My door creaks open unexpectedly, and a few seconds later Mateo walks in. My heart speeds up, still, after four years, at him showing up unannounced. Is he staying with me tonight? It would be unprecedented after a vacation—he always spends the first night back with whichever one of us he wasn’t with, to be fair.
“Daddy,” Isabella says brightly.
“There you are,” he says. I feel a little disappointed that he was looking for her instead of coming for me, but I squash it and flash him a grin. Bonus Mateo time will never be complained about in this bedroom, whatever the reason.
“Mia’s showing me pictures of your trip,” she tells him.
“Oh, is she?” he walks around to his side of the bed, on the other side of Isabella, and climbs up beside her. She scoots closer to me to make more room, but he leans in to give me a kiss anyway. Isabella rolls her eyes like she doesn’t like it, but she’s smiling; she totally does.
“Yep,” she says, scrolling back to the last picture we were looking at. It’s a picture of us on the beach—not a selfie, but a full length picture. I asked a staff member to take one. “This one’s my favorite,” she tells him. “It looks like you’re getting married.”
I’m a little startled by that observation. I look at it again, noting the longer white dress I wore. He’s wearing shorts though—there’s no way in hell Mateo would ever get married in shorts, not even at a beach wedding. Hell, there’s no way he’d let me get married in a simple dress like that. He enjoys his shows too much to ever have a tiny wedding.
My pleasure droops a little, remembering I’m never going to be the one who gets the wedding. I’m his favorite, but he promised that to Meg before he knew he’d want to keep me. Before he knew I’d be his favorite. To take it back now would be over the line. It would be a demotion for Meg, and there’s no other way to spin that. Even he can’t spin that—not with her. He probably could with me, but not her.
“Eh, marriage is just paperwork,” Mateo says dismissively.
“That’s not true,” Isabella objects, a little romantic. “Weddings are beautiful. They tell the world you love each other.”
“I think the world already knows we love each other,” he tells her.
“But if you got married, I could be in the wedding like I was in Aunt Francesca’s.”
Mateo quirks an eyebrow at me. “Did you put her up to this?”
I chuckle, scrolling through some pictures of dolphins. “I did not. I know my place,” I tease.
Isabella raises her dark little eyebrows at him. “It’s my idea, not hers. You love each other, so you should get married.”
“It’s not that simple,” he tells her, tweaking her braid. “Why don’t you worry about little girl things and let me worry about my marital status?”
“I’m not little,” she says, pulling her braid away from him and draping it across her chest. “I’m getting older.”
“We’re already a family, Bella,” I tell her, wanting to save him from the conversation.
“He never married my mom,” she states. My eyes widen, because he’s right here, what the fuck, kid? Then she goes on, fearless in the way only Mateo’s daughter possibly could be. “Maybe if he would’ve, she wouldn’t have left.”
Oh, shit.
I’m too afraid to look at him. Mateo isn’t fond of being reprimanded, probably especially by a nine-year-old, and he definitely isn’t fond of talking about Beth. I don’t know why that little brat at her school had to go and kick all this Beth stuff up. There’s a chorus of “oh fuck” running through my mind on a loop, and it feels like I’m paused, the moment is paused, and I’m just waiting for it all to go to hell. Isabella is shielded from Mateo’s less fatherly side, so she doesn’t know we’re not supposed to say shit like that, I guess. She doesn’t know we don’t want to wake the monster that is the Morelli rage gene.
She also doesn’t know Beth engages that side of him more often than not. I could write a book on all the things Isabella doesn’t know.
I wish she would’ve just forgotten about Beth. I know that’s harsh and unkind, but it would’ve made life a lot easier for all of us.
“Huh,” Mateo murmurs, more calmly than I expect.
I dare a look up at him, but I can see all his humor has drained. He is no longer enjoying this little family moment, so it’s over.
“It’s time to go to bed,” he says, simply, pushing himself over toward the edge of the bed.
Isabella does not let it go. “I don’t want Mia to leave, too.”
“Honey, I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her, giving her another little hug. “I don’t need a wedding to stick around. I love your daddy, I love you—I’m in it for the long haul. Just try to get rid of me, I dare you.”