Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
LORENZO
T he front door closed, and Benedetta’s voice filled the entrance hall. Together with another I had combed every corner of my fucking city for. Malicious fury rushed through my body. Instantly, I forgot the unease that had been coasting through my veins.
I gripped the kitchen island and shifted my gaze to the ceiling. Held on for dear life and willed myself not to stalk into the hallway and squeeze out her life between my hands. I searched the whole of fucking New York, and she just walked in like she’d been on a picnic or something. Their excited voices stung me like damn alcohol on a gunshot wound. I couldn’t make sense of it. There was too much Martello blood rushing in my head that had taken hold of my common sense. Too long in the oven? What fucking oven?
Benedetta’s coughing fit riled up the aggravation riding on the back of my neck. “ Beddra Matri! Did the kitchen catch fire?”
I fisted my hands into balls and took a hot breath. I tried for nonchalance. “Where the fuck have you been?” Couldn’t say it worked since it fell harsh and hard on the damn room.
Benedetta came into view, waving at the smoke around me. “This stuff will kill you one day.” If my wife doesn’t. “Daria and I were at my place and—”
I respected my Mamma’s childhood friend. Might not have shown it all the time. But I did. A lot. “Shut the fuck up.” My wife’s gasp seared my back.
Benedetta stilled, and confusion marred her forehead. “I don’t know—”
“Out. Now.”
She threw a worried glance over my shoulder. To my runaway wife, I guessed. Except she hadn’t run. Or she had changed her mind and come back. She had me upside down, inside out, and I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Made me yell at Mamma’s best friend.
“ Figlio mio —”
Red in my vision. “I swear to God, if you—”
“It’s okay. I’ll talk to you later, Benedetta.” My wife’s soft voice ran up my spine like a nasty rash I couldn’t scratch.
Benedetta sighed and dumped the box in her hand on the kitchen island with a loud thud. “You better be nice to her, or your Mamma will be rolling in her grave.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t funny. Mamma would have fucking loved my wife. She would have probably taken her side over mine. Just because that was Mamma. Looking out for the weaker side.
Benedetta took too fucking long. She grumbled and cursed, and a second before I thought my patience was going to explode, like fireworks sizzling in the air, the thud of the front door closing reverberated in the silent room.
There was an itch burning the back of my neck, and it screamed the name Daria. I couldn’t do it anymore. I swung my gaze ninety degrees, and it bolted straight to my wife. I didn’t know what Benedetta was complaining about because no smoke haze hid her from me.
Her forehead was marred like she was trying to figure out a mathematical equation or probably wondering why she hadn’t run. A split second later, she came to a decision, straightened up her shoulders, and sauntered over to me, like a fucking siren. Each step she took throttled my dark mood up, one mercury line at a time.
“You’re so damn rude,” she puffed out as she reached for the box on the island.
My right hand shot out and whipped her around.
“Where the fuck were you?”
“Geez.” She tried to swat my hand. My hold was too tight. I knew that. But I wasn’t planning to let go anytime soon. When she realized that she let out a heavy sigh. “She told you. I went to Benedetta’s. I cooked there.”
Yeah right. She didn’t cook. But I let it slip. “You snuck out under my men to go to her?”
“Well, no.” She chewed her lip. “I walked around…” She walked around? Alone? In the middle of fucking New York? “Then I went to her.”
“How?” I growled.
“Took the subway. I mean the trains. That’s what they call it here. I like it. I think I’ll do it more.”
Another mercury line shifted. My wife on the subway. I don’t think so.
“What’s the big deal, anyway?”
“You tell me,” I said tightly. “Why did you sneak out?”
She shrugged like we were talking about her preference for restaurants. “I needed time to clear my head.”
There was a fuse ticking in my forehead, and it was about to blast off. “What did she say?”
We both knew who the fucking ‘she’ was.
“She said you fucked her.”
I knew this. Because Nico was very good at getting the information out of a woman without touching an inch of her skin. I would take care of that bitch and her filthy mouth later. But the words coming out of my wife’s mouth still sent a punch to my chest because fuck if I knew how to prove I hadn’t.
“Before I met you.”
“No.” She tried again to get her hand out. “She said after. A few weeks ago.”
“I didn’t.” I’d been so busy looking for her that I hadn’t thought about my defences. My mind ran wild, a million miles an hour, trying to come up with ways to convince her.
My life slowed down to mere seconds. Desperation crawled through my body, grabbed hold of each bone, and hung tight. Realization, cold and harsh, swept through me, that I could never win her trust, no matter how much I tried. This time, I might lose her. Forever.
“I know.”
My head shot up. Of a million scenarios I’d imagined, this was not one of them.
“What?”
My hand on her wrist loosened a tad, and I pulled her closer.
“I know you didn’t fuck her.”
“Yeah?” A rush of irritation grated on the back of my neck. She was too fucking na?ve. She shouldn’t believe the good in everyone, including myself. “How?”
“I asked her questions, and she answered wrong.”
Well, well, well. Dark amusement lifted my lips. “You asked questions?”
She nodded.
“Like what?”
“When? Where?”
“And?”
She shrugged. “The when didn’t add up. It was the day you were supposed to go to Boston. But you canceled. Remember when Orietta pissed me off?”
I did remember. “Where?”
She scrunched up her forehead. “She said at her place, but I couldn’t fault that. Oh.” She perked up like she suddenly remembered something. “Your tattoos didn’t add up.”
I frowned. “What else did you discuss? The length of my dick?”
