Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kristen
"The pacing was perfect," Vittoria insists, waving her iced coffee like a weapon. "Every chapter built on the last one."
Nora snorts. "The pacing was a slog through wet concrete. I skimmed the entire middle section."
"You skimmed?" Vittoria's voice hits a pitch that makes two shoppers at the next kiosk turn around. "That's literary sacrilege."
"It's self-preservation. Life's too short for books that put me to sleep."
I trail behind them through the shopping center, half-listening to their argument about some fantasy romance they'd both read. Vittoria loved it. Nora found it "aggressively boring." They've been at this for twenty minutes now, and honestly? It's the most normal thing I've experienced in weeks.
Lily holds my hand, her other arm wrapped around the stuffed rabbit Vittoria bought her from the toy store we passed. Princess Bun-Bun the Second, apparently. Because the real Princess Bun-Bun needed a travel companion.
"The love interest was emotionally unavailable for three hundred pages," Nora continues. "That's not slow burn. That's a fire that refuses to start."
"He was healing." Vittoria clutches her chest dramatically. "Some of us appreciate a man who needs time to process his trauma."
Nora slides me a look. "Kristen, back me up here."
I hold up my free hand. "I'm Switzerland. Completely neutral."
"Coward," Vittoria mutters, but she's grinning.
We pass a children's clothing store, and Lily tugs my hand. "Mommy, can we look?"
"Maybe on the way back, baby."
The truth is, I know exactly where I want to go. I've known since Nico suggested this shopping trip yesterday. There's a bookstore on the third floor. They have a medical section. I checked their website last night like a complete stalker.
Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary. Latest edition. Seventy-three dollars.
Emergency Medicine: A Comprehensive Study Guide. One hundred and twelve dollars.
Books I've wanted for years. Books I couldn't justify buying when Lily needed new shoes, when rent was due, when Jack's debt ate through everything I earned.
But now I have money. My money. My salary from managing the Sartori household.
Not the gold credit card Nico slipped into my pocket. Not charity. Not another debt I'd owe someone.
Mine.
"Where to next?" Vittoria asks, stopping at an intersection of stores. "Nora needs new shoes—"
"I do not need new shoes."
"You have exactly three pairs. That's tragic."
"That's practical."
"There's a bookstore," I say, the words coming out before I can overthink them. "On the third floor. I wanted to check it out."
Both women turn to look at me. Vittoria's expression shifts from curious to delighted.
Vittoria loops her arm through mine. "Then let's go. Lead the way."
The bookstore smells like paper and coffee. Heaven.
Lily immediately gravitates toward the children's section, where a staff member is setting up puppets for story time. I catch Nora's eye—she nods and follows Lily while Vittoria stays with me.
The medical section is smaller than I hoped. My fingers trail along spines, reading titles I've only seen online. My heart does this stupid flutter thing, like I'm a kid in a candy store.
Pathetic. It's just books.
But it's not just books. It's possibility. It's the part of me that Jack tried to kill and couldn't.
I find the dictionary first. Pull it from the shelf. The weight of it in my hands feels significant somehow.
"That one looks intense," Vittoria says, peering at the cover.
"It's a reference guide. Every medical term you could need." I flip through the pages, and something loosens in my chest. "I've been using a ten-year-old edition I found at Goodwill. This one has updated terminology."
Vittoria reaches for her purse. "Let me—"
"No." The word comes out sharper than I intended. I soften it with a smile. "Thank you, but no. I'm buying this myself."
She studies me for a moment. I expect argument. Pushback. The Sartoris throw money around like it's nothing—I've seen the way they live.
But Vittoria just nods. "Okay."
That's it. No guilt trip. No insistence.
I add the emergency medicine guide to my stack. Then a pharmacology text I've been eyeing for months. The total will eat a chunk of my paycheck, but when I hand over my debit card at the register, something shifts inside me.
This is mine. I earned this. Nobody can take it away.
The cashier bags my books, and I hold them against my chest like treasure.
