Cross + Catherine: The Companion

  For all the lovers of this series and couple. I hope it’s everything you wanted, and beyond.

  ONE

  ALWAYS ERA SHORTS

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  REVERE ERA SHORTS

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  UNRULY ERA SHORTS

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  BIO

  OTHER BOOKS

  Copyright

  The Beginning

  Catherine Cecelia Marcello Donati (yes, she kept her maiden name before her married name) is an enigma. Surrounded by beautiful things, with her neck draped in a diamond necklace, that likely costs more than my small car, she sips on cheap wine and admits she’s got a taste for the European band her nineteen-year-old son—Nazio—enjoys when I ask about her musical tastes.

  “But don’t tell him that,” she tells me, “because apparently, that’s not cool, and I don’t want to listen to him go on about it.”

  “What about Cece?” I ask. “Or is she out of that stage in her life, now?”

  Catherine rolls her eyes. “Cece was my little twin from the moment she learned how to talk. Nothing I do could be uncool when she idolized me.”

  Despite the way she says it so offhandedly, almost dismissively, I can hear warmth in her words, too. A love so strong, it’s tangible, really.

  There’s respect there, too.

  When I point it out, Catherine simply says, “Cece’s earned her respect.”

  Nothing more.

  Nothing less.

  So is the way of their life. While she’s open about discussing her family and husband, any remarks she gives me about business is short, and to the point.

  They just don’t talk about business.

  Her daughter’s raising was a bit unconventional, too, by all standards. The daughter of a Queen Pin, Cece, saw and did more things than most grown women before she was even a teenager. She grew up watching her mother run a criminal empire, and the same with her father, too.

  Although, always more her mother.

  I’m curious, and so I ask, “Do you think you should have given Cece a … normal life? Maybe kept her out of harm’s way more than you did when you always had her following along when you did business?”

  Catherine thinks about it for a long while, but doesn’t immediately answer. No, she nurses her wine instead, and mulls it over.

  Finally, she settles on a simple, “No.”

  I press, but it remains the same.

  No.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she is my child, and not anyone else’s,” Catherine says. “She grew up in our life, not someone else’s. Rose-tinted glasses are dangerous eyewear.”

  And of course, she’s right.

  “And also, not very cute,” she adds, smirking.

  A joke, it seems.

  Yeah, she’s an enigma.

  We’re sitting in her library surrounded by the smell of leather, and old books. This is her happy place—where she comes to relax. “Cross has his music room,” she says with a smirk, “and I have this.” She doesn’t mind, though, because books are an escape, and, “Every woman occasionally needs an escape.”

  “Even when your husband is Cross Donati?” I dare to ask.

  Catherine tips her head to the side a bit, and nods. “Sometimes, more so because my husband is Cross Donati.”

  He can be fickle, she admits. He’s easy to please, and then tough to understand all at the same time. Together, it’s always just them, but sometimes, she knows he needs space, too. Like she does.

  They’re them.

  They’re together.

  They are an us.

  But they are also a woman and a man. A woman who needs to be alone sometimes, and a man who needs one room to himself in his house that has nothing to do with his brilliant, genius son, and his very diva-like daughter.

  Although, now their kids are nineteen and twenty-three. They don’t live at home anymore, but Catherine assures it doesn’t matter. They still need their spaces. They still respect what the other wants, and they talk more than they fight.

  Catherine gets it.

  I think I might get it, too.

  “But we fight, too,” she adds, grinning a little.

  They argue about things all married couples argue about. She steals his blankets, and he leaves his shit all over the house. She puts too much sugar in his coffee, and he can’t wait until a single thing is cooked before he has to, as she says, “Stick a fucking spoon in it. Drives me nuts.”

  I laugh.

  So does she.

  So yeah, they need their space sometimes.

  Like all normal, married couples.

  “Here is where I release everything weighing me down,” she says before sipping from her glass of cheap red wine. “And that comes on so strong sometimes, that it surprises me. After all these years, and it’s still there, you know?”

  Depression, she means.

  Her struggle with mental illness is one I know all too well, and one she has been open about for a good portion of her life. She doesn’t treat it like a plague anymore, and she knows it’s never really going to go away.

  “Kind of seasonal,” she adds, pointing to the window where it’s bright and clear outside. A summer day, actually. “When the weather is good, I feel good.”

  But when it’s cold and damp and dark, she feels it creeping in. But she almost always knows when it’s coming now, and she can better handle it.

  “Going to Cali helps,” she says.

  “Good weather,” I agree.

  When I ask if she has anything to tell those who struggle like she does, Catherine doesn’t even think about the question. Maybe it’s the fact she’s been battling this for years, and her mantra is always close by.

  Nonetheless, her advice is on point.

  As always.