She leaned over and patted my chest. “We are both happy about it.”
Jesus! Her sassiness got me every single time. The urge to push her down to her knees and wrap that smirk on my cock sufficed. But instead, I pulled her between my legs. “What about my tattoos?” I growled on her neck.
“She said you fucked again. I calculated and it was supposed to be right after you got this.” Her fingers trailed the back of my hand. “It didn’t add up.”
“What happened to your phone?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. I thought I had it when I got on the subway, but when I got off, I didn’t. Maybe I left it in uni.”
The back of my teeth clenched. Was she for real? How could she be strong enough to figure out a pack of interconnected lies but na?ve enough to not think someone had swiped her phone in the sub?
I sniffed her neck and breathed in her fragrance. “I thought I’d lost you.” My words sounded needy, even to me, but I was three whiskeys down, God knows how many cigarettes, and there was Martello blood still boiling in my veins. I didn’t care that I sounded vulnerable. Just fucking elated to have her back in my arms.
She pushed me off. “You might if I don’t eat.”
I frowned. There was something off about her.
My gaze followed her as she took plates from the kitchen and set the table. Porcelain and cutlery sounded as loud as gunshots in the silent room. She set the table like she was expecting company, but I could only count two plates. She brought the box and put it in the middle and the mouthwatering smell of home-cooked lasagne reminded me I had drunk too much, and smoked even more, but had eaten nothing.
“Come on.”
I followed her and took my seat. My face burned with her gaze when I took my first mouthful. She had nothing on her plate and a question on her face. “And?”
I scowled.
“You like it?”
“What’s there…” I trailed off. You’ve got to be kidding me. “You made this?” I looked at my plate like it was a plate full of sparkles instead of lasagne sheets and Bolognese sauce.
“Yes.” She was on her knees on the chair and leaned over with her elbows on the table. “So you like it?”
It was too fucking sweet. She must have mixed up her salt with sugar, and the minced meat could have cooked longer. “It’s fucking delicious, Principessa . Is this why you went to Benedetta?”
“Yes. I can’t believe you like it.” She took her fork and made to take a bite from the box. I stopped her with my wrist in her hand. Didn’t want her to figure out the sweet and salt mix-up.
“I want it all.”
She laughed, and it touched all the malicious walls in my body. She dropped the fork. “I wasn’t hungry, anyway.”
I shoveled it in at a rapid tempo. Didn’t want her to change her mind. Tomorrow, I’d let Benedetta handle it subtly. “Why didn’t you make it in here?”
“Didn’t want to make a mess of it.”
“I don’t care about the mess you make, Principessa .”
“Yes, you do!”
I stilled and frowned. “Fine, I do care. But we can clean it up later.”
I halted with my fork midway. A man should love me for myself floated in my head.
A sudden knowledge, thick and syrupy, planted itself in my brain, and the desire to eat sucked out of me. I slid the plate across the table, where it clattered against the other dishes and cutlery. She blinked.
I pushed my chair back and in a flash, had her on the table.
“You cooked for me.”
Her face fell. Like she realized the implications. Only now.
My voice was tight, and the words came off more gruff than I wanted. “I think someone loves me.”
She jerked her head in a violent ‘no.’
“ Sì ,” I whispered.
“You, then.” she muttered, and the hesitancy of her words sent a warmth through me.
I grabbed her neck and forced her eyes on me. My hand wrapped around it in a gentle choke. “Both of us.”
A hot breath fell on my face. “Maybe. But I wouldn’t let it get to your big fat ego.”
My face stretched in one big stupid grin.
She frowned. “If you cheat on me, I’m still kicking you out.”
“Of course.”
“No man will ever degrade me. You understand?” she bit out.
My thumb grazed the length of her throat. “I wouldn’t allow it. Even if that man was me.”
“I’m still going to uni.”
I nodded.
“We’re not having a child now.”
I nodded again. There was so much adrenaline in my veins that I didn’t give a damn. I just wanted her.
DARIA
“I might never want a child.”
He nodded again. Clearly, he’d lost his common sense. Or he wasn’t listening. “I also want a threesome.” And the hand around me choked.
“No fucking way,” he growled.
I laughed. “Just checking if you are listening.”
“I am.” He traced the line of my bottom lip. “Thank you.”
His gruff words washed over me like a fresh blanket. Unusual but warm in its comfort.
“For what?”
But I knew what was going to come out of his mouth. But it still hits me hard in the hollow behind my rib cage. “For trusting me, for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I know it’s hard.”
He made me choke up. He made me well up in tears. He understood me. “You trust me too.” He let me defy my upbringing, even if he might not have agreed with it. He let me go out into the world, even if it was hard on him.
“Yeah? We’ll work on it together.”
I nodded.
I couldn’t judge him like every other man. I had to give him the chance to be himself and take the risk with my heart. One day, he might cheat on me, just like one day, he might meet with an accident or get himself killed. There was no certainty, but it was worth giving it a chance. Not that there was any choice in it for me. My heart’s decision was already made. I knew it the moment I hesitated to run from that bench in the park. The moment my hackles rose to protect him. The moment I stepped up to the cooker to please him.
I had wanted a different marriage. A different man. Not the one in front of me. I had wanted everything a nice boy had to offer, but my heart yearned for the callous words and the rough manners of the man in front of me. I needed him more than my next breath. This marriage would differ from others. Because he needed me, too. I couldn’t really grasp what love was. But this sounded like it to me.