34. Dario
DARIO
I knew that going to dinner was going to be iffy, but I hadn’t known what a disaster it would be. If I had known, I would have kept her inside. Kept her in bed, in my arms where she’s meant to be.
I feel stupid. Of course she’s afraid of leaving. The last time she did, she and her son were kidnapped. Why didn’t I give it more time?
I bring up two glasses of wine to bed, and she takes a glass from me, smiling gratefully.
“I’m... I’m sorry,” she says quietly, looking away from me.
I frown and grab her chin to force her gray eyes to mine.
“Don’t you dare apologize. It was too much, too soon. It’s my fault.”
“I’m fine,” she insists. “You keep rattling around in this house and I know you have work you need to get done.”
“Nothing is more important than you feeling better, Li.”
She bites her lip, looking away again. “I don’t know how to feel better.”
I climb into bed and draw her close to my chest, kissing the top of her head.
“You don’t have to know, baby. Not now. Just rest.”
“If you do have work to do tomorrow, I’ll be fine here. Marie will be here to help with Sonny and Sofia will cook for me.”
There is something I need to take care of. Something important. Something I've been putting off.
“Are you sure?”
I hate that I’m even asking. I don’t want to be away from her for more than a few minutes, but the world doesn’t stop because my wife is ill.
Unfortunately.
“I’m sure,” she says confidently. “As long as I don’t go outside any further than the pool, I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to.”
She nuzzles against my neck and my heart starts to race, but I tell my dick to stand down. This isn’t the right time, not when she’s so upset and vulnerable.
She falls asleep in my arms and I carefully lower her to bed, slipping off into sleep beside her after a few minutes.
I’ve never slept better than with Liana beside me. What does that say about me?
The next morning, panic claws up my throat when I wake and she’s not next to me. I hate that I sleep like the dead.
I pull on a pair of sweats since I’d discarded my suit in the night and pad downstairs, finding her sitting at the dining room table with Sonny, eating fruit.
Relief relaxes my shoulders and I walk over to sit next to Sonny. He instantly puts all his cantaloupe on my plate and I hand him my grapes.
Liana raises an eyebrow.
“Oh, he doesn’t like cantaloupe and I don’t like grapes, so we swap.”
“Yeah!” Sonny pipes up, popping a sliced grape into his mouth. Sofia always cuts them so that he won’t choke.
Liana smiles but there’s something strange about it. Something almost sad.
She looks back down at her own plate of fruit. “I guess I’m an anomaly. I like all fruits.”
“Better than being picky like this one,” I tease, ruffling Sonny’s hair. He smiles up at me, taking it with good humor.
Liana stiffens in her seat and I frown.
“Are you alright?”
“Fine,” she answers. “Maybe just still tired.”
“You’ve been through a lot. It’s okay to rest.”
She stands. “Sonny, come lie down with me while I nap? You can leave once I fall asleep.”
“Okay, Mama,” he says, agreeable enough, taking our plates to the kitchen.
I hear muffled conversation between him and Sofia and then he returns with a smile.
“Sofia says I’m a big help.”
“You are,” Liana tells him, taking his hand as she leads him up the stairs.
I watch them go, still frowning, before walking upstairs myself and dressing in a pair of black slacks and a t-shirt. I don’t need to be formal for what I have to do today.
I call Giovanni around ten.
“Boss?”
“I’m ready.”
“Alright. I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”
The cleaner takes care of things like this for me, but this time, I want to see it. I want to see my cousin, Beth Conte, put in the ground for what she did to my wife.
Giovanni shows up and I slide into the passenger seat.
“You don’t normally go to these.”
I shrug. “I have a personal stake in this.”
“Do you?”
I grit my teeth. “She’s my wife, Giovanni.”
He sighs. “This wasn’t supposed to be forever, boss.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, annoyed. “I know that. But... I want...”
“You want it to be?” he urges and I could hit him.
“Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I do.”
“Fucking Christ,” he curses, pulling into the landfill. He gives a thumbs up to the garbage truck behind him.
They start to slowly back up and we move out of the way, watching as trash fills the landfill. I see Beth’s covered body, sliding down a mountain of trash and into the abyss.
Good riddance.
I was cruel to Beth when we were young, but this was a hell of an overreaction. She went after the people I care about, and I’m not sorry I killed her.
I just wish I’d done it sooner, before she’d had the chance to hurt Liana.
She nearly took Liana away from me for good, and I’d be a different man then.
Maybe a monster.
Without Liana and Sonny, I fear this lifestyle will swallow me up, gobble me whole.
“So you’re still in love with her,” Giovanni says flatly.
“Yes.”
Never stopped, actually. Never really stopped waiting for her.
I still don’t know why she left, but it’s mattering less and less. What matters is I love her. I want her to be mine, for real. Not just some bullshit piece of paper, but in the eyes of all of our friends and family.
I should have asked her to marry me five years ago, like I’d planned, should have tracked her down and forced that ring on her finger.
“Does she feel the same way?”
“I think so.” There’s a slight hesitation in my voice. I still can’t figure out why she tried to kill me, why she left, why she hates me so much.
Maybe she doesn’t, as much, anymore. I don’t know. She certainly warms my bed every night.
“But you don’t know so.”
I huff out a breath. “I’ll tell her. Today, after all this dirty business is over, I’ll go home and tell her how I feel.”
“And if she doesn’t feel the same way?’
