“Or Shark,” Troy says. “Shark Daddy.” She slaps his bottom. “That’s my man, with Europe’s finest ass.”
It’s comforting to know she’s never seen Alessio’s ass, because there’s no way anyone’s ass is finer than his. No way.
Troy broke the tension, so I smile. “Mike it is.”
“Dinner’s getting cold,” someone says from down the hall, and Val hurries past the guest bathroom and into a part of the house I haven’t seen before. We follow her into a formal dining room, where Niksha, the man with a rasp in his voice who debriefed me after the rescue mission, sits with Prescott and Leo.
He nods.
I nod back.
“You can do better than that,” Val comments as she lights a candle near him.
Niksha gets up and pulls out a chair next to him. He offers it to me. “I hope your flight was pleasant.”
“It was. Thank you.” I sit down, wondering where Alessio disappeared to.
Leo catches my eye. “You look different,” he says.
“Different better or how do you mean?”
“You’re very glowy.”
“Glowy?” Val repeats as she lights a decorative candle in front of me. She puts away the lighter and tilts her head. “Leo’s right. You are glowy. That ring looks good on you, and marriage will look even better.”
I’m sweating like a hooker in church. I almost got made for the pregnancy. How did I survive spying on this household for weeks? Leo made me out in five minutes. I adore him for that.
“Did you guys set a date?” Troy asks, her Southern accent reminding me of my grandma. She spoke just like Troy does. “Alessio’s over the moon, I tell ya.”
“Not yet. There’s some talk about tomorrow morning.”
“Pay me my hundred bucks, Shark Daddy. I bet on tomorrow.” She turns back to me. “Oh hey, if you need to borrow a dress, there’s that one I got when I joined the family. Real nice. I didn’t get married in it, so the poor, pretty dress never saw church bells, and that’s a shame ’cause the dress is fine.”
Across from Troy, Mike says, “Boots too.”
Troy nods. “With rhinestones.”
“Or you could wear the dress,” he says, looking at Troy.
This man doesn’t look at her the way he looked at me that day he walked into the hotel room, killed the perps who threatened me, and then pointed the gun at me too. When he looks at Troy, his eyes are warm, darker somehow, as if he knows this woman is the keeper of his soul.
Alessio walks in and sits across from me, even though there’s a setting in front a chair at the head of the table. “Lake, the priest is here.”
“Okay.” When Alessio keeps staring at me, I smile, feeling like he’s trying to tell me something I can’t catch on to.
“The priest has come to marry us,” he clarifies.
“Here? Now?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, not at all.”
“Wait a minute,” Val intercepts. “You can’t get married here in the dining room.”
“They can,” Leo says in a surprisingly authoritative voice. He looks over at Alessio. “Right, Uncle?”
“That’s right.”
