“Isn’t it a little soon to have her moved in with me?” I shot back, and he grinned at me as he shook his head. “I told you, I’m a man who sees something good and doesn’t waste time. Calla’s mine, and she’s always going to be.”
“You love her?” August asked.
“I would say more than you could ever understand, but I suspect that wouldn’t be true.” I glanced down at the wedding band he still wore even decades after Calla’s mother’s death.
He handed me back the ring box, running his hand over his face. “She’ll kill me for it, I suspect, but if you love her like that, then you’ve got my blessing to marry my Calla Lil
y.” He sat in the driver’s seat, looking up at me in warning. “Just don’t make me regret it.”
I was smiling when he pulled the door closed and the sound of the Cobra engine engaging echoed through the space in front of the warehouse. When he drove down the driveway, the guard on duty opened it immediately.
When I finally turned back to the house, I did it feeling good about my place in Calla’s life. I’d sufficiently won over nearly everyone, but her until only her aunt remained for me to contend with.
Aside from my Sunshine, I knew she’d be the hardest for me to crack.
Still, I went inside with a smile on my face, only to be hit with a fierce glare from Calla while she finished drying the pots. “What is it, Tesoro?” I asked her, stepping up to hug her. She jerked back from my touch like I’d scalded her.
“It isn’t bad enough that you’ve taken my children from me? That you’ve made them love you because they know you can give them a life I have no chance of providing?”
“What are you talking about, Sunshine?” I murmured, risking it to reach out for her again. She smacked my hand away so hard that the sound echoed through the kitchen.
“You had to take my father too? Will you leave me with anything of my own when you’re done with me?”
“Calla,” I whispered, and I knew my voice went hoarse with the emotion that clogged my throat. She had no clue, couldn’t see that I wasn’t trying to take from her.
All I wanted was to give her the life I knew she dreamed of having. A husband and father to her kids who got along with her family and cared enough to facilitate that relationship. I wanted to give her everything, but as she stormed into the living room and picked Ines up off the couch to bring the kids to bed, I knew I’d pushed too hard, too fast.
Her walls were firmly in place and fighting her on it would go nowhere fast. Calla needed time to process things. Her father’s heartfelt confession as he left would hit Calla right where it hurt. If there was one thing about my Sunshine I knew without a doubt, it was that her claws came out when she felt cornered.
Her walls went up because she could feel any hint of her chance at freedom disappearing with every day that passed.
I’d give her the night to lick her wounds.
After that she and I would need to have a very serious conversation about the state of our life together.
Twenty-Six
Calla
I tried not to feel Ryker’s eyes on me as I went through my yoga. If I could have done it anywhere besides the backyard, I would have. But as it stood, Axel was determined to have Ryker teach him how to throw a football properly to get that unattainable spin.
I’d tried, lord knows I’d tried over the last year. But I didn’t know the first thing about football, couldn’t tell you a single thing about it aside from the fact that football players wore tight pants and there was a quarterback.
Ryker knew how to throw it perfectly, just another check in the hero worship my son had going on. Even Ines enjoyed running after the ball when Ryker threw it as far as he could. The space behind the house was massive, with an enormous field cleared out where the sun shone down on it in the late afternoon.
I loved watching my baby girl giggle when Ryker picked her up and hefted her over his head like he might throw her to Axel, and I loved the broad smile that crossed my son’s face every time Ryker turned his attention to him.
He needed a father.
And no matter what I might think about Ryker for me personally, I couldn’t deny how incredible he was for the kids and with the kids. I’d always known being a mother meant making sacrifices, but could I sacrifice my life and my morals for them to have this with him?
For all the good he offered my children, could I condemn myself to a life of uncertainty with a man I knew was a killer in the trusted inner circle of Matteo Bellandi?
All I’d wanted for as long as I could remember was a family. A happy, whole family where the ghosts of our past didn’t haunt us. As much as Dad did his best and adored me, he still mourned my mother. I’d felt that loss through my life, the lack of a mother.
I didn’t want to do that to the kids, but I also wanted to have the white picket fence and an uncomplicated life. I had the distinct feeling any life I had with Ryker would never be easy.
I’d spend every day wondering if it would be the day he never came home.