  “You have to be open,” she explains, “otherwise, how does anyone around you know how to help when you need it the most?”

  Because sometimes, silent screams are all you can do.

  And no one can hear those right away.

  Catherine picks up her phone when it dings, and glances at the screen with a smile. “Cece,” she says when I raise a brow in question.

  All too soon, we’ll be walking down Fifth Avenue because her daughter has finally come back from her honeymoon, and she wants me to join her and Cece on a shopping spree.

  “We don’t do that very often,” Catherine adds, “but I’m giving her a little break before she needs to get back to work.”

  “And how do you feel about that—Cece being in the family business, I mean?”

  I wonder if she’ll answer, since business is supposed to be off the table.

  She surprises me.

  She tells me this felt normal. That watching Cece grow from a young girl to a young woman was normal, too. And, she adds, “It always kind of felt like this was where Cece was going to end up, but we didn’t know how long it would take for her to settle on it.”

  Catherine raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow. It kind of strikes me how much she looks lik
e the red-headed woman in the picture next to the leather chair she rests in. Her mother, Catrina. The dark hair and green eyes come from her father, but she’s definitely her mother’s child.

  “Being a Queen Pin and a mother must be …”

  “It’s a challenge, but I like those.”

  She offers it like there’s nothing else to ask or say, and so I don’t ask anything more in that vein.

  My gaze drifts to the photo on the stand again of her mother. Catherine catches me watching it, and smiles.

  “Do you know there are some who consider your mother to be a very cold woman?” I ask.

  Catherine’s laughter is both light, and bitter. Sharp like glass, and yet sweet like maple syrup. I think if that person was close enough to feel the coldness radiating from Catherine at the idea of someone disliking her mother, they would turn into ice.

  Her mother was the best mother, she explains, her tone warming again. The kind of mother that supported her children no matter what, and always took their interests into perspective before inserting her own.

  “And she loves us,” Catherine adds, shrugging, “she has always loved us even in times when we didn’t give her very much to love. I would like to know what is so cold about that.”

  I couldn’t tell her.

  I don’t know, either.

  And with that question, it’s clear Catherine is done for the moment. All it takes is the suggestion that someone might criticize her mother, and she shuts down.

  It’s clear—obvious.

  Her mother is like her.

  They are similar.

  They are equally strong women with lives that shaped them into who they are today. A person might not like their choices, or their way of living, or even how they chose to do things, but it is not your life.

  It is theirs.

  Queens.

  This is the queen’s home, and so she should not be insulted.

  Still, I dare one more question. “What do you hope the fans of your stories will find within this companion?”

  Catherine stills.

  Quiets.

  Smiles.

  “I hope they find our life is good,” she murmurs, “and that alone makes them happy.”

  I, too, hope it makes you happy.

  —Bethany-Kris

  The Market

  Catherine POV

  Catherine’s gaze shifted between her father’s Mercedes waiting to leave from the drop-off line, and Cross sitting on his friend’s car. Dante would expect his daughter to go right into the school’s entrance considering the bell was about to signal the start of classes. She had other plans for the day that didn’t include sitting in classroom after classroom.

  Plans her dad definitely wouldn’t like.

  Finally, her father’s Mercedes got an opening to leave the growing line up of cars. Soon, her father was out of sight entirely. Catherine checked across the lot to see where her older brother, Michel, had gone to. She caught sight of Michel’s back just as he headed through the entrance doors of the upper Academy.

  All safe, she thought.

  Michel probably wouldn’t have ratted her out, though. He was good like that—she just wasn’t interested in hearing one of his lectures. Like he was a freaking angel or something that never did anything wrong.

  Catherine ignored the call of one of her friends, and her cousin, as she headed across the parking lot. At the sight of her coming his way, Cross pushed off the hood of Zeke’s car, and landed to his feet with wide smile. He was already reaching for her outstretched hand to take by the time she got to him.

  She still wasn’t sure what they were. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Dating or not. Just friends. Something. Nothing.

  It had only been a month since that day at the beach when she kissed him, so for now, Catherine figured it didn’t really matter. She liked Cross, and hanging out with him. He kept the idiots away from her, and made the transition into the new school easier. She didn’t care what he and she were at the moment.

  They could get that all sorted later.

  Right?

  “Ready to have some fun?” Cross asked.

  “Still didn’t say what we were doing.”

  Zeke’s head popped out of the driver’s window. “How does a movie and food in Hell’s Kitchen sound?”

  Catherine looked to Cross. “The city?”

  He shrugged. “We’ll be back in lots of time. Don’t worry about that. No one will even know you skipped out on classes.”

  Oh, she didn’t doubt that for a minute. It was just that Catherine was not supposed to go into the city without an enforcer to watch her. Not to mention, she had never even gone to the city without being accompanied by someone in her family.

