With This Ring (To Have And To Hold Duet #1) - Natasha Knight Page 0,30
they will pounce. I have no doubt. Even those with the more impassioned pledges.
Not too long ago I found a letter my father had written to my mom. The letter itself had to have been thirty years old. It had been tucked inside the pages of a photo album. In it, he’d told her how he’d grown up with stories his mother had told that his family were descended from angels. He told her he knew better, even as a kid, but knew she needed for him and his brother to believe they were the good kind of angels.
He’d said in his letter that his family, and he in particular, was here to watch over the rest of this criminal underworld. Try to keep some control over it. To rein in the evil we do.
My mom didn’t come from a mafia family and I get the feeling he was trying to reassure her, to win her over. He told her in that same letter he’d fallen in love with her the instant he’d seen her. She’d been working for my uncle at the time as one of his secretaries. She wasn’t even Italian. I know he was supposed to have married the eldest Ricci daughter and I know the turmoil it caused within the families when he eloped with my mother instead.
Charlie told me how it cost our family, but my father was in love. And that was all there was to it.
It’s a fairy tale.
And the task I have embarked on is a hellish tale.
What that letter left out was how the Grigori angels hated the humans they watched over. Just as I hate every one of the men at that table. Just as I hate myself.
12
Scarlett
I’m sitting in the kitchen flipping through an old Italian cookbook, my hand absently petting Cerberus when I hear the sound of the chopper. I look at the clock. It’s a little after nine at night.
Lenore, who has been sitting across from me making a shopping list, gets up and puts the espresso pot on the stove.
“He’ll want coffee,” she says to me.
Alec glances out the window. He’s been my shadow today and if it wasn’t for Lenore telling him I could walk out to the greenhouse to collect fresh vegetables, I’m pretty sure I’d have been locked up inside all day.
At least I got to see Noah. He told me that Alec had brought down the entirety of the cake last night.
I wonder if I should go up to my room. Well, his room. Will he really make me kneel to apologize to him? And if so, would he make me do it in front of Lenore? I feel my face burn just thinking about it.
But he does deserve an apology. I do know that. What I said, what I accused him of, it wasn’t right especially knowing what I know. What my brothers allowed to happen to his mother.
“I’ll go upstairs,” I tell Lenore, just getting to my feet when the kitchen door opens, and Cristiano walks inside. I’m surprised because I guess I expected him to use the front door. This seems so domestic.
I take a moment to look him over. I can’t help it. His hair is ruffled from wind, the tip of his nose red with cold, and the scent of whiskey lingers on the wind that blows in with him.
His eyes land on me and stay there even as Cerberus rushes to him.
“Where is your jacket?” Lenore asks him, going to close the door. The temperature was nice during the day in the sun, but it’s cooled off a lot since.
Cristiano shifts his gaze to the cookbook on the table. Even though I’m standing, I’m still holding a page open. It’s the one with the recipe for the Crème Caramel Lenore made. I had a taste, and it was amazing.
He finally turns to Lenore, giving me space to breathe again.
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
I decide that’s a good moment to slip away and take a step to the door.
“Scarlett.” The way he says my name is nothing short of a command.
I stop but I don’t turn back.
“Sit.”
Lenore clears her throat and I hear her rustling around behind me.
“I said sit,” Cristiano repeats when I don’t move. “Get her a plate.”
I turn around, not sure who he was instructing, but see Lenore set the Crème Caramel at the center of the table before producing two espresso cups, two dishes, and finally the pot.