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Gina waved her hand, dismissively, “They are fine, all is well. Please come inside. Everyone will be happy to see you.”
Julio walked into their home and admired the lovely bright colors that Gina had used to decorate. There was nothing mild or meek about this woman. Having formerly worked with his nephew Jennings as a hired gun, Gina was more than capable of holding her own.
Her husband, Marco, came out with a three-year-old on his hip. The handsome man had a birthmark that covered part of his face. Julio knew that Marco had been, at one point, rather self-conscious of the defect, but through the love of his wife, he had come to realize that she saw him and not the red patches of skin.
“Lizzie, come and see your Uncle Julio!”
The little girl stretched her arms out to Julio, and he gladly took her into his own.
“Be careful,” Marco warned, “She is sticky, and I haven’t figured out what from quite yet.”
Gina smiled and placed a hand on her growing belly, “Let’s hope that this one is a little better behaved than her older sisters.”
Julio turned to Lizzie, “Have you been a good girl?”
She nodded and threw her arms around his neck, “So good! Do you have a present?”
Marco groaned while Gina gasped.
“We don’t ask for gifts!” Gina admonished.
“You ask daddy for things all the time,” Lizzie reasoned and grinned when Julio pulled a candy from his pocket.
“You will spoil her,” Gina said to Julio affectionately.
Julio couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face, “She deserves every happiness and more. Where is my other niece?”
Marco called out, “Jackson?”
A few moments later, the PI that had stood before Julio in his Italian villa walked in carrying little Maisy, who was just a year.
“Julio, good to see you,” Jackson said with a grin. “As you can see, I have been on child duty.”
Gina snorted, “Jackson, you are a guest. I have told you that a dozen times. You don’t have to be the live-in nanny.”
“Wouldn’t that make him the manny?” Marco teased.
Jackson shrugged, “Who would have thought that I would like kids? Have you found Natalie yet?”
Julio nodded and began to explain. Over the course of the time it had taken him and Jackson to cross the sea and land in the United States, Jackson had a much clearer picture of what Julio wanted with his co-worker. He also learned that Julio wasn’t the horrible man he had thought him to be.
Julio warned that he had once been the person Jackson had feared and knew that Natalie had every right to run from him. But he was finished being that person. He wanted to know if it were possible to have one more chance with his wife or if things were truly over.
It was decided that Jackson would pretend to be still missing. It would be easier than showing up to work for Brian and facing Natalie. She would put the pieces together; she was an intelligent woman.
Jackson found that he had been enjoying his stay with Marco and Gina. They were loud, fought often, and loved each other fiercely. He knew that they had some tie with Julio, but it wasn’t discussed how they had become so close.
Gina had let slip that Julio was something of a matchmaker, but Jackson was left in the dark beyond that.
“She is pretending to want me gone or dead, but I can see in her eyes that she still cares.” Julio was explaining. “I have to find a way to woo her back to me. She loved me once. I know that she could again.”
“Have you tried telling her the truth?” Gina said as she sank into the soft cushions of her sofa.
Julio wrinkled his nose, “Why on earth would I try something as mundane as the truth? I was thinking of being abducted by aliens or, at best, a long-term coma.”
Marco snorted, “So you went with the truth, and she blew you off?”
Julio sighed. “She won’t even allow me to get near enough to her to speak the truth. There is so much she doesn’t know. So much that I wish I could explain.”