The one reason she married Dante was for Michel's safety. All of her status and reputation as the supreme ghost Queen Pin that she was giving up slowly to be Catrina Marcello, the very public wife of a mob boss whose clients wouldn't trust her now, was for this child.

But she didn't know how to give Michel anything else.

Chapter Twelve.

"Oh, don't you look comfortable."

Dante mumbled something even he couldn't understand into his pillow at his wife's teasing.

"What time did you get in last night?" Catrina asked.

Turning his head enough so his words wouldn't be a garbled mess, Dante said, "Around three."

"Yikes, it's like ten, now."

"Fucking Gio," Dante muttered.

Catrina laughed. The musical sound woke him up more, but he refused to get up unless he absolutely had to. "Fun night with your brothers, then?"

"Too much."

After a particularly stressful couple of weeks going through resumes for contractors needed on the legal side of business, mixed in with the constant crap from the illegal side, Dante needed a night out. Catrina had suggested he take his brothers to a club for some bonding time without their wives tagging along once she got back from her trip to LA, so he did when he found time. It wasn't like Dante sported a hangover or anything the morning after, but Christ, Gio could party hard when he wanted to. At least his brother laid off the substances, now.

Even so, Gio was the only one of the three Marcello brothers with the energy to stay up for hours on end, drink like a fucking fish, and not be any worse for wear come morning.

Catrina came to stand by the edge of the bed. The smooth, creamy paleness of her legs caught Dante's eye. He reached out to rub his palm up her thigh, still keeping one eye closed and the other half shut as well.

Sweet fingernails Dante loved feeling claw down his back danced on his neck. "No women, right, bello?"

"Don't even ask that question."

Her fingers skipped down his spine, making his cock harden against the mattress. "Oh, I don't doubt there were no women you were looking at. Women, on the other hand, are always looking at you. Just wondering if there's a new female I should chase off."

Dante chuckled. "Retract your claws, Cat."

"But you like them."

"I do, when they're warranted. What time did you say it was?" Dante asked.

"Ten."

Dante thought about that for a moment before a heavy realization sunk it and he bolted up in the bed to his knees. "Merda!"

"What?"

"Church," Dante barked.

Catrina laughed in that way of hers again. "We're not going, Dante."

"It's not really a choice we get, Cat."

Dante stumbled out of bed, blindly reaching for the suit he had tossed off the night before after he got home. It wasn't there. Not that it would have been suitable for Sunday services, likely.

"Your suit is in the drycleaner bag," Catrina informed. "And we're still not going."

Dante shook his head, willing the sleepiness to leave his vision. "Like I said, it's not a choice we get to make, kitten."

"Well, since everyone thinks we're in bed with some awful flu this morning, yeah, I think we're safe."

Turning fast on his heel, Dante stared at his wife like she was speaking gibberish. "You called us in sick to church."

"Church, your mother ... same thing, I guess."

"My brothers know-"

"They can owe you for once," Catrina interrupted, grinning slyly. "Take the day and be bad with me, Dante. You know how much I like it when you're bad."

Dante snorted. "Skipping church is on the very bottom of my bad-shit-I've-done list, Cat."

"I know, but still, there are only so many rules you absolutely won't break and church is one of them. I can think of a dozen other dirty things we can do today."

It took him far too long to realize what his wife was saying. Turning just enough to give Catrina a good once-over, Dante noticed she was wearing one of his dress shirts with only two buttons done up at the middle and very little fucking else. She looked like pure sin-all legs, her trim waist accentuated by his shirt, and her lips painted red just how he liked. Her hands were hidden behind her back, as if she were keeping something from him.

Yes, sin, but his.

"What do you have on under that?" he asked, grinning mischievously.

Catrina shrugged. "A little bit of lace."

"Is that all?"

"And a lot of skin."

Dante groaned, loud and hard. "You told my mother we were sick to get us out of church and dinner so we could fuck all day?"

Catrina smirked. "Pretty much."

"We're going to hell."

"It'll be a fun ride."

"Christ, you are wicked," Dante said, laughing.

"Oh, I know, bello."

Then, Catrina brought her hands out from behind her back, flashing a device Dante hadn't expected her to have. The Nikon professional grade camera with a six-hundred dollar attached lens was already turned on and before he could think, it was held up and the flash blinded him.

Dante put his hand up, blocking his wife from taking another picture. "Where did you find that goddamn thing? I haven't used it in years."

"In the TV cabinet. It's pretty snazzy."

"Snazzy?"

"You know, like bells and whistles."

