10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace (Caselli Family Book 1)

Everyone clapped as the lights went out and we all took our places on the steps. I held my husband’s hand, as everyone stood around us. When the lights came on, we saw all of the attendees of Case House’s annual ball. I stood next to Maverick. Landon stood behind Maverick to the left while Kora stood in the middle, and Zoya on the other side of her.

Corleon stood in front of us with Skyler and Jeffie on each side of him. “Welcome fuck heads… another year, more pussy, and way more money. I’m usually up here alone, but it’s time to introduce you to the Caselli family… and the Brusters.”

Everyone clapped their hands and cheered for us as we stood on the steps. My husband was sexy in his suit, with his CH pin and his Wonder pin on his lapel. I wore a gold ball gown with my own CH pin pinned to the corset of the dress.

“I want to introduce you to the love of my life… my beautiful wife, Stevie Caselli. She plans to be in your fucking pockets because I know you bitches buy art. If you can buy pussy, you can fuck up a bag with her gallery when it opens.”

I squeezed his hand and mouthed love you.

I went from never knowing what was next for me or feeling lost since I lost my mother. When I met Maverick Caselli, I had no clue the plans that God had for me. All I knew is that I needed to save two people who didn’t deserve to be saved.

There was a reason I allowed Pricilla to put that money in my account. Yeah, had it been anyone else I could have been dead. It wasn’t anyone else, it was Menace Caselli that I ended up meeting. Though this started with him needing a wife and me needing to save my father and best friend, this turned out to be more than that.

I learned about Maverick, not Menace. Loving this man taught me that I wasn’t really lost, I was waiting around for him to come and save me. We both needed one another to complete the other. When he climbed between my legs and I held him every night, I never felt so safe, and I knew he felt safe in my arms.

Although he still tensed up at times when I hugged him randomly, he was learning to feel love. He had gone so long not letting anyone in, not even his family, and I didn’t want him to go another second.

Our baby was going to further heal this family and bring us closer to each other. I wanted his siblings to come to our home for Sunday dinners, and for us to continue to spend holidays together. It broke my heart knowing that this man spent his holidays alone.

Never again.

My baby would never spend another holiday, birthday, or moment alone with me as his wife. Like I knew he would protect and love me, I would do the same when it came to him. I trusted everything that came out that man’s mouth and knew he would never hurt me. He was the warm and safe feeling I had been searching for and I finally had it.

He was considering going back to therapy and actually talking to the therapist. Maverick had a lot of things to work through that my love couldn’t heal. As much as he hated to talk about Angelica and their relationship, there was a lot to unpack there, and I prayed he did the therapy.

I was so content with life that it scared me. My gallery was going to be amazing, and I couldn’t wait to have a grand opening and invite all of Maverick’s rich friends. This was exactly what I should have been doing, and I wouldn’t have done it without my baby.

Skyler was in the house hunting phase, although Corleon wasn’t with it. He wanted her to continue to rent and then move into his house with Jeffie. Both of them were standing firm on having their own until they had rings on their fingers. I wanted Skyler to have the happiness she had with Jeffie and Corleon so bad. Time would tell if she would allow herself to have what she wanted with them.

Cindy was still at the shop and checked in with me often. I missed working at the shop, but I now had a new responsibility and that was baking a human, being a wife, and getting the gallery together. When I made time, I would stop by and see her and catch up because I did miss her.

Alex was still at the store, and he still texted to check in with me. He used to worry about me so much, and now that he met Maverick and knew I was happy, he stopped worrying so much. Every so often he would send his infamous check in message, and it was always nice to tell him that I was happy, safe, and loved.

As for my father, I don’t know what happened to him and I don’t think I wanted to know. Steve Raye had done a lot of people wrong for the sake of money. In the end it bit him in his ass. He had every chance to make things right, and he decided to make it bad for himself. It wasn’t my job to save a grown man. At the end of the day, he was the parent, and he had failed me so much that it became normal.

Being failed by a parent should never become normal.

Priscilla loved money so much that she allowed a man to ruin her life. I like to think we were friends at one point, and then I shake the thought away because it couldn’t be true. A true friend would have never put me in the position that she had put me in. The more time that passed, the more I saw she was for herself and didn’t care about me.

One thing about God, he never played about Stevie. He put me in a messed-up situation, and I ended up marrying a billionaire. All this time I was waiting for a sign from my mama, and she was putting the pieces in play for me.

Again, she didn’t have to be as dramatic about it.

I had fell in love with the man that took me to meet his dead parents on our first date. It didn’t get any crazier than Maverick, and I wouldn’t trade my sexy mental patient for the world. Long as he could smell me when he was about to hit the roof, all would be great in the world.

Menace touched my stomach. “Y’all said fuck my son?”

“Maverick didn’t nobody say that, and we don’t even know what we’re having,” I smacked his hand away from me.

Everyone didn’t know if they should clap to congratulate us or run with how quick his attitude changed. “To baby Caselli,” Corleon lifted his champagne glass, and cheered.

Everyone cheered. “To baby Caselli.”

I’d spend forever and a day with Menace Caselli. I searched his eyes as he did mine, and then we kissed each other. “I love you, Wanda.”

“Love you, Mitchell.”

I was Stevie Caselli, and I was married to the ghost, the rumor, the Menace Caselli.