“Haven,” her father said. “Did the flight get delayed?”
Haven cringed because not exactly. “As far as I know, no, it wasn’t delayed. I just won’t be able to make it in time. Not today, anyway.”
“What?”
“Something came up,” Haven said, searching for the right words.
“Oh, the man your mother mentioned?”
Jesus Christ.
“Did she tell you about that?”
She swore she could hear the smile in her father’s tone when he said, “She did tell me. She was worried you wouldn’t make the right choice.”
Haven blinked. “Pardon?”
“In case you’re wondering, you made the right choice.”
Because she stayed, she realized.
Oh.
“Haven,” her father murmured.
“Yeah?”
“I know you’re going to feel guilty, and think that you should be here, but please don’t do that. Please don’t. Your mother and I are okay. You have things to handle there, and that’s fine. We’re still going to be here either way when things settle out.”
“I should be there, though,” she said.
“You should be happy,” her father returned. “That’s what we want. That’s all we’ve ever wanted, sweetheart.”
Well, fuck.
How was she supposed to argue with that?
“And on another note,” her father said, “about this man.”
Haven smiled. “What’s that?”
“I expect to meet him. Size him up, scare the shit out of him maybe.”
Have laughed under her breath. “If I told you to save your breath, would you listen?”
“Can’t. Father’s duty. He’ll understand.”
“Dad—”
“Now, don’t you go taking this away from me, Haven. You’re all grown up, and this is the only time I can do this.”
Sure.
She just laughed.
“Although, he must be something I guess, to make you change your plans like this. You always were so stuck in your ways. Nothing could ever change your mind once you decided on something.”
He wasn’t lying.
“Andino is …” Haven struggled to find the right words.
“Hmm?”
“Overwhelming.”
Yeah, that was as good of a word as any.
Why not?
Her father chuckled. “Yeah, love usually is.”
“So, you’ll tell Mom that—”
“You will be down to visit as soon as you can,” her father interjected. “And that you made the right choice. Yes, I will.”
Haven shook her head. “All right, thank you. I love you. Tell her that for me, too.”
“Will do, sweetheart. Love you, too.”
Once she’d said goodbye to her father and dropped her phone into her bag, she finally noticed the form standing in the doorway. The woman hadn’t made a single noise to alert Haven to her presence.
Kim.
“Are you busy?” Andino’s mother asked.
Haven shook her head. “No, just filling my dad in on where I was.”
Kim nodded, and stepped into the room. “You must be bored in here by yourself. The whole family is just down the hall in the dining room, if you—”
“Maybe not? I … don’t really know anyone, that’s all.”
And to be honest, Haven wasn’t even sure why she was still there. Or rather, what she was waiting for. Kim had been the one to approach her at the church, and then practically demanded Haven leave with their family. At the time, she didn’t have a reason to refuse, and she really didn’t like the way Kev had looked at her like he wished she was dead right where she stood.
Now that she was here … well, she didn’t have the first clue where Andino was, or if she was ready to talk to him. If they did talk, what would he say?
The thought made her heart race.
And ache.
“Well, what about me, then?” Kim asked softly.
Haven didn’t understand what the woman was asking, but just the way Kim looked at her—so expectant and hopeful—she didn’t think she was going to be able to refuse whatever she asked for. Kim seemed sweet, truly. Soft-spoken, and kind. It was hard not to be comfortable when the woman was near.
“What about you?” Haven asked.
“Would you be willing to talk to me for a bit, maybe? I could keep you company.”
Haven blinked. “Talk about what?”
“You.”
She was feeling really slow on the uptake today.
Kim laughed at Haven’s obviously confused expression. “I just feel like … you and me, well we have a lot of catching up to do, Haven. All this time that I could have got to know you, I missed out on. And I would rather not waste more time doing that when you’re standing right here.”
“Why would you want to get to know me? “
“Because Andino loves you,” Kim said simply. “And so, I love you, too. That’s how it works.”
Huh.
“You seem confused still,” the woman pointed out.
Haven shrugged.
What else could she do?
“I guess … this is unexpected. No one cared before. No one was around before, you know?”
