Her words have me turning back to look at her.
“I’ve been working for him a lot longer than you’ve known him. Take my advice. If he says he wants to be left alone, you should leave him alone.”
She gives me one of those bitchy smiles, the ones you expect from a high school mean girl. I think I’ve let Claire’s bullshit go unchecked for too long. She has mistaken my lack of response for cowardice. Today, she will learn that although I always keep it classy, I have no problem with going gangster on her ass. I walk back toward her desk. She has the right mind to look nervous.
“Don’t ever think you can tell me what that man wants. I don’t care how long you’ve known him. Your relationship with him and mine are not the same. Doesn’t even compare.”
Her nostrils flare and her face reddens. But if she knows what’s good for her, she will keep that little anger bottled up.
Lowering my voice, I lean forward and speak. “And since we’re giving out advice, here is some from me. The only reason you still have this job is because I haven’t told him to fire your ass yet. If you want to keep this position, you better act accordingly.”
Noah blurts out some gibberish and then laughs. I guess my son has my back. I lean up and drop a kiss on his cheek.
“Let’s go see Daddy,” I sing, glaring at Claire.
She swallows and looks down at her phone. Spinning on my heels, I head back out to find Nico.
Twenty minutes later, Noah and I walk through the Creekside Cemetery. Jake is a few paces behind us.
You can tell this place is well kept. The grass is neatly cut, and all the headstones are clean and well maintained. The mausoleums are large and look like small houses.
I find Nico sitting on a bench, his head down. In front of him is a large granite headstone that looks like two black stone slabs standing side by side. The cutout between the stones forms a cross. It’s absolutely stunning.
“I’ll wait here,” Jake says from behind me.
I don’t turn to acknowledge him. I keep my sight on my husband’s back. Slowly, I approach. He doesn’t turn around, but when he speaks, I know he knows it’s me.
“They’re not even buried here.” His voice is low, but deeper than usual. “I had this placed here so that I could always come and pay my respects.”
My heart ached for my husband. As successful as Nico has become, there is still a large hole in his heart where his parents are concerned.
I readjust Noah on my hip. He must have fallen asleep during our walk through the cemetery. His head is on my shoulders, and his soft snores in my ear tell me he isn’t waking anytime soon. I should have made him and Jake stay in the truck, but something told me Nico needed both of us.
Walking around the bench, I take a seat beside my husband.
“Why don’t you go back and visit their real graves?”
To buy an entire tombstone for an empty grave seemed a little extra when he owns a private jet. He could easily hop on a plane to go visit their gravesides. Or hell, have them dug up and reburied here.
He looks over at me, and his eyes are red, yet there is no sign of tears on his face. He takes Noah out of my arms and cradles him in his lap. Once he has my son settled, I slip my fingers through his, figuring he needed the connection.
“He had them cremated. He said it was so that we could always have them with us. That was bullshit. He just didn’t want to waste the money on a proper burial.” After finding out about his godfather, I know now that the ‘he’ in this story refers to him.
He scoffs and shakes his head. “Their ashes are probably sitting lost in a storage facility somewhere. Who knows, he could’ve dumped them after I was sent away.”
My heart aches so badly for him. I know how much he loved his parents. It’s in the way he speaks about them, the way he has small reminders all around him of them. His entire home office has an astrological theme. I know it’s because he and his father were both into stargazing. My son’s name is Noah because it was the name his mother picked out for him before changing her mind at the last minute.
To think that the one thing he had left of them is missing or discarded like trash, has my eyes burning with unshed tears.
“What happened to your godfather?”
I’ve heard him speak about the man multiple times, but he never talks about him now or what he’s doing.
Nico is quiet for a moment. “He became successful after I went away. Gained a little notoriety. He was never as smart as my father, so he wasn’t ever going to grow the business as well as him. He took my father’s legacy and sold it. All my father’s hard work was summed up in a measly million-dollar deal. He took the money and used it in a startup business that had a minor success.”
He’s quiet again. I don’t rush him because I know how quickly Nico can shut down about his past. I allow him to tell the story at his own pace.
“I was sixteen when I made my first attack. His wife was younger than he was, but not by much. After studying her, I knew she had a thing for younger guys. I had her sucking my cock three days after approaching her.”
