“I’m not sure what I have for you is good enough to deserve a gelato factory. Can I offer you something more?”
He groaned, like groaned, as his hands moved along my back and down my ass. “You give us everything, Inez.” He licked his lips before leaning in and pressing his lips to my ear. “Do I get positions with you too, my wife?”
I shivered, liking that word on his lips. “Yes, there are three I was hoping we could try if my husband wanted. Maybe when we celebrate giving me your oath privately? Loudly.”
Another deep and long groan came out of him to the point his chest vibrated with it. “Let’s start sampling ice cream or I’m going to stuff you full of something else.”
“While we eat ice cream?” I asked—sort of offered—laughing when he groaned again. He loved drawing it out, always the patient Zen master.
The place was shut down for the night, but we pulled out a container of every flavor and started sampling with our own spoons. It was so, so good that I wanted to eat them all until I couldn’t eat anymore. One was a chocolate marshmallow heavenly blend with toppings that just exploded over my taste buds, but the marshmallow made me think of something.
“Vitor, this one has—” I turned to say, yelping when he was right there to eat off my spoon.
He reacted like I had slapped him when a small whimper came out. I looked away, glad I didn’t almost wet myself this time. I hadn’t since the time he’d accidently hit me when I’d tried to push Kristof out of the way, but I almost had several times when he startled me and was too close like right then.
“Thank you for thinking of me and my love of marshmallow,” he said quietly. “Only the kindest and most loving princess would remember something so small that her guard said.”
“You’re welcome,” I whispered, turning away and focusing on the next carton.
“I think all of this is more than enough,” Nora said, giving me a worried look, and I was sure she knew I was scared of him. “Serving it in these plastic cartons would be tacky, but while unconventional to serve for a wedding, times have changed and this is a delicious, now rare treat.”
“It is divine,” Matilda agreed. “With your permission, I would look for nice bowls and have the servers bring out rounds of it to the tables. People can have one, or say, all of five options.”
“Instead of a wine tasting, have a gelato tasting for dessert?” Olivia asked, nodding after her mother did. “You could use those topping stands you mentioned for Friday with the cheesecakes. Nothing that should be too hard to gather quickly. Fresh whipped cream, nuts, and maybe some sauces.”
“I think that a perfect project to help her organizers with to show you support your brother in giving his oath,” Hanna suggested.
“With your permission?” Olivia agreed, giving me a questioning look.
I swallowed something snarky and nodded. “Thank you. That would be a big help if you could coordinate with Hope, Nick, and either Branko or Sisay as they tend to grab the fruits to spoil me. And by grab, I mean these gigantic totes that forklifts are meant to pick up. They just go get a bunch and bring it up because they can.”
“You’re grateful, and enjoy the happiness it brings from Nick having more ingredients to play with. And for the children who are delighted for fresh fruit they haven’t seen before,” Sisay said as he happily ate his ice cream. “It’s been being put to wonderful use as I love gelato and those breakfasts Nick makes with all the fruit everything.”
“Oh? How spoiled is she?” Matilda teased me.
“I’m shocked I don’t weigh a billion pounds,” I admitted. “There’s always fruit pancakes or thick waffles with fresh fruit or fruit syrups. Everyone’s been having a blast at all the areas. Thomas Gagnon’s mate and some of the others in their clan have been making jams, jellies, and syrups after they found a huge grove of all kinds of everything.”
“There was also a small factory for it there that Inez got back online,” Cerdic added. “We used some of it in the gelatos.” He shot me a wink. “We’ll get there.”
I moaned. “Those apple pancakes with that fresh maple syrup? That was so, so good.”
“We’ve heard, in detail,” Nora chuckled, elaborating when I gave her a questioning look. “People have been lining up to be traded out for our deals. I’m not saying my people are disloyal, but we’ve all needed things to change, and it’s a vacation from our reality to come here and be fed like that, even if they work here too.”
“And do they work,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Columbus and Cincinnati are completely cleared out, Indianapolis almost done as well. That’s crazy in only a few months.”
“You made us a generous deal, and we weren’t going to do anything but live up to the expectations,” Hanna said firmly. “We’ll move onto the next places, but we were—”
“Yes,” I granted.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I didn’t ask a question yet.”
I mirrored her expression. “I’m shocked you haven’t asked yet as I’ve been expecting it. Yes, you may clear out the smaller, surrounding areas to the ones you’re in instead of moving on from those resources that could be lost. Yeah, I can suffer that given the deal and how much we get.” I shook my head. “I cannot believe that was the deal. It’s so mean. One of twenty-four pallets.”
“You could always change that to better terms,” Nora reminded me.
“I could,” I muttered, tapping my fingers on the table and thinking about something Sisay had been working on. “There are at
