Amazing.
She was beyond lucky to say he was also hers. After today ... he would be hers forever. She couldn’t wait.
For most of the morning, Tiffany stayed and readied with Cella until one of the girl’s aunts came with cousins in tow to keep the girl entertained. Hopefully, they would keep her busy and clean until she had to do her walk down the aisle with her flower basket in hand.
Once Cella arrived at the church, it was her mother who helped her into the wedding gown that she had picked last minute because her bump kept growing so fast that it would have been pointless to buy a dress more than a couple of weeks out from the wedding date.
Her dress was perfect, though.
The color of pink cream over top layers of white tulle and silk, the empire-waist sat just high enough to show off her growing midsection while also being classy and appropriate for the day. The capped sleeves and the scalloped neckline that dipped low on her chest fed her desire for details without being overwhelming. Buttons made of pearls started from halfway down the skirt and closed the dress all the way up her back.
She loved it.
Truly.
“Cella?”
The call of her name drew Cella from her thoughts. Across the room, her mother watched her with a soft smile while the hairstylist began to pack up her things. She would need to move into the next room where another three stylists and estheticians were working on Cella’s bridesmaids—her sisters.
“Yeah, Ma?”
“There she is,” her father murmured.
What had Cella missed?
Her unspoken question must have shown on her face. Jordyn passed Lucian a wink and smile before saying to her daughter, “You were just ... very quiet over there for a second. We got worried.”
Oh.
Yeah.
“Don’t be,” Cella told her mother. “Today is the best day. I’m so happy.”
“Are you?” her father asked. “You’re not sad at all? Not about William, or even—”
“I went to visit him yesterday with Marcus after the rehearsal dinner. We took roses and stayed a while.”
She had a sad moment, then. Safe with Marcus. Today was not about that. She would miss her first husband for the rest of her life, and she would never stop grieving the life they could have had together and how his loss affected everything. But at the same time, she had found a new love and happiness with Marcus, and she was unwilling to let her sadness undermine the joy in her life.
They could both exist. She was the only person who decided which one could be present at any given time.
“Are you ready?” Lucian asked, smiling.
He didn’t ask because it was time for them to go downstairs, she knew. It was rhetorical. The same question her father had been asking for years every time Cella came to another pivotal life moment where she had to step up and make big choices. The kinds of choices that would change everything.
“Yeah, Daddy,” she replied, honest and open-hearted, “I am so ready.”
• • •
They had chosen a pastel pink and white as their colors. The church had been bathed in the hues with silk runners, bright bushels of flowers, and tulle strung between every pew.
Her father walked her halfway down the aisle, and Cella walked the rest on her own. Lucian hadn’t been offended when she asked if he would mind allowing her to walk herself the rest of the way.
After all, choosing a second marriage really had been a decision that was all her own. She wanted to walk to the man waiting at the end with the same purpose and assurance that she was doing it because she absolutely, entirely wanted to. Not just for herself but for him, too.
Marcus met her at the end with a hand extended, waiting for her to join him. The second she did, the church disappeared, and it was just them at the end of the altar with the priest in front of them.
All the people?
Faces she knew.
Those she didn’t ...
They all faded.
“I love you,” Marcus told her as he cupped her cheek in his warm palm; their gazes locked as the priest began the ceremony. “Ti amo, sempre, mia bella. Always, Cella.”
He didn’t need to tell her. Not when he had already shown her time and time again.
But still ...
“Forever, Marcus,” she promised back.
44.
Marcus
Three months later ...
BETWEEN all his brothers, his father, and the other men in Marcus’s life who had wives that experienced pregnancy ... he had been warned there might come a time when his wife’s interest in him, and sex, could wane. Because that was to be expected. Growing life was an exhausting business. It took a lot from a woman’s body.
He understood that.
Yet, Marcus found that wasn’t the case at all with Cella. Or maybe it was just ... him. Because the bigger his wife became, growing their children inside of her, the more difficult he found it was to keep his hands off her.
She was beautiful.
Glowing.
The very definition of life.
If that wasn’t enough to have him constantly hard and panting after his wife then nothing would. Although, Cella didn’t seem to mind. Being pregnant with twins hadn’t stopped his wife from enjoying sex in the least. If anything, it allowed him to become a little more creative at times to make things work.
Cella’s favorite was still being fucked while on her side, with Marcus tucked in tight at her back. That way, he could still get his hands between her thighs—or wherever—while he loved her. She could hear every one of his whispers and praises. He could still steal her kisses and swallow her sounds.
He made sure she was loved and adored every single morning. At night, too, if she wanted. His wife wanted for nothing—not when he could read her desires before she even had to open her mouth.
Marcus liked to think it was because, for his whole life, he wanted that. Love. He wanted to find a woman that he would cherish in the same way his father did for his mother. He spent all those years learning how to treat the most important woman in his life. So, when he finally had his wife at his side and in his bed every single morning, he made sure she never left it without a smile on her face.
And happiness in her heart.
It helped, too, that the doctors encouraged sex. Good for pregnancy, the doctors told them. Add that on top of the fact he just wanted to have his hands on his wife as much as possible, and frankly, they probably wouldn’t have left their bedroom at all.
But life called.
Reality waited every day.
They had a family to take care of, business to handle ... babies to bring into the world.
Marcus wasn’t surprised that his children—his twin boys—decided to let their parents know they would make their appearance soon while he was in bed with his wife.
At least, the contractions held off until Cella was sweaty and naked and loved. He had to admit, his wife was amazing. For all of it. From the start to the very end. She wasn’t scared of the pain. Nothing was too much for her. He had never been more in awe of someone than he was of Cella as she gave him their children.
Leonardo and Lorenzo Guzzi came into the world on a late February afternoon. With twin births, there was always a worry that they would have to default to surgery if something wasn’t right ...
They were lucky, though.
Everything went exactly right.