"You look happy," Vittoria observes as we collect Lily from story time.
I am. Terrifyingly, impossibly happy.
"I forgot what this felt like," I admit. "Wanting something and being able to get it."
Vittoria's smile turns knowing. "Get used to it."
We find Nora and Lily in the children's section, surrounded by a semicircle of toddlers watching a staff member wave a dragon puppet. Lily sits cross-legged at the front,
"She volunteered to be the princess in the story," Nora whispers. "Stood up and everything. Told everyone her name was Princess Lily of Bunny Castle."
That's my girl.
"The kids' store?" Vittoria suggests when story time ends. "I saw the cutest dress in the window."
Lily's eyes go wide. "Can we, Mommy? Please?"
"Yeah, baby. We can."
The store is chaos in the best way. Racks of tiny clothes in every color, shoes displayed like artwork, accessories that sparkle under fluorescent lights. Lily touches everything with reverent fingers.
"This one!" She holds up a purple dress with silver stars. "It's like the sky at night!"
"Let's try it on," I tell her, and her whole face lights up.
Nora and Vittoria help her into the dressing room while I browse the shoe section. Lily's sneakers are held together with hope and duct tape. She needs new ones.
I find a pair of sturdy pink sneakers with good arch support. Then a pair of sandals for summer. Then rain boots with little frogs on them because she loves frogs and I've never been able to buy her anything just because she'd love it.
Lily emerges from the dressing room in the purple dress, spinning so the skirt flares out.
"You look beautiful," I tell her.
"Like a real princess?"
"Better. Like you."
We buy the dress. And a second dress with daisies on it. And three shirts and two pairs of leggings and all the shoes I picked out. The total makes me wince, but I hand over my card anyway.
Ice cream comes next. A little shop on the ground floor with too many flavors and not enough seating.
We squeeze into a corner booth—Lily with her strawberry cone, Nora with mint chip, Vittoria with something called "death by chocolate" that looks like it could actually kill someone, and me with simple vanilla.
"Mommy," Lily says, very seriously, "did you know that rabbits can't eat ice cream?"
"I did not know that."
"It's true. Vittoria told me. Their tummies can't handle it." She licks her cone, considering this tragedy. "So I'm gonna eat extra. For Princess Bun-Bun. Because she can't have any."
Nora chokes on her ice cream. Vittoria snorts so hard she nearly drops her cone.
And I laugh too.
Lily grins, pleased with herself for making the adults lose it.
"She's going to be trouble when she's older," Vittoria says, wiping her eyes. "I love it."
"She already is trouble," I admit. "The good kind."
We finish our ice cream while Lily tells us about the dragon story and the boy who sat next to her who smelled like cheese and how Princess Bun-Bun the Second is definitely going to be best friends with the real Princess Bun-Bun back home.
Home. She called the compound home.
Something twists in my chest. Fear, maybe. Or hope. I can't tell the difference anymore.
"We should do this again," Nora says as we gather our bags. "Next week, maybe."
"Yes!" Vittoria claps her hands. "Girls' day. Make it a thing."
They're both looking at me. Waiting.
They only hang out with you because you're sleeping with Nico. Because circumstances forced you together. Because they feel obligated.
But that's Jack's voice again. Not mine.
Maybe they do feel obligated. Maybe this whole thing falls apart when I'm no longer living under Sartori protection.
But maybe it doesn't.
"I'd like that," I say. And I mean it.
Vittoria beams. Nora nods, satisfied.
Lily reaches for my hand, sticky with strawberry ice cream, and I take it without hesitation.
Socialize more. I add it to my mental list, right under buy more medical textbooks and stop letting Jack live in your head.
Small steps. But they're mine.
Nico
Steam curls through the bathroom doorway like an invitation I didn't ask for but can't refuse.
I find her at the vanity, wrapped in one of my white towels, her damp hair twisted between her fingers as she works it into some kind of braid. The mirror reflects her concentration—brow furrowed, bottom lip caught between her teeth, completely unaware I'm watching.
