Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
What dark circles under her eyes?
Her skin looked like a doll’s.
Marcus had barely even made a sound all morning. He didn’t care when they changed him from outfit to outfit or patted his little bottom until his eyes drifted close and he was back to sleeping happily in someone else’s arms or on yet another prop.
Then again, as long as that kid had a boob in his mouth, he was pretty happy to begin with. Also, newborn shoots were ... very involved. More went into those than she had realized before today, but she had a new respect for the photogs doing it.
Even if they kept getting their rights and lefts mixed up.
Bene, on the other hand ...
Complained a lot.
He wasn’t the only one considering when August showed up—Cara wanted updated pictures of the twins, and family photos from both men as well with their wives—she let everybody know how Beni sulked from the hotel to the house about taking pictures.
Bene did about the same.
Apparently, the twins had never been big on professional photos. Candids were a whole other story, and the mansion was full of those. But actual professional shots or even portraits for the paintings? There weren’t nearly as many.
“Well, this should be amusing,” Cara noted, coming to stand on Vanna’s left where a servant had brought in a chair for her to use while she fed little Marcus. With his head safely tucked under a thin, cashmere blanket, he fed while she palmed the back of his head and let her thumb stroke the side of his head the way he liked the best.
Her sweet boy.
He was absolutely perfect.
“What’s that?” Vanna asked.
Cara nodded her head toward the middle of the room. August stepped out of the shot when the photog waved her away and came in their direction.
“Bene, get in there on the left, if you wouldn’t mind, and we’ll take a couple of shots with just the two of you—”
“I’m not getting on the left.”
Cara made a noise under her breath when the man looked away from his camera.
Beni piped up real quick, too, saying, “I don’t stand on the right.”
August had finally come to stand on the other side of Vanna. Cara, on the other hand, sighed when two voices rang out in the middle of the room to say, “Ma, it’s not right.”
“Just like when they were kids. Nothing changes, they just get bigger,” Cara muttered before saying louder for the rest of the room, “Beni is always on the left—Bene on the right. That’s ... just the way it is.”
Ah.
Vanna finally understood. “When did they start that, anyway?”
One of the many things the twins did together that were unique to their bond and that she never understood.
The boys and photographer were back to doing their thing. Baby Marcus continued to feed happily and unaware, warm and soft against his mother’s chest.
Cara laughed weakly, giving Vanna a look from the side. “Well ...”
*
Cara POV
“What are you doing?”
At her husband’s voice, Cara glanced up from the crib that they kept set up in their master bedroom. That way, their babies could sleep with them close but still being safe. It was also a lot easier to just wake and feed and change and then put their twins back down to sleep when they were all in one room together.
Cara nodded at the sight in front of her, never looking up to greet Gian. “Come look.”
His soft approach belied the fact that their wood floods sometimes creaked to the heavens. She swore he taught himself to walk quietly because he didn’t want her to tell him to be quiet one more time in their home.
The joys of babies and toddlers.
Everything woke them up.
It was only when Gian had come to stand next to het, and his arm found its usual spot tight around her waist, that she looked up at him.
“This is how they want to be,” she told him. “Otherwise, they just cry.”
Gian smiled.
It still took her breath away.
After all these years.
“I didn’t notice,” he admitted.
Cara nodded, her gaze drifting back to the twin babies wrapped in blue muslin inside their crib. The two boys, Beni and Bene had to sleep or play or even be held on the same sides that they had rested inside her womb.
Left and right.
Twin A and Twin B.
Beni and Bene.
Chapter 3 – Bene POV
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Beni’s question had Bene laughing under his breath. The thick sense of nostalgia that wrapped around his chest as he stared at the roof of their parents’ indoor pool only added to the light buzz in his mind. Compliments of the bud that Alessio brought back from a job in a country he wasn’t allowed to talk about. Which was fine because the guy brought them something better anyway.
“That’s not how we play this game,” Bene replied.