Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Well, we don’t go to bed. We get in bed.”
She smirked.
“I am anxious to get married, but I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now.”
“I actually think I found a dress I like. It’s in Palermo. I need to head over and get fitted, so I have been working on it.”
Ooh, I loved picturing her in a white dress. “I can’t wait to see it. I can drive you.”
“I’ll see if I can get away early today and get there before they close.”
“Sounds like a plan, baby.”
I helped the guys load the crates of wine into the back of the truck. Moving heavy shit was below my pay grade, but I’d always been a team player, so I sucked it up and did it. We moved the last pallet on the forklift before Andre drove it back into the warehouse to get another pallet stack.
Leo stood ten feet from me, sweat visible on his neck and forehead.
Whatever Francesca felt for him, I mirrored it out of loyalty, so I pretty much ignored him.
It was just the two of us standing in the summer sun while the others went to retrieve more pallets.
“Can we talk?”
I leaned against the back of the truck with my arms crossed, and I shifted my eyes to look at him. “About?”
He walked over, his boots grinding against a couple little rocks in the sand until he was in front of me. “I know this is a lot to ask, and it’s too soon for me to ask for anything from either of you, but it would mean the world to me if I could attend your wedding.”
Not the request I expected to hear.
“Why?”
His eyebrows furrowed at the question. “Because she’s my sister. I’m the only family she has left.”
“I’ve never understood that sentiment,” I said. “Marriage is about two people wanting to spend their lives together, but it’s somehow been turned into a unification of families, when it’s not. It’s the formation of a new family. It has nothing to do with anyone except us.”
“Well, she means a lot to me, and I would love to be there.”
“She doesn’t want you there, Leo.”
“But you haven’t asked her.”
“I already know the answer.”
His eyes flicked away, like the answer really wounded him. “I didn’t expect you two to wed so quickly.”
“Then you don’t know us very well,” I said. “I wanted to marry her long before your dad fired me.”
“When we all went to Taormina…were you guys together then?”
“Yeah.”
“But you were with that prostitute.”
“We played cards,” I said. “I already showed Francesca proof.”
He didn’t challenge me, like he believed me.
I grinned. “When you dropped that information on her, she lost her shit. Went totally ballistic. Slapped the shit out of me I don’t know how many times. It was the moment I knew she loved me.” I’d known I had her right in my palm, and it was only a matter of time before she became my wife and we lived happily ever after, pushing arms and bashing skulls and making a killing.
He looked out over the vista for a while, staring into the hills in the direction of her villa. “Did you ever finish her house?”
“Yeah, I’m almost done.”
“She doesn’t know?”
I shook my head.
“When are you going to tell her?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Whenever he spoke, his eyes were full of so much despair. It seemed like he completely lacked the will to live. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“I really don’t think you can, Leo,” I said. “You can always make a new start somewhere else, maybe on the mainland. Get away from your reputation here and build a new one. Find a nice girl.”
“I don’t want to start over somewhere new. I want to fix what I broke.”
“You can fix a broken building or a jammed gun, but you can’t bring someone back from the dead.”
His eyes flicked away at the mention of his father. “I would rather spend decades trying to earn my sister’s trust back than to never see her again. I hate that it ended up this way, but it’s really taught me how much family means to me. It’s made me understand how lucky I am to have a sister at all.”
He shouldn’t have had to lose his father to realize that.
“She’s great at this job, just like Dad knew she would be.”
“Yeah, she is.”
His eyes dropped. “I’m not sure why I thought I would be better.”
“Makes two of us.”
He didn’t flinch at the insult. “He’d be really proud of her.”
“Fuck yeah, he would be.” I was proud of her every fucking day. Proud of the way she handled herself. Proud of the way she conducted business with an iron fist. Proud of the way she maintained the upper hand even when the assholes tried to take it from her. And she did it all while being the finest piece of ass I’d ever seen.