Fucking beautiful.
Beautiful in a way that makes my chest ache, makes my hands curl into fists at my sides because I want to touch her so badly it physically hurts.
Water droplets cling to her shoulders. Her skin is flushed pink from the heat. She hums something under her breath.
I could stand here forever. Just watching. Just existing in the same space as her.
She turns, catches my reflection, and her hands still in her hair. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough." I push off the doorframe, step into the bathroom. "How was shopping?"
Her face transforms into unfiltered happiness.
"I bought books," she says, fingers resuming their work on her braid. "Medical texts I've been wanting for months. And Lily got this purple dress with stars on it—you should have seen her face, Nico. She looked like Christmas came early."
"Good."
"And Nora and Vittoria..." She pauses, meets my eyes in the mirror. "They made me feel normal. Like I wasn't the housekeeper or the woman in hiding or the problem everyone's trying to fix. Just... a friend. Having a girls' day."
Her voice catches on the last words. I hate that something so simple means so much to her. Hate what that says about her life before.
"It was nice," she finishes softly.
I don't want to ruin this. Don't want to watch that light fade from her eyes.
But I need to know.
"Why didn't you use your card?"
She stiffens. Her fingers fumble the braid. "I did."
"Kristen."
"I bought the books with it. And Lily's clothes."
"You know what I mean."
She sighs, sets down the hair tie, turns to face me fully. The towel shifts with the movement, revealing the delicate line of her collarbone, and I force myself to focus on her face.
"I don't want to use money that isn't mine."
"It is yours."
"No." She shakes her head. "It's yours. You gave it to me, but that doesn't make it mine."
I step closer. She doesn't retreat. "You're with me."
"I know."
"Then what's the problem?" I crowd her against the vanity, hands braced on either side of her hips. "I want you to have whatever you want. Anything. If you need a fucking car, buy one. If you want a house, point at it and it's yours. Why won't you let me give you things?"
Her eyes search my face. Looking for something. I don't know if she finds it.
"Because this is casual," she says quietly. "Right? Between us?"
The word lands like a bullet.
Casual.
I think about the way I can't sleep without her body pressed against mine. The way I check the security feeds twelve times a day just to catch glimpses of her moving through the house. The way my chest cracks open every time Lily calls me "Nee-co" in that tiny voice of hers.
Casual.
I think about how I'd burn this entire city to the ground if anyone touched her. How I've already broken every rule I ever made for myself. How I spent thirty years believing love was a weapon that would destroy me, and now I'm standing here, unarmed, with my chest wide open.
Nothing about this has ever been casual.
"Is that what you think this is?" My voice comes out rougher than I intend.
She swallows. "Isn't it?"
I close the remaining distance between us. My hands find her waist over the towel, and I pull her against me until there's no space left.
"There is nothing casual here," I tell her. "Not one fucking thing."
Her breath catches. "Nico—"
"If you're going to leave me, say it now." I cup her face, force her to look at me. "Tell me right now that you don't want this. That you want to walk away. Because if you don't say it—if you stay—you need to understand what that means."
"What does it mean?"
"Forever." The word tastes like surrender. Like salvation. "You stay, and you're mine. Not for two months. Not until the debt is paid or the custody shit is settled. Forever, Kristen. You and Lily. Mine."
Her eyes go wide.
"I don't know how to do this," she whispers. "I don't know how to be with someone who... who actually wants me to have things. Who doesn't make me feel small."
"Then let me teach you."
A tear spills down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb.
"I'm terrified," she admits.
"So am I."
She laughs—wet, broken, beautiful. "You? Scared of me?"
"Fucking petrified." I press my forehead to hers. "You could destroy me, Kristen. You already have."
Her hands come up to grip my shirt. Not pushing away. Holding on.
"Forever is a long time."
"Not long enough."
She's quiet for a moment. I can feel her pulse racing under my palms, can see the war playing out across her face.
Then she rises on her toes and presses her lips to mine.
Soft. Sweet. An answer.