Chapter 15 Annetta #2
Getting angry isn’t going to help, but we’ve been talking in circles for ages now. Dom glances at me from the living room as he measures the water levels of his aquarium and writes them into a little black notebook.
Pages of Valeria’s contract spread out over the kitchen table, ready to serve as a quick reference when I called Neil the pianist, expecting to dive into an argument with a grown man, not a guy who sounds like he’s barely out of high school.
“I told you, Mrs. Lombardi,” he says. “I asked my landlord, and she won’t give me an extension. I really need this gig, but I need a little time to borrow an electric piano from someone.”
My chest squeezes at the desperation in Neil’s voice. I’m too soft.
“If I find you one, can you promise you’ll do the event?”
“Really? Yes, wow, thank you!”
He could be scamming me. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with liars and con artists in the family before, but the pure gratitude in his voice sounds sincere, and I’m pretty sure he’s not orchestrating the organic sounds of a couple screaming at each other in the distance.
I’ll buy the kid a nice piano with Dom’s credit card—he has plenty of money to spare—Valeria and her dad never have to know, and everyone’s happy.
“We’ll chat soon.”
He thanks me about a hundred more times until I’m finally able to hang up.
“He give you back the deposit?” Dom asks, glancing at me from over the top of his glasses. He’s kneeling before his massive aquarium with a strip of wet paper in his hand, his huge forearms perched on the ledge of its wooden stand.
“I’m working on it.”
The last thing I want to do is send the Butcher to scare some poor kid. I grab my coffee cup, leaving behind the half-finished flower arrangement on the kitchen table, to sit on the couch facing Dom.
He looks doubtful but says nothing about it as he prints out a few surprisingly tidy notes into his notebook. Several glittery fish dart toward the edge of the tank, watching him.
We exist in an envelope of comfortable silence as I sip at my coffee and luxuriate in the warmth of my husband working near me.
Normally, being around someone like this stresses me out—I can’t fight the compulsion to play hostess or cook—but with Dom focused on his fish, I can exist as myself, at least for the moment.
The sun slowly melts the snow off the skyscrapers outside as I ease into the soft leather underneath me.
At Christmas, Mom would take out the snow globe collection she had since she was a girl, and I would stand at the mantle, fascinated by watching the snowflakes fall in their safe little bubbles. Does she still do that?
I celebrated the past few Christmases with Frederico’s family, which were tense affairs while I watched Giulia make backhanded compliments about my gifts and sat next to her son, who did nothing about it.
Dom still hasn’t told me who sent the hitman yesterday, but I already know. She’s the same person in my nightmares, standing at the edge of a boat with a vicious light in her soft face, watching me drown. The same person who called me at my parents’ house to say she knew what I’d done.
Frederico and Marco never knew to what extent their mother pulled the strings, smoothing their failures and elevating their successes, but Giulia always made sure I saw as she played the part of family matriarch. I know there’s no depth she won’t sink to.
I exhale a long, steadying breath. She can’t touch me here. Maybe Don Salvatore’s willing to wait to act, but Dom and my dad have their influence too. Dad loves me and will protect me, and Dom, well, I’m working on that.
“What’s that little sigh for?” Dom asks, waving his black ballpoint pen in my direction.
My first instinct is to clam up. I don’t have anything to say.
It’s stupid. It’s nothing.
Dom grins knowingly and leans against the wooden aquarium stand. “I got all day, reginetta. You take all the time you need.”
I remember the way he looked at me when I told him what I did to Frederico. If anyone deserves open honesty, it’s Dom.
I take a sip of my lukewarm coffee to stall for a few seconds longer. “I’ve been wondering… what kind of wife you want me to be?”
Dom raises his eyebrows. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
I rub my thumb against the smooth surface of the mug. “I mean, I’ll cook, obviously. You could let the housekeeper go, and I could clean. We’re on the same page about kids. Do you want me to get a job?”
He shifts so he’s facing me on one knee, all the relaxed fluidity from earlier stiffening with what looks like irritation. “You and I, we didn’t get married for love.”
The reminder shouldn’t feel like a glass shard to the heart, but it does. I resist the urge to rub my chest.
He continues. “So, you and I, we’re gonna take it day-by-day.
I like your cooking, but if you hate it, we can order takeout.
I’m not firing the house cleaner—she’s been loyal for years—but you can clean if you want to.
You can get a job too, if you want to.” He taps his pen against the aquarium stand.
“It goes without saying that you shouldn’t leave the house unless you’re with me or we get all this mess sorted out.
In the meantime, you have my card. Buy or do whatever you want. ”
The longer he talks, the more I burn with wild panic, like a massive, swelteringly hot spotlight has just swiveled in my direction, and I never learned the show’s routine.
What I want to do?
When has that ever been an option?
The panic refracts, focuses like a beam of light, to anger. “Whatever I want?”
Dom grins. He knows a trap when he sees one.
“Will you teach me how to fight?”
“I never said I wouldn’t.”
I scoff. “You said I’d only fight a flea.”
He barks out a laugh, and despite myself—even if I’m still holding onto my anger—I smile too, a little bit.
“I’ll teach you to fight, reginetta. Is that what you want?”
And just like that, the anger dissolves, leaving behind electric anticipation in its place.
Every time I expect him to go left, he goes right.
I think he’ll be cruel in bed, but he’s tender and generous.
I’m scared he’ll throw me to the wolves after I lie to him, but he comforts and holds me through the night.
I take my time to answer him, inching forward as his gaze touches all over me, to set my mug on the coffee table with a clink.
I brace my elbows on my knees. “Are you going to treat it seriously?”
A hungry look passes over his features. He leans toward me, on one knee, like he could lunge at me at any moment. My stomach flips.
“Dead serious.”
“Alright.” I rise from the sofa. I can almost feel the current of tension between us, dragging us toward each other. “Then teach me how to escape.”
He laughs, but his fingers give him away, tightening over the ledge of the aquarium stand. His thigh muscles flex. “Right now?”
I shrug, although I’m anything but casual. I roll back and forth on the balls of my feet. “Why not? I should always be ready to run, right? You can… critique my evasion techniques.”
“That what you want?” he asks in delighted disbelief. He pulls off his glasses and folds them.
My heart beats a hundred times over. “Count to five and find out.”
I turn and vault over the sofa, racing to the stairs.
His voice rumbles behind me like a distant roll of thunder.
“One…”