“Yeah, he has.” She stood up once he had a pair of insulated winter boots on and grinned widely. “Ready?”
“Yes, my little bunny.” He laughed as she literally began to bounce in place. “Stop or you’ll hurt yourself.”
“My incision has healed, the doctor cleared me a couple of weeks ago.” Matteo had paid dearly for her to have the care of her doctor at their home and he knew she’d been cleared, but he still worried. The incision had been large and she’d had a lot of internal damage from the bullet that had found its mark in her abdomen. “Besides, I need the exercise, come on.”
She grabbed her bag, opened the door, and almost skipped out onto the porch. Matteo saw plumes from the exhaust on the black SUV Anton occupied. By the time Matteo took the front seat and Marie had settled into the back, the interior of the car had warmed up. “Everything alright out here?”
“Yep, you ready?”
“We are!” Marie chimed in from the back and Anton smiled. She couldn’t see him but Matteo could. He knew it was respect and shyness that made the big man so timid around Marie, so it was nice to see him smile because of her. That told Matteo that Anton liked her at least.
Anton drove them carefully into the town at the bottom of the mountain and before long they were all busy looking around the many shops and stores.
“Oh, there are quite a few restaurants that look nice here,” Marie said and pointed out an Indian restaurant, a few fast-food restaurants, and another that served Chinese cuisine. “There’s a lot of shops too, lots more than I expected.”
Anton had parked in the parking lot of a strip mall that had a nail salon, a grocery store, a jewelry store, and a small clothing shop. On the other side of the busy street was a large department store that had many more shops attached. There were brightly lit signs all around them and what they’d initially taken to be a small town they could now see was a very large town.
It wasn’t a city like New Orleans and definitely not New York, but it was a big town that boasted bars and a theater, as well as quite a few other entertainment places for young and old. Matteo watched Marie look around as Anton headed into the grocery store with a list they’d all prepared. “Do you want to have a look in the shops?”
“Sure, I’d like to go into the grocery store too, but yeah, let's look around?” The smile on her face made her eyes shine and he knew she was genuinely happy to be out in the world. He brushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear and pecked her on the cheek before he took her hand and they walked over to the jewelry store.
There was a necklace in there, some twisted thing of silver and turquoise that caught her eye. It appeared to be two abstract figures of people wrapped around each other with a small bead of turquoise between them. It looked like a globe and the two people had created their own world together. He could see why she was still looking at it.
He was still holding back, still distant when it came to talking of emotional bonds. The way he’d been raised by Celeste had stunted him that way and he couldn’t say those three little words to her. He could show her though.
“You know, our anniversary is coming up,” he said to her, a hint of a smile on his face with cheeks red from the cold air.
“It is, yes,” she whispered then she looked at him. “I can’t believe it. We’ve almost been married for a year now?”
There was surprise on her face, and he could tell she was thinking back over the last year. So many things had happened. So many firsts, new things, scary things, and some that had brought incredible happiness. He saw each moment as a memory came back to her. Her eyes turned from an expression of sadness to happiness, then to wonder, before it settled back to something that might be… contentment? Resignation? He wasn’t sure.
“Yes, hard to believe isn’t it?” It had been a strange year, and in that time the family business had flourished under his command. Her life, however? Well, she’d been through the wringer since she’d met him. He felt some guilt over that, but at the same time, he knew her life was better.
Even though she’d been attacked, shot even. Even though her mother had passed away, and he’d coerced her into marriage, Marie smiled now. She laughed and she was happy, especially since they’d left New York. Before the attack, she’d done the same thing. She’d started to bloom, to become a young woman that knew her own mind, that had opinions that she’d started to learn to voice. He had improved her life, despite all of the bad things. He knew that.
As he stared down at the pendant on the long silver chain, only about two inches tall, he knew that it was a representation of his life with her so far. Because she’d changed him too. He’d learned what love was in the last year with her. He’d learned that being expressive wasn’t a bad thing, even if he still couldn’t tell her he loved her. There was a part of him—that little boy afraid of pain, of being punished for showing emotion by having food denied to him, by being sent to sleep in the coldest room in the house for seeking to see his mother so that he could have some kind of motherly love—that held him back from taking that next step.
But that pendant would show her. They’d become one over the space of time that they’d been a married couple, they’d overcome and forged a bond that he was certain nothing could break. Celeste would come back eventually, and if she hadn’t put this contract out on his wife, then she might want to hand over the reins entirely to him. If not, he’d walk away with his own businesses well in hand and live his life with the woman that made him… happy.
“Let’s get it.” The price-tag was not cheap, but he didn’t care. He had plenty of cash on him and they could afford it.
“Really?” She breathed out the words like she couldn’t believe him, the first glimmer of excitement in her eyes.
“Really, come on.” He tugged at her hand and before she knew it, the cold silver of the chain slid down her collar bones and into the space just above her cleavage. She held it in her palm, looked into the mirror the jeweler had placed on the counter, and grinned with genuine pleasure. “It’s beautiful, Matteo, thank you.”
“Well, I wanted to get you something monumental for our anniversary anyway and this is just perfect really, isn’t it?” He kissed the back of her neck where he’d pushed her hair away to fasten the necklace and then stepped around to look at her. “Happy?”
“More than I could have ever dreamed of.” She leaned up, kissed him quickly, and turned back to the mirror. “It’s perfect.”
“Wear it always as a symbol of my promise to you, Marie. I will always be with you, I will do all that is in my power to protect you, and I will always, always work to make you my world. Always, baby.” He felt something swell in his chest as he spoke to her, some emotion that made it hard to breathe, to finish the rest of what he wanted to say.
“I will, Matteo. I will.” She put her arms around him and the tension eased. He could breathe again, and the world slowly came back into focus. The jewelry store owner made a sound and they turned to look at the woman.
“I knew when I made that piece that it would find the right home.” The woman with light-red hair and warm brown eyes turned to them. “I can tell you two are special. I didn’t know it, but I made that piece just for you. I can see it.”