Protected By the Monster

We had a beautiful condo a block away from the shop with two spare rooms and two full bathrooms. There was plenty of space for a baby and a freaking nanny if we wanted to hire one. It wasn’t like money was a problem. The pizza shop broke even, made a little profit, and anyway, we could life off the money Fazio left me for the rest of our lives.

But it scared me. Having a baby terrified me. I didn’t want to bring a baby into this world and have it lose its parents like I lost my father.

“I want to ask you something first,” I said, squeezing his hand.

“Anything,” he said.

“You’re not going anywhere, right?”

He looked surprised and held my hand tighter. “Where’s that coming from?”

“My father, he died when I was young,” I said. “You know that, but I mean, it ruined my mom, ruined me in a lot of ways, and I just—”

“Clair,” he said, his voice gentle. “I left the family. That life’s behind me.”

“But they’re in the city now. You could still have enemies.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I’m here for the long run. You know that.”

“I know, it’s just—”

He pulled his hands away. For a second, I thought he was angry.

But instead, he reached into his pocket, and took something out. He held it in both hands, hiding it from view.

“I was going to save this for the right time,” he said. “You know, the perfect moment. But there’s no perfect moment in life, there’s no perfect anything. The only perfect moments are the ones we make for ourselves.”

“What are you doing?” I asked as he dropped to one knee.

“I love you,” he said, and opened his hands.

A diamond ring sat in his palm, glittering and huge. One fat diamond on white gold, surrounded by a constellation of smaller diamonds, each of them multifaceted, catching the light, magnifying it into shining shards.

“Where the hell did you get that?” I asked, my voice jumping two octaves.

He grinned at me. “I’ve got my own money still,” he said. “I didn’t spend it all when I was in the family, you know.”

“Luca,” I said.

“Marry me, Clair. Marry me, then let’s have a fucking baby.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, holy shit, yes.”

He took my hand, slipped the ring on my finger, and he was right, he was so right, it was a perfect moment.

We kissed, I don’t know how long. It didn’t matter. We kissed in the back room of our pizza place, of the business we built together, and we were going to build a life, build a family, build a world.

That was him, my man, my future.