I know you. You’re into her bossing you around,” he adds.
God damn it. We talked about that once in college when both of us were drunk, and he remembered that.
“I think it’s my turn to punch you,” I say.
He huffs out a laugh. “So I’m right?”
I stare at him, confirming without saying it.
“Can we move on, please?” I ask.
“No, I like seeing you squirm,” he laughs out.
“God,” I groan, “why?”
“Because it’s fun and it loosens you up. As you said, you need to chill out more,” he says.
“Why do I tell you these things?”
“I think it’s because of my charm and good looks,” he winks.
“Does that work on my sister?” I pause, then add, “Don’t answer that.”
He just smiles.
It’s good to have him back. I almost thought we never would.
There were so many nights I stayed up thinking what would happen if we couldn’t find him or if something happened to him.
How would I tell my sister that the man she married, the man our father arranged for her to marry, was gone before they got started?
Luckily, I don’t need to think about it anymore.
“Have you talked to the therapist Ness found?” I ask.
“Yeah, right now I’m speaking with a psychiatrist once a month and a therapist once a week. The psychiatrist doesn’t think I’ll need anything more than therapy sessions as of now, and if I don’t need anything else within the next three months, then I just see the therapist as long as I need to.”
I swallow. I know the mental toll this took on everyone, but his was obviously the worst. He experienced the torture. My sister knows, being in the medical field, what to do; that’s why they make a great pair. They complement each other and push each other in the right ways.
“Okay, that’s good,” I reply.
“We need to go back to the conversation with Juliet,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because you’re known to be a hard-ass and a dick at times, so you can’t fuck with her.”
“I’ve been in love with her for ten years,” I admit to him.
“That long, huh?”
“Yeah… That long.”
He leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head. “Answer me this then: why did it take you so long?”
“I was scared,” I admit. “Scared she would say no. Scared she would walk away if I was a dick. To be totally fair, when we slept together over a year ago, I didn’t try hard enough.”
“I’m sorry—” He looks at me blankly. “—you two slept together? When?”
“The night of my dad’s funeral.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the next morning, though, I think we both had a moment of realization of how that could change a lot, and then never acted again on our attraction until now,” I say.
“I see.”
“What? Nothing else?” I ask; he always loves to get under my skin.
“Nah, seems like you’ve finally gotten your head out of your ass.”
“Thank God.”
I decide now is a good time to change the topic.
“Drew’s already working on finding who was messaging her, and Henry helped with the real estate stuff.
What I need your help with is the contract Juliet and I have been doing on our own for months.
I still have no clue what I’m looking at, but all I know is that if everything looks good, we’ll be able to start Esposito Enterprises before the end of the year. ”
“Why are we calling it Esposito Enterprises again?” he asks.
“Do you want it to be Romano Enterprises? Hmm?” I can see it on his face clear as day; he doesn’t want that.
“Hell no,” he replies with a laugh.
“So it’s settled then.”
Then we get to work, pouring over contracts and agreements, looking over everything. By the time we're done and it’s dark outside, the business we spent nearly a decade waiting to create is finally in our grasp.