I have my feet up on the sofa, one hand resting on my growing bump as I hold my Kindle in the other. There’s a mug of hot peppermint tea on the small table beside me, and I have nothing to do for the entire day but read. Heaven.
I’m engrossed in my book when a few moments later, a pair of warm, strong hands rest on my shoulders, squeezing gently before he presses a soft kiss on the top of my head.
“Dante,” I say with a smile. “I thought you were busy today.”
“I am,” he says, his lips brushing over my hair. “With you. We’re taking a little trip.”
“A trip? Where? I thought we agreed…? Do I need to pack?” We spent the entire day after our wedding in bed and that was about the extent of our honeymoon. I’d love to have flown somewhere hot and sunny for a few days, but obviously my heavily pregnant status makes that impossible, and Dante is so busy with work that we both agreed to delay it until the baby is able to be left for a few days with Anya, Joey, and Lorenzo.
“It’s just a day trip, kitten. It will be a few hours’ drive though. Sophia has packed some snacks for you in case of any extreme pregnancy sugar cravings.”
I turn off my Kindle and put it on the coffee table. “Where are we going?”
He holds out his hand to me. “It’s a surprise. Come on.”
Excitement flutters in my stomach as I take his hand and his strong fingers circle mine. He makes me feel so safe and secure when he looks at me like that, which is kind of ironic given how we met. “But if we’re on the road for a few hours, I’m gonna need to pee first.” I rub a hand over my belly. “This baby likes to sleep on my bladder.”
He pulls me toward him and gives me a soft kiss on the lips. “Fine. I’ll wait in the car.”
We’ve been driving for a little over two hours and despite asking Dante a million questions about what we’re doing and where we’re headed, he has given me no clue whatsoever. However, as we turn off the freeway and head toward Jackson, I sense the change in his mood. He seems nervous, which is unusual for him.
I put my hand on the back of his neck and he turns his head and gives me a faint smile. “Almost there, kitten. You okay?”
“I could do with peeing soon,” I say, regretting the bottle of iced tea I drank about half an hour earlier.
He takes my hand from his neck and dusts his lips over my knuckles. “We should be there in ten minutes. Is that okay or do I need to pull over and let you pee on the side of the road?”
“Ten minutes is fine,” I giggle.
“Good. Because I would hate to have to shoot someone just because they got a glimpse of your ass.”
I give him a playful nudge on the shoulder. “You would not do that.”
“Oh, I would,” he says with a wink.
“You sure you can’t tell me where we’re going to?”
He frowns a little, and I sense a change in him again. “I don’t want any secrets from you, Kat,” he says, his tone serious now.
“Good. I don’t either.”
He nods his head and now I’m even more intrigued about where we’re going.
My curiosity is piqued further when Dante stops the car outside a beautiful house less than ten minutes later. It’s the kind of house you see in the movies. It has a porch swing, a tree in the yard with a tire hanging from the branch, secured by a thick blue rope. There is a pickup in the yard and two bikes on the lawn.
“Who lives here?”
“Come see,” he says, climbing out of the car before coming around to open my door. He takes my hand to help me out and then laces his fingers through mine as we walk up the path.
Before we get to the porch, the front door of the house swings open and a woman steps out. She’s a little younger than me, maybe, but she has a small child perched on her hip. A little girl who looks to be about two. Both have the same dark curls and dark eyes.
“Dante?” the woman says. She’s smiling, but there’s a note of something else in her voice. Fear perhaps?
My heart starts beating a little faster. Oh, God. Is this child his? Does he have this whole other life that I don’t know about?
“Is this your secret?” I ask him quietly.
“Yeah,” he says, but his eyes are on the woman and the little girl and he’s smiling. Not many people are worthy of a Dante Moretti smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. It was kind of a last-minute thing,” he says to the woman with an apologetic shrug as he squeezes my hand tighter.
My mouth is so dry I can’t swallow.
“You’re always welcome. But has something happened? Is something wrong?”
“Momma,” another child, a little boy with thick brown curls, aged about five or six, rushes out of the door now. “You said we could have ice-cream.”
Instinctively, without even looking at him, she reaches for him, curling her fingers in his thick hair as she pulls him to her hip. “We will, D. Just give me a minute.” Then she ushers him back inside the house.
D? As in Dante? Dante Junior? A bead of sweat trickles down my brow. I try to pull my hand from his, but he holds it tightly. “Nothing’s wrong. But I got married.” He holds up our joined hands and his wedding ring glints in the sun.
Her face breaks into a huge grin. “You? No way,” she laughs as she starts to walk down the steps of the porch. Then she looks at me. “How the hell did you manage to tame this one, girl?”
I rub a hand over my bump and look down. “Um. With this,” I say with a shrug.
“I wanted her to meet you. I want her to know everything,” Dante says. “No secrets.”
She looks at me again, her brow furrowed into a frown.
