“Is that everything?” I call to Cara, as she leans in the doorway to my old apartment building to catch her breath. She flashes me a thumbs-up, and I grin. Looks like we’re finally on our way…
It’s hard to believe that the day has finally come—the day when I leave this city behind and move to Harrotsville for good.
In the months since the proposal, things have been a whirlwind. Luca finished up his last few weeks at the hospital, spinning them some story about being called to another ward to work across the country. Once he was done, he headed back to Harrotsville to get everything ready for us—I have no idea what it’s going to look like, our new home there, but I get the feeling he will have pulled out all the stops.
“Jeez, I don’t think I could manage another box!” Cara exclaims, as she makes her way over to the car where Polly and I are waiting. She holds her hands up in mock shock, covering her eyes.
“Though at least I know where I’m bringing everything, given your ring could steer ships at sea away from the rocks,” she teases, as she grabs my hand and pulls it toward her. “I can’t believe you’re engaged!”
“Why, you never thought I would find a man willing to spend his life with me?” I fire back playfully.
She laughs. “No, it’s not that,” she admits. “I just didn’t expect him to be some mafia heir who whisks you away to another city to start a new life!”
Her face drops slightly as she comes out with that last part. I feel a pang of guilt, knowing that I’m leaving her behind, but it’s not like I’m going to renege on my choice. I pull her into a quick hug, rubbing my hand along her back to soothe her.
“Hey, we’re still going to see plenty of each other, alright?” I promise her softly. “I know it’s hard to wrap your head around, but we will. Luca has already got an apartment set up for you there, so you’ll have somewhere to stay whenever you want to visit…”
“Whenever I can get time away from work,” she sighs heavily. “I’m going to have to pitch a story to my editor about something that’s going on down there, and then maybe he’ll give me the time off work…”
“I’ll see if I can stir up some drama,” I suggest lightly. “Give you something to come up there and cover, right?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m entirely sold on that when I know what drama looks like for this world,” she replies, raising her eyebrows at me pointedly. “I’d rather you stay safe.”
“I will,” I reply, but I can tell from the look on her face that she’s not entirely convinced.
“You’re not nervous about meeting his father?” she asks me, lowering her voice and leaning forward slightly. “I mean, I know I would be…”
“He told me that his dad is committed to the family,” I reply. “I’m not exactly looking forward to it, but I have to trust that he’s telling the truth. And besides, I helped them bring down the man who’s been causing them all this trouble for years—that has to count for something, doesn’t it?”
“I hope so,” she agrees, giving my hand a squeeze. “Now, come on, we need to get on the road if we’re going to make it to Harrotsville by the end of the day…”
“You sure you want to make the trip with me?” I ask. “It’s a long journey…”
“Yeah, and I’m going to make the most of the time I have left with my best friend while I still can,” she shoots back, grinning. “You think you’re going to get rid of me that easily?”
“One of these days, maybe,” I counter, and she giggles as she pulls open the car door and slips inside. She reaches back to give Polly’s hand a squeeze—she’s strapped down into a car seat so firmly it looks as though she’s been lightly mummified, but I’m not going to risk anything happening to her on this trip up.
Luca sent me this car for the journey, after he offered to come down and make it himself—but I insisted that I do it on my own terms. I’ve relied on myself for a long time, and I’m not going to let that change, no matter what else might have shifted in my life.
I roll down the window as we hit the highway, and let the wind rush in over my face—it’s a beautiful, bright day in the midst of summer, and it feels as though the whole world is as carefree and happy as I feel right now. Polly dozes off pretty quickly in the back, leaving Cara and me with some time to talk.
“And what are you going to do now you’re not going to be part-time nannying for Polly?” I wonder aloud. “Guess you’re going to have a lot more free time on your hands…”
“Guess I am,” she agrees, as she swims her hand through the wind out of the open window. “I suppose I’m going to focus on my career. Get some big story on the go, something that will make it so the editors have to sit up and take notice of me.”
She flashes me a grin. “Hell, maybe I’ll make you the subject of it,” she adds. “That’s one hell of a love story you’ve got there.”
“I don’t know about that,” I reply. “I don’t think most love stories that people want to read start with a hookup at some sleazy public event.”
“Hey, you never know,” she protests. “Could be the next big thing. You could start a trend of getting with mafia guys.”
“You thinking of trying to score one for yourself?” I fire back, glancing over at her, and she laughs again.
“Oh, trust me, you can keep them all to yourself.” She pulls a face. “I don’t want to get in the middle of anything like that. Too much drama. I like to keep that in my stories, not in my personal life.”
“I don’t know, there’s something to said for it,” I muse aloud. “Having some big, brave man come swooping in to save you…”
“Yeah, I’ve never been the type,” she replies, nudging me playfully. “You really think a guy would put up with me for long enough to rescue me from something like that?”
“Ask me again at the end of this road trip…”
The conversation flows easily between us as we drive to Harrotsville, and I can’t help but feel a little twinge of sadness knowing that I won’t be able to just call her up and invite her over like I used to when we were living in the same city. In the last year, more has changed than I can wrap my head around, most of it for the better—but the thought of being so far from my best friend, the woman who has functionally made up my family over the last couple of years, is a lot for me.
“It’s going to be strange,” I admit to her, after we pull over to grab some iced coffees before we hit the road again. “Being part of a family again.”
She frowns, a dark shadow flitting over her face—she knows about what happened to my parents, of course, but she does her best to dodge that conversation wherever she can. It’s not as though I go out of my way to talk about my family, the weight of all I’ve lost hanging too heavy over my head for anything like that.
“What do you think your parents would make of all this?” she asks softly, and I snort with laughter.