I throw up my hands. “I don’t know. Fuck, I guess I’ll go on another bender.”
Giovanni glares at me.
“I’m joking.”
I’m not. I actually have no idea how I’ll handle it if she says she still hates me, that she doesn’t want to be with me anymore.
It might actually destroy me.
The cleaner, an Irishman named Mickey Finn who is stone deaf, walks up to me and makes the international sign for money.
I pull my wallet out and hand him several crisp hundred dollar bills.
He gives me a smile, showing one gold tooth, and a thumbs up.
That’s about my extent of interaction with Mickey Finn, but he does good work.
Giovanni and I return home and he claps a hand on my shoulder before I get out of the car.
“Good luck, boss.”
I feel a sense of dread creeping up my spine. I’m terrified to tell her, terrified she’ll just glare at me and tell me I'm stupid for wanting her.
And maybe I am.
She left me, got pregnant by someone else. I should still hate her for that, but somehow I can’t.
I ascend the stairs and open my master bedroom, finding Liana lounging there in a nightie with lace on the bodice.
She looks up from her book with a smile as I walk in.
“Get some work done?”
I nod briskly and head immediately for the shower, not ready to talk to her.
As the water beats down on my back, her words float to me.
“Dario? Are you alright?”
“Fine,” I call back in a bark that doesn’t sound very calm.
She opens the shower curtain and I yelp.
She laughs. “It’s just me. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“You startled me.”
“Thought I would join you.”
“I’m already done.”
I turn off the water and get out, slinging a towel around my hips.
She frowns at me, pouting slightly.
I want to kiss her and forget I ever wanted to confess.
“What’s going on with you, Dario?”
I take in a deep breath. “Let me put some pants on. If you’re going to leave me I don’t want you to do it while I’m naked.”
She stares at me as I tug on a pair of sweats. “Leave you? What are you talking about?”
I sit her down on the edge of the bed, looking down at her.
“I uh, need to tell you something. I told you, but you were hurt and drugged up and you didn’t hear me.”
Her face freezes for an instant before she nods.
“Okay. What’s so important?”
I take in a shaking breath. “I want you to stay with me. For good.”
“I’m not going anywhere—”
“That’s not what I mean, Li.”
I crouch in front of her, taking her hands in mine.
“Dario, you’re scaring me.”
I chuckle. “Scaring you? I’m the one who’s scared to death, baby. I almost lost you, and I won’t do that again. Not ever. I want you to be my wife. Really my wife, not just on paper.”
“Dario...” she trails off, looking away. “I don’t know if I can talk about this right now.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
She hasn’t pulled out of my grasp, so that’s an encouraging sign.
“I don’t kow how I feel right now. Everything’s just so overwhelming.” Her gray eyes shine with tears.
“Let me make it easier for you. I love you, Li. I’ve loved you for five years and I never got over you, not even a little. I love Sonny, too, and I’ll raise him like my own. I just want you both close.”
“Oh, shit,” she mutters, her eyes flooding with tears as her hands cover her face. “I don’t know what I want anymore, Dario.”
“That’s okay,” I say, just grateful she doesn’t hate me. I draw her into my arms. “We’ll figure it out, and I’ll give it to you. Anything.”
She sniffles but she smiles through it. “What if I wanted the moon?”
“I guess I’d have to become an astronaut and figure out how to get it to you.”
She laughs shakily but I mean it. I’d burn the whole world down just to warm her.
Liana wraps her arms around my neck, kissing me deeply, and I groan into her mouth. It’s been a few days since we’ve been together, and I’ve been so worried about her I haven’t even thought to touch myself.
My dick stirs just at her kiss but I pull back, searching her face.
“You’re okay with this?”
“I’m not something fragile and precious you can break, Dario.”
“And what I said to you—”
She cuts me off by cupping my face in her hands. “I only feel like me again when you touch me. That’s just going to have to be enough right now.”
“Okay,” I croak out, but it isn’t enough. It’ll never be enough.
I kiss her again, my hand sliding down the outside of her thigh down to her ass. I grab a bit of the flesh, jiggling it in my hand.
“How do you want me?” she asks in a hoarse whisper, bunching her nightie up around her hips. She’s bare beneath, just a landing strip to guide me in.
“All the ways, belissima, but right now I want to see your face.”
She nods, pulling her nightie all the way off. Her breasts bounce free and I cup one in my hand, dragging my thumb across her peaked nipple.
She nearly comes off the bed, her back arching, a small moan coming from between her parted lips. She rolls her hips and I chuckle low in my throat.
“Always so eager, my belissima,” I murmur, squeezing the flesh of her upper thigh. “Won’t ever give me the time to worship you like you deserve.”
She whimpers as I flick my thumb across her nipple again idly, ignoring the ache in my own balls as I harden all the way in my slacks.
Liana gropes me through my slacks, grabbing onto my erection and stroking up. I gasp out her name, my hips thrusting into her hand instinctively.
I can’t get my button undone fast enough, finally freeing myself with a groan and guiding myself into her, covering her with my body, caging her in with my arms.
I move only my hips and she cries out, her face flushed as she thrashes it from side to side.
“Ah, fuck, Dario, right there.”
“That’s it? You gonna come for me already, baby?”
“Yes, yes, just don’t stop—” Her words cut off in a strangled moan as she goes limp beneath me, all except her pussy which keeps clenching around me as she orgasms.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m not done with you yet.”