Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
MOVING DAY
Max
Celeste is moving in today and I'd rather be getting a root canal without anesthesia.
Rosa, who's been shooting me death glares all morning, keeps muttering something about beds and lying in them.
It's pissing me off, which never happens with Rosa.
She's my rock, has been since I was a snot-nosed kid with abandonment issues the size of Montana.
When Dad bailed, I went nuclear—smashing vases, punching walls, the works.
Granddad and Nana tapped out after a few months.
Gianni and his pasta-loving clan were always jetting off to Florence or Milan.
My brothers? Too busy nursing their own daddy wounds to deal with mine.
But Rosa? She'd sit cross-legged on my bedroom floor for hours, piecing together thousand-piece puzzles while I sobbed, playing endless rounds of Go Fish when I couldn't sleep, making sure I didn't do something stupid like swan-dive off the Pacific Coast Highway bridge.
I'd take a bullet for that woman without hesitation, and I've always treated her advice like gospel.
But right now? Her "you-made-this-mess" wisdom can go straight to hell.
I shake my head. "Rosa, I can't believe you're taking her side.
You know exactly why Granddad is forcing this woman into my house.
This isn't my fault, so don't give me that look.
" My bare feet slap against the travertine as I pace the length of the infinity pool.
Rosa doesn't even look up from her needlepoint—some welcome gift for a stranger she's decided to like without meeting.
"I'm staying at the city penthouse tonight.
You can give her the grand tour yourself.
Show her which wing is hers. Teach her how to use the La Cornue Grand Palais range that she'll probably mistake for modern art.
Just don't expect me to be here when she arrives. "
Rosa's head shakes and that infuriating tsk-tsk sound makes my jaw clench.
I hate when she's right. And she is right now.
The penthouse beckons like a sanctuary, but my lungs feel compressed at the mere thought of Celeste inhabiting these walls—temporarily, I remind myself, just temporarily.
God, I need a grapefruit spoon to carve out the part of my brain that keeps picturing her here.
I glance at Rosa's knowing eyes and sigh.
No one reads me like she does, not even Gianni.
She sees the panic rising in my chest, the futility of escape.
Her favorite saying echoes in my head: "Wherever you go, there you are.
" I could charter a jet to Antarctica tomorrow—been there once, checked it off the bucket list, never again with those temperatures—but Celeste would still haunt me.
She's lodged herself somewhere between my ribs, and distance won't dislodge her.
Even with her sequestered in the east wing, she'll be everywhere.
In my thoughts. Under my skin. Inescapable.
Rosa's fingers pause over her needlepoint—a hummingbird with wings of emerald and sapphire hovering above a crimson flower.
The kind of delicate, handcrafted thing Celeste would probably display proudly on her wall.
Rosa fixes me with that look, the one that's been stopping me in my tracks since I was seven.
"Enough pacing," she says, her voice soft but firm.
"This situation? You walked right into it.
Joe watches you parade those models through your house, sees the way you check your watch during family dinners, notices how you never laugh anymore.
" She jabs her needle toward me. "That emptiness you pretend not to feel?
Joe sees it. His solution might be extreme, but it comes from love.
Pure and simple." She returns to her stitching.
"Give her a chance, Max. Or keep being the man who has everything and nothing at all. "
And then the doorbell rings.
And my fate is about to come through the door.
God help us all.