  Cross must have seen the hesitance warring in Catherine’s eyes. “We don’t have to go, Catherine.”

  Don’t be stupid. People skip school all the damn time. It’s the city. What’s going to happen to you in a freaking city?

  “We’re going,” she told him.

  Cross took her bag with a laugh, and tossed it into the back of Zeke’s car. Cross climbed into the front while Catherine slid into the backseat alone. They had just pulled out of the school’s parking lot when the bell finally rang behind them.

  “Are we going to pick up—what’s her name … Amanda?” Catherine asked.

  Zeke grunted something Catherine couldn’t understand, and then grumbled more under his breath. The sound alone made her cock an eyebrow. Apparently, something had happened there, and she missed out on it.

  “They’re broken up again,” Cross said when Catherine looked to him for an explanation. “No Amanda today, but maybe next time.”

  “Not gonna be a fucking next time, either,” Zeke said sharply. “I am done with her shit. Drives me crazy.”

  Cross nodded, and scoffed. “Right, man. Like you two don’t do this shit every other week, then? We’re playing games now, I guess.”

  Catherine managed to hide her giggle by slapping a palm over her mouth. Cross always did that kind of stuff to people—all people. Teachers, friends, and whoever else stepped into his path. He liked to call them out when they gave him the chance. She thought people might learn their lesson after the first couple of times.

  Zeke was proof they did not learn.

  “You know what,” Zeke said to Cross, “how about you just shut up.”

  Cross flipped Zeke the middle finger, but didn’t say a word otherwise.

  Zeke glanced in the rearview mirror at Catherine. “Do you have any place that you want to visit in the Kitchen since that’s where we’re heading?”

  “Me?”

  “I’m looking at you, aren’t I?”

  “Be nice,” Cross warned.

  He added a punch to Zeke’s shoulder to make his point. Zeke barely reacted at all to the hit.

  “Yeah, you,” Zeke said, still looking at Catherine. “Anywhere you want to go, or what?”

  Catherine had to think about it. She had only been to Hell’s Kitchen a couple of times before. Usually, her time in the city—when she went—was spent in upper Manhattan, on Fifth Avenue, or inside one of her family’s upscale restaurants. She had gotten to spend the day in Hell’s Kitchen once with her aunt, Kim. One place stood out the most in her memory.

  “Could we go to The Annex?”

  Cross looked back at her. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, the market, you know. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Maybe because he might think it’s a little low-key for your tastes,” Zeke suggested.

  Catherine frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean? Like I’m too spoiled or something?”

  “Yeah—”

  Cross punched Zeke again. A lot harder the second time, and it shut his friend up instantly.

  Zeke glared. “Do that again, Cross.”

  Cross ignored his friend, and turned back to Catherine. “Yeah, we can go to The Annex.”

  She settled into the backseat. “Okay.”

&n
bsp; “Where’s he going?” Catherine asked when Zeke left the table.

  The older teenager headed out of the diner without a look back. His phone had chimed with a call or something, but he hadn’t even checked it before leaving the table.

  “Amanda,” Cross said before taking a bite of pizza.

  “He didn’t even look at his phone. How do you know that?”

  “The ringtone—he uses that one for her calls.”

  “Oh.”

  “You gonna eat, or …?”

  Catherine laughed, and reached for the fork next to her plate. Just the strange look on Cross’s face was enough to make her hesitate.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’re not seriously going to use that, are you?”

  “The fork?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Catherine was so confused that it wasn’t even funny. Yet, there Cross sat looking at her like she was some kind of strange creature, and serious as could be.

  “Well, I was going to use it,” she said, “but not if you keep staring at me like that.”

  He continued chewing on his bite of pizza, and looking at her all the while. Catherine looked away, and then back at him. Still staring.

  “Stop it, Cross.”

  With a laugh, he set his pizza down, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Sorry. It’s just … nobody eats pizza with a fork, Catherine.”

  “Liar. Lots of people do.”

  “Name two.”

  “Me,” she said. “My mom.”

  “Name two more.”

  “My brother and dad.”

  Cross’s brow furrowed. “Really?”

  Catherine shrugged. “Ma’s weird about people making a mess.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yep.”

  Cross nodded at her plate. “Well, your mom isn’t here now, so no forks.”

  “Don’t tell me how to eat my food, Cross.”

  “Jesus, Catherine, why don’t you just pick up that slice of pizza and enjoy it with your hands and mouth like God intended for it to be enjoyed?”

  “What, like you don’t think I can or something?”

  He shrugged, but said nothing.

  Catherine took that as a challenge. She picked up the slice of pizza on her plate, and bit into it with a sly smile. Grease and cheese spread over her fingertips, and made a damn mess of her hands. She did her best to ignore it, though.