The Kiss Thief
My father had lost, and the game was over.
Once we got to the house, Ms. Sterling (I insisted on calling her Patricia now that I knew she was my mother-in-law), led my mother and Clara to the east wing to get settled. Wolfe and I climbed up the stairs behind them. When we made it to the second floor, I turned toward my room.
“Is this real?” I asked him.
“It is real.”
For the first time, it felt that way, too.
We walked hand in hand to the west wing. We passed by his bedroom, entering the guestroom next to it, where I’d slept the night we entertained the Hatch’s. My breath fluttered behind my ribcage when I realized what I was looking at when he opened the door.
A nursery. All white and crème and soft yellows. Bright and big and fully furnished. I cupped my mouth to stop myself from bawling. His acceptance of this baby somehow tore me apart. It was much more than his acceptance of his child. It was his acceptance of me.
“Everything is changeable,” he said. “Well, other than the fact that we’re having a baby.”
“It’s perfect,” I breathed. “Thank you.”
“You were right. You’re my wife. We’ll sleep together. We’ll live together.” There was a dramatic pause. “We’ll even share a walk-in closet. I used some of the free space you so charitably made for me to accommodate your garments.”
I laughed through my tears. This. Right here. This was everything. Beyond my wildest dreams. A man who loved me without asking for anything back. A man who suffered quietly as I was in love with another man and creeped on me, feeling by feeling, second by second, day by day. He was patient and determined. Callous and overbearing. He watched me kiss and grind Angelo all with his ring on my finger. He went down on his knees to beg the man who’d killed his family to bring me back to him. He did not think he could be a good father, but I knew—I wholeheartedly knew—that he would be the greatest dad in the entire world.
I rose on my toes, pressing a kiss to my husband’s delicious mouth.
He tugged at my long hair.
“Only you,” he said.
“Only you,” I replied.
Senator Wolfe Keaton bent down on one knee and produced the engagement ring I’d left on my pillow weeks ago.
“Be my wife, Nemesis. But know one thing—if you ever wish to leave, I will not clip your wings.”
It was the easiest answer to the toughest question I’d ever been asked. I jerked my husband up by the collar, knowing damn well how much he hated the position in which he was lowered on the ground.
“My wings are not meant to fly,” I whispered. “They’re meant to shield our family.”
Four Years After.
“I NOW BAPTIZE YOU IN the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of your sins and the gifts of the Holy Spirits.”
Our second child, Joshua Romeo Keaton, was baptized in St. Raphael’s church in Little Italy in front of our friends and family just days after I received my undergraduate degree in law. I held Josh when the priest trickled holy water on his forehead, looking to my left at my husband, who cradled our very sleepy three-year-old daughter, Emmaline.
As I scanned the long wooden pews to look for the people who made my heart sing, I realized how incredibly blessed I was. I found my mother and her new beau, Charles ‘Charlie’ Stephens, whom she’d been dating for the past six months. He held her hand in his and whispered softly in her ear. She pointed at sleepy Joshua in my arms, and they shared a chuckle. Next to them, Clara and Patricia (or Sterling, as my husband still insisted on calling her) were shedding happy tears, dabbing their faces with tissue. Andrea sat there with her new boyfriend—a Made Man named Mateo and I knew, by the way they held hands, that this was the one guy she would let kiss her—next to some of my school friends and the new governor, Austin Berger. Missing in action, and not by accident, were the people who had loaded obstacles on Wolfe’s and my happily ever after. The people who pushed us together yet tore us apart each in their own way.
My father was in prison, serving a twenty-five-year sentence for attempted murder. Shortly after Mama came to live with us, he tried to take her life. He went mad after he realized her filing for divorce wasn’t just a phase. Naturally, he blamed me and Wolfe for her decision to better her life and leave her abusive husband, who’d left countless purple welts all over her body through their past few years together before I came back from Switzerland. Since Papa had paid some serious money to White under the table, and the latter had tried dragging his feet with collecting evidence against him when my mother’s car blew up to the sky in front of Wolfe’s and my house, an internal, quiet investigation against White and Bishop took place, and the police chief and former governor were now on trial for receiving bribery and illegal campaign contributions from the infamous Arthur Rossi.