“That is for me to know and for you never to find out.”
He walked around the table. “You remind me of myself when I was young.”
I couldn’t imagine how, but I said nothing.
“That is exactly how I would have played it.”
“It isn’t,” I said softly.
He laughed. “You are right.”
Then it was suddenly over. He had played his hand and I had dealt him mine.
Don Carlo Bambino jerked his head and the unblinking robot behind him immediately went to open the door. I stood and walked out.
The night sky was full of stars, and though I’d never been religious I couldn’t help think that maybe the stars were an omen. You know like when the shepherds were guided by the stars in the sky.
Well, maybe they were there tonight for me.
54
Caleb
“It’s history repeating itself again, isn’t it? All your wealth is all gone because of me. Without me in the picture you’d have done it differently, wouldn’t you?” she murmured after I told her everything that had happened.
I walked up to her and stood in front of her. “You think I care about what I lost? I don’t have anything if I don’t have you, Willow. Yes, I would have done it a different way. Might not have given it all up on a plate to that snake if you weren’t in the picture, but I couldn’t live with creating something that would hurt ordinary people, Willow. I got tricked once into creating such a scheme when I was young and foolish, and I won’t allow anyone to use me like that again.”
She looked at me with enormous eyes and I reached and touched the soft curve of her cheek.
“The choice to deliberately make those risky bets and lose everything was easy for me. Then it was even easier for me to be rude to my clients so they would be so furious they would report me. I needed the authorities to revoke my license for sheer incompetence. Without my license, I was useless to them. Not even worth the price of a bullet. But I also knew it would not end there. It never does when these bloodsuckers have something on you. The only way I would be left alone by the Don was to turn the tables on him.”
“What you did, Caleb, was incredibly dangerous. What will you do now?” she whispered.
“Ah, there is one other card I didn’t reveal to the Don. I have a secret stash, but we won’t dip into that yet. We’ll save it for our kids’ college fund. Now we’ll play the part of paupers for a little while. We’ll live in a rented apartment, you’ll have your shop, I’ll get a job, maybe we’ll have a baby or two. In a few years, when the coast is clear, I’ll work my magic with numbers again and we’ll buy something even better than this house.”
She touched my face. “You were always good at planning long term.”
“Always.”
She began to take her clothes off. Slowly. I stood back so I could watch her in all her glory.
This was my Willow. “Everything I wished and hoped for the last twelve years has just come true, and I feel as if I’m in a dream. I still can’t truly believe you’re mine.”
“I’m yours, Caleb. I’m yours even when my mind had forgotten you. I couldn’t go with any other man because I was always waiting for you.”
I watched that intoxicatingly, excruciatingly slow striptease, until she was dressed in nothing more than her underwear. Her full breasts were completely exposed to me. It was not the first time I was seeing them, there was now a new meaning to everything.
I no longer felt like the stranger who was forever unable to convey the depth of his love for her. Finally, she understood how much I cherished her. More than I would have ever been able to explain.
Suddenly, she stopped. Some part of her must be still too vulnerable. Her eyes lowered as her hands went over her breasts to shield them from my hungry eyes.
I moved forward and lifted her hands away. Then I licked her nipples. They were hard as pebbles. “I love you, Willow.”
Slowly, I pulled her panties down her legs. They pooled around her feet. Then I picked her up in my arms and carried her to the shower. I put her down on the ground and switched on the shower and waited for it to become the right temperature.
She moved and began to undress me. Her fingers fumbling, hasty. When we were both naked, I scooped her up and carried her into the cascade.
I felt its warm blast run down my skin like a massage. I didn’t move, and remained still so that the water could soothe the tension and aches that had accumulated in our muscles from the last twelve years. Slowly, magically, it chased away my splitting headache. I now had every reason in the world to relax. She stirred in my arms.