Dante refused to lower the shield that was his hand. He liked taking pictures on occasion, but he didn't like to be the one photographed. Keeping his face out of the limelight had always been a pastime of his.

"Because it used to be a hobby of mine, Amore," Dante explained.

Catrina dropped the camera, so Dante lowered his hand. "Used to be?"

"The last few years have been a busy time for me. I just lost interest as other shit became more important."

"A photographer, huh?" Catrina asked, dangling the camera from two fingers.

Dante watched the device swinging two and fro, hoping to hell she didn't drop the camera. "Stop playing with that damn thing like it's a ball or something. It cost me four grand."

"Well, I didn't plan on being the one who used it," Catrina said, winking.

She tossed the camera at him like it was a toy and not the very expensive electronic it was. Dante caught it easily but still shot her with a look, hoping it voiced his displeasure with her teasing.

When Catrina's fingers slipped down and found the buttons of his shirt she was wearing, Dante's throat tightened, his sleep pants suddenly turned uncomfortable, and he couldn't fucking breathe. She undid the only buttons holding the shirt together, letting the fabric fall open. Peachy flesh displayed for him, giving Dante a peek at the valley between her breasts and the smooth path leading down to the bareness of her sex covered by black lace.

"Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to have a little fun with me?"

"People weren't my subjects, Cat."

"I think you'll do me justice."

"Why is that?" Dante asked.

Catrina watched him under her lashes. "No one sees me like you do."

Yeah, this woman was so damned sexy it hurt. Catrina didn't even have to try, she just was. From the way her body moved, to how she watched him like he was a God ... it was enthralling.

Catrina spun on her heel, glancing over her shoulder at the same time Dante lifted the camera. He didn't bother to check the settings. Catrina didn't need adjustments. He did turn off that goddamn flash, though. There was more than enough natural light coming in through the windows, bathing his wife in a halo of color.

When her thumbs slid under the collar to draw his shirt down over her shoulders, Dante was already taking shots. The shirt dropped to the floor, exposing black lace contrasting against white skin. Catrina kept watching him all the while.

He was sure she expected him to take shots of her as a whole, but he had other plans. She was so gorgeous-every last fucking inch of her was breathtakingly beautiful in a way he couldn't explain with words. But pictures? That might be something Dante could capture.

The curve in her waist. The red of her lips and how they quirked up at the corners when she was thinking too hard. The swell of her backside, or the small birthmark on the back of her thigh where her ass melded into her hip. Those fingernails of hers with embedded crystals glittering on the manicured tip as she turned, tracing her cheekbone.

And her eyes.

Hell, her eyes ... Always on him, wanting just him.

Fuck, Dante loved this woman.

It smacked him like a kick to the heart. Swift and painful and drawing away before he could think on it too long and react.

But it was there and he had felt it.

Dante knew at that moment he was fucked.

When did this happen?

How?

Dante kept asking himself those same two questions over and over until the words were permanently imprinted in the back of his fucking mind.

Another photo finished processing from the printer. He pulled it out and absorbed the impact his wife's sensual smile had on his heart and soul, not to mention his body. The colored photograph had almost turned a black and white from the natural contrast of the light earlier that morning.

Dante made sure his office door was still closed before clicking a button on his laptop to print another photo. He had dug the printer and specialty photo paper out of the storage closet earlier, wanting to see what the shots would look like in physical form and not just digital.

They were perfect. A lot like Catrina.

Sighing, Dante massaged the ache beginning to throb in the base of his skull.

He couldn't pinpoint a time when he started to fall in love with Catrina. There were no particular moments that stood out to him for why he jumped headfirst into something he had always fought against.

The one thing he knew for sure was it hadn't been a fast love, but rather, something that grew over time. Slowly, like a seed implanted and sprouting. Definitely a weed, though. Because once a weed was there, it didn't matter how many times you pulled it out, it still grew back.

Love.

It was such a sickening, awful creature. Like something had come along, sat itself down on his chest, and now it couldn't be moved.

Dante had long since trusted himself to make the right choices, to know when to push forward or back the fuck off. Apparently he didn't know a thing if someone like Catrina could bleed her way into his veins without him even noticing.

Love was hell. It kind of hurt, too. And not in a good way, but in a really bad way. Because he loved her but she didn't love him. Things were never going to be the same after this. She wouldn't want love.

Dante set himself up for failure with Catrina. He was going to lose everything because of this, including her.

Simple as that.

"Morning," Lucian said as he stepped inside Dante's condo.

Dante ticked his chin up at his brother from the couch. "Hey."