Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Something that has nothing to do with Viktor, the trust, marriage, or whether someone is trying to kill us.”
I consider the options.
“Pool?”
“You hate losing.”
“I’m willing to suffer for you.”
“Very noble.”
We go to the gaming room.
The heavy curtains have been pulled back, and morning light stretches across the green felt of the pool table. The room smells faintly of leather, wood polish, and the cigar smoke our father somehow embedded in the walls twenty years ago.
Lucia’s pool cue remains in the rack where she left it.
Dario placed a strip of blue tape around the handle after she complained that everyone kept using her favorite.
Lucia notices.
“He marked it.”
“He denied doing that too.”
She runs her thumb over the tape.
“I don’t understand why everyone cares so much.”
“That’s because Viktor convinced you affection always comes with a bill.”
Her gaze lifts to mine.
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“What about you?”
The question lands between us.
“What about me?”
“What do you want?”
I lean against the table.
Too many answers arrive.
I want her laughing in the conservatory.
I want her books in the library and her tea in the kitchen.
I want to hold her hand when she’s awake.
I want to tear Marco’s ring from her finger and replace it with one of my own.
Instead, I pick up a cue.
“I want a rematch.”
Her eyes narrow.
“Coward.”
“Probably.”
She racks the balls.
The sharp crack of my break cuts through the room.
She wins the first game.
I win the second because she scratches on the eight ball.
She claims it doesn’t count.
It absolutely counts.
By the third game, some of the tension has left her shoulders. She moves more freely around the table, no longer checking the doorway whenever someone passes in the hall.
She’s taller than she first appeared beside Marco. Five seven, perhaps, although my father’s height still gives me enough of an advantage to look down at the top of her head.
She leans over the table to line up a shot. Her hair slips free from its knot and falls over one shoulder.
The ring catches the light.
Her aim falters.
The cue glances off the ball.
She straightens.
“Damn it.”
“You can take it off.”
Her gaze drops to the ring.
“The contract says I have to wear it in public.”
“We aren’t in public.”
“I’m still married when no one is watching.”
“Yes.”
The word tastes bitter.
She slides the ring from her finger.
A faint indentation circles the skin beneath it.
She places the band on the wooden edge of the table.
“Better?”
“I don’t know.”
She studies her bare hand.
“Maybe.”
We continue playing.
She misses another shot.
This time, it has nothing to do with the ring.
“What happened at the church?” she asks.
I set down my cue.
“You were there.”
“Before I came in.”
I touch my cheek.
“You slapped me.”
“You deserved it.”
“Before that.”
I look toward the open door.
“No one is listening.”
“Marco might be.”
“He’s in his office.”
“That’s never stopped him from knowing everything.”
She’s not wrong.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why you were standing beside him.”
“Because he asked me to.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
I sit on the edge of the pool table.
“I thought if you saw me, you might believe you were safe.”
“Were you part of the agreement?”
“No.”
“Did Marco ask whether you wanted to marry me?”
The question is so unexpected that I laugh.
Lucia doesn’t.
“No,” I say.
“What would you have said?”
I look at her.
She holds the cue across her body like a shield.
“If marrying you was the only way to get you out of Viktor’s house, I would have done it.”
Her expression doesn’t change.
“But?”
“But I wouldn’t want you agreeing because you were frightened.”
“I was frightened when I married Marco.”
“I know you were.”
“And you still stood there.”
“I was afraid that if I fought him in the church, you would end up back with Viktor.”
“So you chose his plan.”
“Yes.”
She looks away.
“I don’t know whether to be angry with you.”
“You can be.”
“That isn’t helpful.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“The truth would be a refreshing change.”
I set the cue beside me.
“The truth is that I wanted to drag you out of the church and put you in a car. The truth is that Marco’s agreement was the only way to get you through the doors without Viktor starting a gunfight.”
She looks at me again.
“And the truth is that when you asked to marry me, part of me wanted to say yes.”
Her breath catches.
I should stop.
I don’t.
“I knew you were trying to hurt Marco. I knew you didn’t mean it. That didn’t stop me from wishing you did.”
Silence fills the room.
A stripe of sunlight lies across the table between us, catching on the gold ring near Lucia’s hand.