“Things are never as simple or as easy as we think they are,” Kim explained. “Especially not in this family with the life we live. I think you’re going to find a lot of things will be different this time around, and they will adore you just as much as I do and as he does.”
Haven gave the woman a look. “You don’t even know me, though.”
“He’s told me enough to know you’re amazing, and strong, and everything he wants. So, what difference does the rest make, Haven, when those are the only things that should really matter at the end of the day?”
“That’s not the only thing that matters,” Haven said sadly, glancing down at her hands. “There’s a lot more to think about too.”
“Nothing is ever easy,” Kim echoed again. “You love him, though, don’t you?”
“Does that matter when I also know I can’t keep loving someone who keeps hurting me?”
Kim’s expression didn’t change at all from that soft smile she wore. “Maybe he did all that because that was the only way he could keep you. Have you ever thought about that?”
She did.
Now.
Today.
Kim waved a hand, adding, “But those are things you should talk to my son about. I don’t have all those answers. About you, though … I want to know everything.”
Haven laughed. “There’s not much to tell. Just a normal girl, you know?”
Kim looked her over, but her gaze never felt judgmental or disapproving. “Oh, I think there’s a lot to tell about you. He wouldn’t love you otherwise. Andino isn’t that simple—normal wouldn’t interest him. That alone tells me you’re something amazing.”
Well, then …
How did one reply to that?
• • •
Haven saw him darkening the doorway before his mother did. Andino wasn’t looking at anything else but Haven in that second. She could see the wariness in his eyes—like he thought she might bolt, but he was still going to try regardless.
God.
She loved him for that, too.
“Ma, care to give me a minute?” Andino asked quietly.
Kim smiled as she found Andino in the doorway. “There you are. And sure, yeah. We were just … chatting.”
Andino chuckled. “I’m sure. Telling all my secrets, I imagine.”
Giving Haven a wink, Kim stood from the chair and smoothed down the skirt of her dress. She walked across the room, and stopped alongside her son in the doorway. Her hand came up to pat his cheek with an affectionate touch.
“I was most certainly not telling your secrets, thank you,” Kim said, “and I definitely didn’t tell her about the little whale stuffy you kept until you were twelve.”
Andino groaned. “Ma.”
Kim laughed, and patted his cheek again. “Whoops. I’ll see you later.”
It was only once Kim was gone that Andino finally turned to Haven again. She couldn’t even hide the smile that was stretching her cheeks wide because that was, by far, one of the cutest things she had ever seen.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “She …”
“Loves you beyond words,” Haven said. “She really does.”
Andino settled on a nod. “Maybe too much? That’s kind of the thing with Italian mothers. They love their boys entirely too much.”
“I don’t know … I think you love her just as much.”
“That’s fair.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and leaned against the doorjamb. “You can go, by the way. If you want to, I can call a car for you right now to take you wherever you want to go. That’s your call, Haven.”
She stood from the chair she’d been sitting in as Kim regaled her with stories of Andino, and his family. “Is that what you want?”
Andino gave her a look that heated her up, and yet turned her into stone at the same fucking time. So intense, like fire slipping over her skin and promising love and sin and forever. It was all in his eyes. It had always been in his eyes when she cared to look, she thought.
“You know what I want,” he said. “You have always known, Haven.”
“But is it what you want right now?”
“I want you to stay. I want to take you down the hall, and feed you the best food you’re ever going to taste because my aunts and mother helped my grandmother make it. I want you to laugh when they tell you stories about me, and I want them to know you like I do. Because how can they not absolutely love you once they know who you are? That’s what I want.”
“So, after that, then,” Haven whispered, inching closer to him with every word, “what happens?”
Even as she came closer, he remained still. Like he was letting her do what she needed or wanted to do. He wasn’t trying to influence her, and she appreciated that. The problem was—this man never needed to do anything to influence her. He just needed to be. That was the kind of hold Andino Marcello had on Haven’s heart and soul.
Why ignore it?
Why pretend like it didn’t exist?
That was impossible.
“What happens if you stay after dinner?” he asked.
She was only a few inches away, now. Less than a foot. If she leaned in close, she would be able to kiss him.
