“I don’t know that I have the self-discipline needed to keep my personal feelings out of the work,” she admitted with marked reluctance. “How do you do that?”
“Practice. Work. Everyone has good traits and character flaws, Nicoletta. Some of the flaws can be both good and bad. The problem is, people don’t want to acknowledge they have them, or they simply use them as an excuse. They’ll say they’re stubborn, as if that excuses their behavior. It doesn’t. If they know they’re stubborn, they have to work doubly hard not to be. I have a terrible temper, as you well know. I work on it all the time. Sometimes I’m successful, other times I’m not. I’m not proud of it. I despise the fact that I’m not disciplined enough to overcome letting that damn thing rule me. I don’t like hurting people I care about. I know I’ve hurt you with things I’ve said in anger. We just keep at it.”
She nodded. “You think I can get to a place where I won’t throw up when I’m with you in the shadows?”
“You didn’t on the ride back to the plane.”
She gave him a faint smile. “I’m pretty certain there was nothing left to come up.”
He held out his hand to her. “You’re going to do fine, although I’m going to warn you, even after we’re married, Stefano may be so pissed at me that he’ll strip me of my right to be a rider anyway. This might not fix everything.”
“Why Stefano?” She took his hand. It was slow, but she did it.
“He’s the head of the Chicago family. His word is law. Eloisa used to have a say, but not anymore. I’ll abide by whatever Stefano says. He’ll be fair. Angry with me, but fair. I put you at risk. Just so you know, the family didn’t take any money from the social worker, Nicoletta.”
“Someday I’d like to go back and thank her in person. Maybe it would be nice for her to know that she made a difference in someone’s life. Lucia and Amo have been wonderful to me. I couldn’t ask for better foster parents. I wish they could be in Vegas with us. They aren’t going to be happy, even though I can explain that it’s really kind of a bogus wedding.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Bogus wedding? What the hell is a bogus wedding?”
“Not real. You know, like one of those Elvis wedding things. Isn’t that what we’re doing? Sort of doing this fast and fake so Stefano will be happy, and then doing it again when Lucia and Amo and the others are around?”
He wanted to say yes. He wanted to give her that big church wedding—and he would. But there wasn’t going to be anything bogus about this wedding. “This wedding won’t be fake, piccola. We’re getting legally married. We’ll file the papers, and then go home and let Francesca and Grace plan our big event. Grace is all into that. You can give all the input you want. You tell them what you want, and it’s yours. Go all fairy tale if you want. Hell, I’ll dress up as Prince Charming in those silly striped white tights for you, but this isn’t going to be an Elvis-slash-bogus wedding.”
“You’re so lying right now. You would never in a million years dress up as Prince Charming in white or striped tights.”
“Okay, I am lying about that,” he conceded. “It’s not good when my fiancée can hear lies.” He pushed out of the chair and went to the bedside stand to open the drawer where he’d placed the small jewelry box. All along he’d thought to ask her to marry him. Of course, he’d been planning to ask her officially. He’d all but told her that this was the end of her freedom, so she needed to enjoy it while she could.
His cousin Damian Ferraro, from New York, was a very talented jeweler who made very special jewelry designed to be able to go into the shadows. He was famous for designing the perfect ring for an unseen, unknown lady. Taviano hoped he had created magic for Nicoletta. Like his brothers, he hadn’t looked to see what Damian had made for his woman. He’d been a little afraid to see.
He brought the small jeweler’s box out just to make it official. Because Nicoletta didn’t have many things good in her life, he went down in front of her on one knee and opened the box with his thumb, shifting it so she could see inside.
“I’m asking you officially to be my wife, Nicoletta. I want you to marry me and spend your life with me. I promise I’ll spend the rest of my life doing my best to make you happy.” It was a lame proposal because looking at her robbed him of speech, which didn’t seem possible.