“This is my wife, Kat. You can trust her. I promise,” he says, and her face softens. “Tell her who you are.”
She lets out a long breath. “Hey, Kat. I’m Nicci. Although I guess most people back home would know me as Nicole.”
It takes me a few seconds to register what she just said. “Nicole Santangelo?”
“The one and only.”
I look between her and Dante. “But you… you let me believe…”
“That he killed me?” Nicci laughs. “Yeah. That was kind of the secret.”
My head is spinning with so many questions I don’t know which one to ask first. Except I do. “Are the children…?” I look to Dante, unable to finish the question, but he knows anyway.
“No,” he says with a chuckle.
“Hell no,” Nicci adds. Then she turns and heads back toward the house. “Are you two going to come in for some ice cream then?” she asks as she reaches her front door. Then she shouts, “Hey, Sabine. You’ll never guess who’s here and who got married.”
Two hours later, we’ve eaten plenty of dinner and ice cream. Now, Nicci and I are sitting on the porch swing with a glass of iced tea while Dante and Sabine tidy up the dinner dishes. Nicci’s wife is amazing. She’s a lawyer who specializes in working with women who are fleeing abusive situations. She’s smart and funny and has the most beautiful auburn hair I have ever seen. Their kids are adorable too. Deacon, not Dante, is five and Aurora is two.
“I guess you have a million questions?” Nicci asks with a soft laugh as we sip our iced tea. Hers is a Long Island variety.
“Yes, way too many,” I agree with a sigh. With the kids around, we didn’t get a chance to talk about anything too deep and meaningful.
“He saved my life,” she says, her voice suddenly full of emotion. “He didn’t have to. I mean I was nobody to him, but he saved me. People think he’s heartless and cruel, but actually, underneath all of that armor, he’s probably the best man I’ve ever known.”
“I see that side of him too.”
She smiles at me. “Well, of course you do. Because he is so in love with you.” She places her warm hand over mine. “A love like that will burn for eternity.”
That makes tears spring to my eyes. “Are your father and brothers still alive too?” I ask.
“God, no.”
“Oh.”
“They weren’t good men. They were the worst kind,” she says, and the tone of her voice makes my heart break. She says that as though she has had first-hand experience of their worst.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I offer.
“Sabine always tells me it’s good to talk,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “They abused me. Beat me. Raped me. I was their servant. Their verbal punching bag too. My father’s and my brothers’.”
I squeeze her hand in mine.
“It was all I’d ever known. When I was eighteen, they promised me to Lorenzo Moretti, but he married Anya, so they proposed a marriage to Dante instead. My father was desperate for an alliance with the Morettis, so much so that he would even give me up. Not that he cared about what they might do to me, but that he and my brothers would lose their toy.”
I sit in silence as I listen to her story.
“My father’s big mistake was trying to pass me off as some innocent virgin. He even had one of those operations where they stitch a woman’s hymen back in mind for me. Can you believe that?” She snorts. “Like that was all he had to do to have me in tact again. Like that would undo all of the sick, twisted shit those fuckers did to me.”
She takes a long swig of her drink before she goes on.
“Anyway, Dante knew there was something not right. He has that kind of sixth sense about stuff, you know?”
“Yep, I sure do.”
“And when he found out, he took me in. He told everyone we were engaged and I never went home again. His father was happy that he was getting married, and mine was satisfied that his alliance with the Moretti’s was about to become a reality. We planned the wedding and everything. Dante said it had to look real. He never told me his plans but he just kept telling me everything would work out and that I’d be safe. Then the night before our wedding, he told me I was leaving. He gave me a new identity. A new name, social security number. He even called Sabine and told her I was leaving if she wanted to come with me, and thankfully, she did. My father and brothers disappeared that night, no doubt by Dante and Maximo’s hands, not that he’s ever told me and I would never ask. Then Lorenzo and Anya drove us to this house and we’ve been safe here ever since.”
“Lorenzo and Anya?” I ask.
“Yeah. He’s a good guy too. Don’t let that gruff exterior fool you.” She laughs. “Even Maximo.”
“Maximo the psycho is a good guy?” I shake my head, laughing as I feign my disbelief.
“Yeah.”
“Is this the first time you’ve seen Dante since then?”
“No. He calls in from time to time. He sends the kids presents for their birthday.”
“No way!” I cannot believe he sends anyone birthday presents.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for sharing your story with me, Nicci. I know it’s not easy to talk about pain,” I say softly.
She narrows her eyes as she stares back at me. “Yeah, you do know.”
She squeezes my hand and we sit back against the swing and watch the sunset. “He said he wasn’t my white knight,” Nicci adds. “But he so was.”
“No way. He said that to me too.” I roll my eyes, and we both laugh.
“And?”
And what? Is Dante Moretti my white knight? Not even close. “He’s not my white knight. Pretty sure he’s my soulmate though.”
“Even better,” Nicci says, clinking her glass against mine.
“Yeah, way better.”