She wanted to.
Badly.
Haven waited …
Andino’s green eyes lifted to meet hers, and he smiled in that way. The way that made her heart skip beats, and her stomach flip. Like she was the only thing in the world that he cared to see for the rest of his life. She didn’t know how he managed to do that.
“If you stay,” he murmured, “what happens is that I get to spend the rest of my life explaining why I did what I did, and showing you every single day how much I love you. That you are the first thing I think about in the morning when I open my eyes, and the last thing to grace my mind before I fall asleep. You are in my dreams. My fucking blood. There’s no getting you out now. I see you everywhere, Haven. Even when you’re not here, you’re all around me.”
Why did she like that so much?
Haven glanced away. “You almost got married today.”
“It was never going to happen.”
“Still—”
“Still nothing,” he interrupted softly, finally moving away from the doorway to close the distance between them. Before Haven even understood what had happened, he was right there in front of her, and his lips were seeking hers. The kiss was gentle at first—a soft hello, and a gentle I missed you. A kiss like he’d never given her before. And yet, it still burned her all over, and turned her world upside down. “I’m sorry that I’m such a selfish fuck, Haven. I’m sorry that I was willing to hurt you, and whoever else I needed to, so that I could keep you. But I’m not sorry that I got what I wanted because that means I get you.”
His words whispered against her lips like their own soft kiss.
She shivered even as he kissed her again, and drifted the tips of his fingers over her cheeks and jaw. The sliver of a tear escaped the corner of her eye, but he was quick to wipe it away like it hadn’t even existed in the first place.
“Is that what they meant?” Haven asked, meeting his gaze. “At the church—when people were talking about what was going to happen now. When they said what you did meant war? Is that what it means? Keeping me means war?”
Andino’s hands cupped under her jaw, and he tipped her head back, so he could stare into her eyes. “There’s a little more to it; more people and reasons than just this … but it’s a big part of it, yes.”
“I don’t think I’m worth that.”
“You’re worth the moon and the stars to me, Haven. I would burn this city down if that’s what it would take to have you. Don’t ever underestimate what I am willing to do to make sure you’re right where you belong.”
“And where is that?”
She knew.
She still wanted him to say it.
“With me. You belong with me.”
This man was something else, and Haven didn’t know what to do about it. A man so willing to draw blood, and strike out first simply because he could, and he knew what he wanted. That thing just happened to be her. She could see the truth reflecting back in his eyes—nothing and no one was ever going to be worth what she was to him. No one would ever draw his fury and violence out like she could.
May their God save the soul who thought to take Haven from Andino.
May their God have mercy.
This man would have none.
Haven knew that absolutely.
“You terrify me, Andino.”
He grinned. “Why is that?”
“Because you’re never going to let me go.”
“But do you want me to?”
Her answer came easy.
So sure.
Whispered, too.
“No, I don’t want you to ever let me go.”
• • •
Haven could feel Andino’s eyes on her from down the table. He’d moved from her side to have a conversation with one of his cousin’s boyfriends—or husband? Haven wasn’t sure if Catherine was married to the man they called Cross, or not. There were so many Marcellos, and she was having a hard time keeping up with who was who, and who was married to who or just with so and so.
She loved it.
She did.
But even as she talked along with Catrina—Andino’s aunt, and Dante’s wife—she could still feel Andino watching her. He’d long since ended the conversation with Cross, but he hadn’t come back to join her at the other end of the table.
“I’m sure your mom was looking forward to seeing you, then,” Catrina said. “Too bad you missed that flight … Dante?”
“Hmm, yes, bella?”
“Did you know that Haven’s mother is sick?”
Dante’s gaze turned on her, and then down the table to where his own mother was sitting beside her husband next to the only Irish girl at the table—next to Haven, although she wasn’t as Irish as Gabbie Marcello. The girl was married to another one of Andino’s cousins. Haven only remembered who she was married to because of the fact she was so vibrantly different from the rest of the Marcellos.
“I did not know that,” Dante said, glancing back at Haven. “I’m sorry.”
