Alessia (Casella Cousins #4) - Kathryn Shay Page 0,34
hugged the twins, too.
Derek sighed.
Alessia couldn’t believe how life had changed for her in the two weeks since she’d gone to his Brooklyn apartment. Derek was on leave and had been at the house every day. He’d won over the boys completely and stolen her heart.
On her birthday, December 21st, he’d given her a beautiful emerald ring, with diamonds on each side. They’d told the kids it was an engagement ring. And yesterday, she and Derek, with the boys, had quietly gotten married at city hall. They planned a honeymoon to somewhere warm as soon as they told her family.
“Breakfast, Mom?” Pete asked.
Derek bolted up. “I’m cooking it.” He held out his hand to her. “Come sit while I fry up some bacon.”
They went into the kitchen and heard her oldest son say, “They’re gonna kiss out there.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s okay.” Mikey put in.
Mattie said, “Yuck.”
But she knew he didn’t mean it.
As soon as they were alone, he took Alessia in his arms, and did indeed kiss her. “I’m so happy you can stay for good.”
“Hmm, me too. I love waking up with you.”
Before the wedding, he frequently bunked with one of her brothers so he didn’t have to drive back and forth to Brooklyn. He said he enjoyed getting to know them.
He glanced over his shoulder from where he stood at the stove. “What are you smiling at?”
“Everything. I didn’t know I could be this happy again.”
“Me, either. It’s something isn’t it?”
“It is. Are you excited about teaching in New York’s new training site?”
Derek had been offered a job teaching recruits and agents about undercover work, but not in Quantico. People were signed up to come from all over the state. They both stayed in Brooklyn two days a week when she had class and Mama took the boys. The other three they would live in Hidden Cove and he’d commute.
“I found I’m liking it very much.” He winked at her. “All those teaching courses took hold, I guess.”
“Good.”
“Not too long till you get your degree.”
“Yeah, next semester and the summer.” She got up, went over and hugged him from behind. God, it had been so long since she could touch and hold a man. She wallowed in it.
He switched off the burner and turned to face her.
“Who would have thought, huh?”
“We are so lucky we found each other, Derek.”
“I know. Promise me you’ll stay with me always.”
“I did yesterday in our vows.”
“Tell me again.”
“I’ll be with you always and forever.”
He kissed her, tenderly, gratefully. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”
“Merry Christmas to you, love.”
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Author’s Note
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I hope you enjoyed this novella. Alessia and Derek’s relationship unfolded easily for me. I like how they get together, even if him attending the wedding and Thanksgiving strained credulity a bit. That he knows it’s unprofessional, and is called to task on it by Grant, shows their attraction simply can’t be overcome—he says he couldn’t resist her and I believed him.
I love Alessia, as I do all the Casellas. She’s been dealt a bad hand in life, and all I wanted was for her to be happy. I wouldn’t have picked her soulmate to be Derek, but that just shows their unbreakable connection, even for me. She’s an unselfish, giving mom to Pete, Mikey and Mattie, but she knows that she has to deal directly with Pete’s issues. (And he sure does come around.) She has more sass than she did in previous books, but it suited her.
I fell head-over-heels for Derek, though I wanted to shake him sometimes, like when he was ready to storm the brothel before everything was in place. And when he turns all macho on Alessia in the bedroom the night he confesses his identity to her. Yep, I wanted to shake him then, even as a tiny part of me enjoys machismo in my alpha heroes.
The subplot in the novella is complicated. The human trafficking situation took up a lot of my headspace. I wrote those scenes many times over, kept adding and deleting, researching locations, putting in more heightened urgency. Some might think it was too much for a novella, and I worried about that. But in the end, I was pleased how the storyline turned out.
This is book four of series, so if you missed any, be sure to get