She lowers the cue.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I shouldn’t have used you to hurt him.”
“There are worse uses.”
The joke doesn’t land.
I push away from the table.
“You asked for the truth.”
“I know.”
She winces.
“Sorry.”
“That phrase is ruined forever.”
A faint smile appears.
Then it disappears.
“I did miss you,” she says.
The words are quiet.
I hold completely still.
“At Viktor’s,” she continues. “I missed everyone. But I thought about you when it was quiet.”
“What did you think?”
“That you would have made it less quiet.”
“Probably.”
“And that you would have found a way to make me laugh.”
“I would have tried.”
“I know.”
This time, neither of us objects to the words.
Lucia steps closer.
Then she wraps her arms around me.
For a moment, I don’t move.
Her cheek rests against my chest. Her hands close around the back of my shirt.
I put my arms around her carefully.
She exhales.
The sound moves through both of us.
This isn’t a casual embrace.
It lasts too long.
Her body fits against mine too easily, and every instinct I have tells me to pull her closer.
I don’t.
She has been home less than a day.
She is frightened, exhausted, and married to my brother.
Wanting her doesn’t entitle me to take anything she hasn’t freely offered.
Lucia tilts her face upward.
We’re too close.
Her eyes are dark enough that I can’t separate the pupils from the irises. Her mouth parts slightly, and her gaze drops to mine.
My heart forgets how to function.
For one suspended second, I think she might kiss me.
I want her to.
God help me, I want her to.
I loosen my arms and step back.
Confusion flickers across her face.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell her.
“Then why did you move?”
Because one kiss would never be enough.
Because I don’t know whether she wants me or only wants to feel safe.
Because Marco may have married her through coercion, but I refuse to touch her while fear is making her choices.
“You’ve had a difficult night.”
Her expression cools.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Decide what I feel for me.”
The accusation lands close to something Marco would say.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
She folds her arms.
“If I wanted you to kiss me, would you?”
The room becomes very small.
“Not today.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know you want me when you aren’t terrified of being alone.”
Her anger falters.
“And if I do?”
I look at her mouth.
“Ask me again.”
Color rises into her cheeks.
She turns toward the pool table and retrieves the wedding ring.
Instead of putting it on, she closes it inside her fist.
“We should finish the game.”
“Probably.”
She bends over the table.
Her first shot sinks two balls.
Mine misses completely.
Lucia glances at me.
“Distracted?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Occasionally.”
By late afternoon, we’re sitting in the conservatory.
The glass walls hold the day’s warmth, and the air smells of damp soil and roses drifting in from the garden. Ferns crowd the lower shelves. Angela’s lemon trees stand in large clay pots near the windows, their glossy leaves catching the sun.
Lucia occupies her old chair beneath the tallest window.
I sit on the tiled floor beside it with my back against the wall.
She reads.
I pretend to.
At some point, her hand drops from the arm of the chair and comes to rest on my shoulder.
Neither of us mentions it.
Through the glass, the pool shines blue beyond the roses. Somewhere in the house, a door closes. Angela begins singing in the kitchen, the tune faint but recognizable.
The house feels right again.
Her sweater is where it belongs. Her voice drifts through the rooms. The men no longer speak as though someone has died.
Lucia is home.
But she wears Marco’s ring in public.
She flinches when his footsteps enter a room.
She reaches for me when she’s frightened.
And I’m beginning to want things I have no right to want.
Lucia turns a page.
“Gio?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really think Lucy suits me better?”
I look up.
Her expression is cautious.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Lucia sounds like someone who sits perfectly straight at Viktor’s dinner table.”
“And Lucy?”
“Lucy steals my chips and cheats at pool.”
“I don’t cheat.”
“That’s exactly what Lucy would say.”
She smiles.
“I think I like it.”
“The name?”
“When you say it.”
Something warm and dangerous unfolds inside my chest.
“All right,” I say.
Her hand squeezes my shoulder once.
Then she returns to her book.
Lucy.
The name changes inside my head.
Not replacing who she was.
Belonging to who she has chosen to become.
Things are almost right again.
That’s the problem.
Almost can be a dangerous place to live.