This man—like a lot of the others sitting at the table—was a whole other kind of mystery to Haven. She didn’t know what to make of him, and more often than not, when he stared at her … she wondered if he was trying to figure out her secrets, or just size her up because he could.
He was polite.
Nice.
He was not the same arrogant man who cornered her in her club months ago, and pissed her off without barely trying at all. He was welcoming, and even comfortable to talk to. Yet, at the same time, she didn’t know what to make of him.
“Her cancer came back,” Haven explained.
“Merda,” Dante murmured.
“No cussing at the table, Dante!”
Catrina gave Haven a sly grin as Dante shot his mother an apologetic look down the table.
“Le mie scuse, Ma,” he said, and then when his mother’s gaze was turning away he added under his breath to his wife, “She doesn’t miss a fucking click.”
“You know better than to try,” Catrina replied, laughing.
Haven smiled.
She couldn’t help it.
Dante was quick to go back to their first conversation. “What was that I heard about a missed flight, then?”
“It’s nothing.”
Catrina shook her head. “Not nothing. She was supposed to fly back to Florida this evening … to stay with her parents.” The red-headed woman shrugged one shoulder, and nodded in Andino’s direction, adding, “I think that’s changed for reasons … right?”
Haven sighed. “It’s a work in progress.”
The woman nodded. “It’s changed, then.”
Dante chuckled at the way Catrina didn’t even act like Haven had given a non-answer. His expression softened as he glanced at Haven again. “They must be angry—”
“They’re not, actually. They just want me to be happy.”
The man looked her over in a whole new way, then, before his daughter down the table caught his attention for a brief moment. “Don’t we all? I’m sure they’d still like to see you, though. Especially now.”
“I’ll figure something out. See if I can get the tickets changed over, or I’ll just grab a new flight.”
“No need,” Dante said quickly. “Tomorrow, there’ll be a private jet waiting for you to use as much as you want over the next several months, so you can see your mother as often as you please. I’m sure that would make her smile. And she’ll need that with all the treatments, won’t she?”
Haven blinked. “What?”
Dante smiled slowly. “You heard me, I’m sure.”
She had, but still …
“You don’t need to—”
“Do you think Andino won’t provide you with the exact same thing? Trust that it’s already in his plans, and I have simply saved him money and time as I am the one who owns the jet in this family.”
“First of all,” Catrina said, “that is my jet.”
The man leaned over, and kissed the woman on the top of her head. “Yes, Cat, it is your jet. Retract the claws, now.”
Catrina smiled, pleased, and then turned on Haven. “But yes, you can take it as often and as much as you would like. Consider it … a welcoming present.”
“A welcoming present,” she echoed.
“That’s what I said.”
“That’s an expensive way to welcome someone.”
Dante laughed, and gestured at the chandelier hanging over the table. It was the size of a small car, for fuck’s sake. Haven hadn’t gotten to see very much of the mansion since she arrived, but what she had seen was enough to tell her that the Marcellos were vastly wealthy.
“I think we’re financially okay to let you use the jet,” Dante said.
“But you don’t have to.”
“Have to and should are not the same things,” he returned, “and if it were my mother, I would move heaven and hell to make sure she was comfortable and happy. Which would absolutely mean having her children there.” The man gave her another serious look, adding, “No thanks needed, please.”
Haven opened her mouth to do just that anyway—she had the distinct feeling that arguing with Dante was going to get her nowhere fast—but someone else called her name. This time, it was a familiar face.
Catherine, Andino’s cousin.
“You want a tour of the place?” Catherine asked.
“Yes, let’s do that,” the girl next to her said.
Cella, maybe?
There were a lot of Marcellos.
Haven looked to Andino, and already found him staring back at her. Of course. He’d not once looked away, and her whole body knew it.
“Have fun,” he said, smiling lazily. “I’ll find you.”
There was something sinful in the way he said that. Something that promised fun and wickedness. It had been far too long since she got a taste of sin from this man.
Haven didn’t get to think on it for long.
The women pulled her up from the table, and were already talking about the mansion before Haven could say goodbye. She did manage a quick glance over her shoulder, though.
Andino watched her leave, too.