“I think they would decide I’ve gone crazy when I told them everything that happened,” I admit. “I mean, if I even told them about it at all. My mom would do everything she could to try to hate on Luca, but when she actually met him, she wouldn’t be able to keep that up for long. And my dad…well, all he would care about was making sure that Polly and I are okay, and just as soon as he’s certain we are, he would come to terms with it.”
I press my lips together as I lean against the car, the straw of my iced coffee hovering a few inches from my lips.
“I wish they had been here to meet her,” I murmur, as I look back toward Polly. “When she came into the world, I thought it was just going to be her and me…”
“Hey, and me,” Cara cuts in. I nod my head, conceding the point.
“Of course, and you,” I reply with a grin. “But I thought when it came to family, she wouldn’t have anything in the way of real blood relatives. And now, she’s going to be surrounded by them. Me, Luca, his brother, his father…”
“And she’s going to grow up to be a perfect little mafia princess,” she teases. “She’s going to be so spoiled, I just know it.”
“Hey, no way, I’m not going to let them spoil her,” I protest. “She’s going to be down-to-earth. Well, as much as she can be, with Luca as a father.”
“He’s good with her, isn’t he?” she asks, frowning slightly. She still hasn’t had a chance to meet Luca in person properly yet, and I guess it’s natural that she has her doubts, given everything I’ve been through.
I nod. “He’s amazing with her,” I reply. “He adores her. I don’t think he would have been able to cope if I decided to stay in Pensacola, he would have missed her too much.”
“No wonder he put the ring on your finger…couldn’t stand to be away from you.”
I glance down at the band on the ring finger of my left hand. Luca told me that if I wanted something different, I was more than welcome to change it, and he wouldn’t have taken any offense to it, but there’s no way I’m going to replace it with something else. No, this is the ring he has gifted to me, the ring that he chose to mark this transition into the rest of our lives together, and it’s perfect the way it is. Plus, anything bigger, and I’m pretty sure I would have a hard time lifting my hand to so much as hold a pen.
“And what a ring,” she adds when she catches me looking down at it with a grin on my face. “He really didn’t want another man so much as looking in your direction, huh?”
“Oh, you know me anyway,” I reply, sipping down the last of my iced coffee and tossing the container into the trash. “Never had much time for guys. Always had bigger things to think about. Speaking of, how about the rest of this journey, huh…?”
We hit the road once more, and turn up the music once Polly is awake. Cara reaches back to her to squeeze her hand as she sings along tunelessly, and Polly seems to be utterly delighted by the whole thing, cackling like she can hardly contain herself.
By the time we finally reach the city, I’m exhausted, but too excited at the thought of laying eyes on my new apartment to let it get to me. I spring out of the car, biting my lip once we pull up on our new street—and to my surprise, a doorman steps out from behind a large wrought-iron gate to greet me.
“Ms. Kincaid?”
I nod, raising my eyebrows and casting Cara a surprised look—I know Luca said he had gotten us somewhere good, but I had no clue it would be quite this over-the-top.
“Come with me,” he tells me. “Mr. Mariana is waiting inside for you…”
I scoop Polly out of the car and follow him toward the house, Cara in hot pursuit—I can already tell she has a million smart comments about the kind of luxury I’m living in right now, but I will deal with those when I have to. For the time being, all I care about is laying eyes on my new home, once and for all. Mercifully, I don’t have to wait long.
Just inside the gates, a huge house stands towering against the Harrotsville skyline—it looks more like some Italian villa than a home that belongs here, in the suburban sprawl of the city, but I’m already in love with it. Tall white stone walls reach up toward the blue sky above, and blue and green tiles circle each doorway and window. It looks like it could have been plucked straight from some vacation brochure I might flick through at the dentist’s office, without an ounce of belief that I might ever actually live in something like this myself.
“Holy shit!” Cara exclaims, and the sound of her voice breaks my reverie.
I turn to her, an incredulous laugh escaping my lips. “I know, right?” I murmur as I head toward the door. “This is…”
“Everything you wanted it to be, I hope,” a voice cuts in—a voice that sends a shiver rushing down my spine at once. My face lights up in a smile, and Polly holds out her little arms in Luca’s direction as he emerges to the front door.
“It’s so good to see you,” I murmur, and I dive toward him for an embrace before I can so much as think twice. Polly gets a little squished between us, but she doesn’t seem to mind too much, as happy as I am to be in his company once more.
“I missed you two so much,” he remarks, as he drops a kiss on my cheek, and then does the same to Polly.
“Hey, I want the tour before you two start getting all lovey-dovey,” Cara calls to us, and Luca and I break away from each other, grinning. We have plenty of time to pick up on all of that in the near future. Right now, I want to explore this beautiful new home of ours—and figure out just what kind of luxuries he’s managed to sneak into this place.
I hang back as Cara heads in before me, tilting my gaze up to meet Luca’s for a moment—to bathe in how good it feels to be back in his presence, after all this time. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but every moment apart from him feels like it drags on for a lifetime, and I can’t pretend that seeing him again isn’t everything I hoped it would be.
“You don’t want to check out the house?” he remarks softly.
“Of course I do,” I reply, grinning up at him. “I just need to kiss you again before we go inside…”
As though this is what he’s been waiting for since the moment I stepped out of the car, he kisses me once more—a longer kiss than the one he gave me as greeting, a kiss that leaves me a little breathless when I pull back. I glance down at Polly, who’s watching the two of us with interest, until he takes her into his arms.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmurs to her, carrying her into the house. “Let’s show you your new home, huh…?”
And as I follow him in, I can’t help but feel a flutter of excitement at finally being here. My new home—the place that’s going to serve as Polly’s childhood base, my family home, everything that I make it into. The place where I become the woman I know I was meant to be—not just a mother, not just a lover, but a person who makes a real difference in the world.
And it begins right here, right now. With the man I love at my side.
And his giant engagement ring on my finger.
