“She’ll understand,” Bri says at the same time Dominick says, “Of course I did.”
“Great. She got me a fucking gift, and I didn’t get her shit.”
“Here, give her this,” Lorenzo says, grabbing a gift-wrapped box from the table.
“What is that?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But it’s wrapped like a gift, and since you don’t have one …”
I snatch it from him and tear it open, and inside is a bottle of thirty-year-old Macallan Double Cask scotch.
“Did you buy this?” I ask Dominick since he’s the only person I know pretentious enough to buy me a five-thousand-dollar bottle of scotch.
“No,” he says, bending down. “There’s a card.”
He hands it to me, and I open it, hoping like hell it’s not another gift from Dani. It’s bad enough she already got me one when I didn’t get her shit.
I stare at the note for several seconds, but the words are too jumbled, and without the color reader, I can’t be sure what I’m reading.
“Here,” I say to Dominick. “Read it.”
“Matteo,” he begins, “I hear congratulations are in order. Becoming a father and a husband on the same day. Hopefully, you live to see both through. XX.”
He hasn’t even finished before I’m running from the room to get to Dani. Anyone with a brain will take that as a threat, and if whoever left it was able to get it in here, who knows where else they’re able to get to?
“Matteo, stop!” Bri yells just before I open the door that I know Dani is behind. “You can’t see her before the wedding.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” I say, turning the knob.
“Stop.” Lorenzo steps in front of me. “Don’t let whoever that is ruin this for Dani. I’ll check on her. Give me a minute.”
He slides inside, and I wait with bated breath, praying that Dani is okay.
A moment later, he opens the door. “She’s good. She’s dressed and ready to walk down the aisle.”
“Don’t let her eat or drink anything,” I tell him, suddenly paranoid. “Ian, George,” I say to the guards standing outside her door, “I want you to search the room without alerting her and have the guys search the perimeter. Someone left a note with a threat in my dressing room.”
The guys nod and go in.
“C’mon,” Bri says, dragging me back to my waiting room. “You still have to open your gift.”
When we get back in the room, it’s empty, and Bri says that Dominick went to check on our mom, Peyton, and the babies since they’re seated and waiting for the ceremony to begin.
I open the box and inside is a kick-ass all-black watch. Not a pretentious one, like Dominick would wear, but one that I would wear. I lift it out of the box and notice that it’s engraved on the inside. It’s not long, so it only takes a few seconds for me to read it.
I’m yours, until the end of time.
Since I’m not wearing a watch, I clasp it around my wrist and eye it for a moment, not for the first time wondering how I got lucky enough to have the privilege of spending my life with Dani.
“I like to see you like this,” Bri notes.
“Like what?”
“Happy. First Dominick, then Mom … now you.”
“You’ll get there one day.”
I wasn’t Theodore’s biggest fan—mostly because I’m protective of my sister and no guy will ever be good enough for her—but I was glad to see my sister putting herself out there. I don’t know what happened between them because she won’t talk about it, but whatever it was has her back to being single again.
