Crisis averted, but now I had the room, and something needed to be said. Something I probably had been thinking about for two straight weeks but couldn’t find the motivation for until tonight.
Hundreds of eyes on me.
Waiting. Watching. Expecting.
Big damn gestures.
All women wanted them, right? At least, that’s what my sister claimed.
Hope mine didn’t make me look like an asshole.
“So, ah, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who came out tonight to wish me well and a…congratulate us on getting through…” I waved my hand, feeling stupid. But Maggie took hold of my fingers, kissing my knuckles and some of that embarrassment left me. “Getting through that…mess. It means a lot, all your support and help, so thank you.” I nodded, sending smiles of gratitude to the gazes I caught, then turned, taking Maggie’s hands in mine. My throat closed up a little when she stared up at me, tilting her head when I only watched and didn’t speak for several seconds.
“I…don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” I told her, “standing here in front of all these people when all I really want to do is take you and our boy home and just…be.”
Her smile was small, sweet and it killed me, how her eyes went wet. In the back of my mind, I thought about how many times I’d seen her that way and how I hoped I’d never be the cause of it.
It wasn’t ever a great feeling.
“Dimitri…”
“I’ve never wanted that before, you know? To be with someone and shut out the world. To walk away from all the shit I thought was so important.”
The moisture in her eyes got thicker, dotted in her lashes and her grip on my fingers was so tight I thought she might cut off the circulation, but I had to have my say.
“Turns out, nothing in the world is except you and the kid. Not to me. For me, being with you is all the happy I’m ever gonna want.” I shook my head, thinking that didn’t sound right. “No, that’s not it. Being with you, seeing what else there is with you, seeing all the happy we can get together, baby, that’s all I’m ever gonna want.”
Maggie’s face was wet now. Her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. She’d never looked more beautiful to me. She seemed to hold her breath, watching my face, like me, blocking out the still, silent room.
I slipped my hand in my front pocket and pulled out the ring my mother had waited my whole life to hand over to me. “In front of all these people and my family. In front of God and total strangers, Maggie, my bella amore, I’m making an ass out of myself…” I knelt in front of her, ignoring the gasps and noise that moved around the room. “Because I love you…and our boy. I wanna spend the rest of my life with you and just…be. So…you…wanna marry me?”
The ring was heavy in my hand. Ma had told me my whole life that Nonna Theresa had hidden it from the Germans when they escaped Italy during the war. It was a gold band with a large diamond and scrollwork around the sides. It had been given to her by her husband and to him by his mother and all the way back for four generations.
Sometimes women handed down jewelry not because they wanted their daughters to look nice, but because it might mean the difference between life and death. Hunger and starvation. Nonna Theresa Antonia never had to sell this ring, but to me, it still came down to life and death as I waited on Maggie’s answer.
“Bella,” I said, looking up at her, unable to breathe as she stared at the ring.
She glanced at me, swiping at her eyes, then to Mateo when he laughed behind me as Antonia held him.
“Dimitri…I…”
“I promise, baby, I swear…I’ll love you, I’ll never stop, and I won’t ever let anything…”
She shut me up with her lips on mine, her hands on my face, her soft, warm tongue teasing my mouth before she pulled away. “You don’t have to convince me. I’ve been yours a long time.”
“Yeah?” I asked her, wiping at her wet face, ignoring my folks as they asked us for an answer no one could hear yet.
“Si, of course,” she said, kissing me again.
“Son?” Pop said, his voice breaking through the rising questions of the crowd. “What did she say?”
I kissed her again, my heart feeling like it might explode before I stood us up, pulling Maggie to my side. “Yeah, Pop. She said yeah.”
“It’s about time!” Ma said, and in an instant, we were crowded by our family and the people around us.
Somewhere between the well wishes and toasts from everyone in our family, from Vi crying on Maggie’s shoulder and Antonia’s drunken apology for bitching at me, Maggie finally circled back to me. I was able to sneak her away from the crowd and into a quiet corner of the restaurant.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, sitting on my lap as I finally slipped the ring onto her finger.
There’d been too many people, too much activity before.
“It was my grandmother’s. And a dozen others’ before hers. Been in my family forever.”
“Now it’ll be in ours.” She snuggled closer to me, her breath against my neck as I wrapped my arms around her. “Maybe,” she started, a smile stretching against my skin, “maybe one day we can give it to one of our kids.”
I didn’t hesitate, liking the idea instantly. “Mateo could give it to his wife one day.”
“Or…if we have other children…”
I looked down, crinkling my eyebrows. “You trying to tell me something?”
She laughed, her head falling back against the chair. “Dimitri, no. Not yet.”
“Yet. Hmm,” I moved her closer, nipping her neck. “That means practice. I like when we practice.”
“It’s my favorite thing.”
Then Maggie took my mouth, rubbing her tongue along my bottom lip, nibbling along the skin there. I gripped her ass, wanting her so much just then, grabbing her closer, moving from her lips, to her jaw, then stopping when the sound of someone’s voice coming too close killed the mood.
“I don’t know what your problem is, Mr. Carelli,” the redhead was saying, walking into the vacant area of the restaurant, several feet from the alcove where Maggie and I hid.
“That’s the problem. You not knowing enough about boundaries.” Dario’s voice was thick with anger. I recognized his temper flaring, but the warning was laced with the same tone I’d heard him use a half-dozen times when he was trying to convince a girl to come home with him.
“No fucking way,” I whispered, shutting my mouth when Maggie covered it with her hand. I moved my eyebrows up, asking her a silent question, and she nodded toward my brother and Ava, telling me with one gesture that she wanted in on the gossip.
“Boundaries?” Ava said, a laugh thick in her voice. “Seems to me you need a lesson on boundaries as well.”
“I’m not the one disobeying the rules…” The woman laughed outright, but Dario continued, “Or, coming into places she’s not welcomed.”
“For your information, your mother invited me, and no matter what you think of me, I never go where I’m not invited.” She started to walk away, her heels clicking on the hardwood.
“Then you must get bored in this town.”