20. Wolfe
WOLFE
I woke up the next morning to sunlight pouring into the room because we hadn’t closed the curtains last night. It raised the temperature a couple of degrees, and while I normally ran ten degrees hotter than everyone else, it was actually kind of nice.
Francesca was still asleep by my side, her makeup wrecked because she’d never washed her face last night. We’d made love and then fucked and then talked and then made love again. I wasn’t sure what time we actually went to sleep, but judging by the intensity of the light, it must be after noon now.
I lay there with her for a while and waited for her to stir, but she was still knocked out cold.
I eventually left the bed and pulled on my boxers, my suit and her wedding dress still on the floor where we’d left them.
I’d brought over a bag of clothes for us before I’d headed to the church, so I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and then headed downstairs.
The fridge was stocked with food, so I made some bacon and eggs and left some in the pan for her in case she was hungry. I didn’t make myself an espresso because the grinder on the machine could be loud as hell, and I didn’t want to wake up my wife.
My wife.
That had a nice ring to it.
I sat alone at the dining table and looked out the window. It was the end of August, so the tourists would finally return to their pockets of the world. September was my favorite time of year because the weather was perfect and everything was less crowded.
About an hour later, Francesca, my wife, came downstairs.
She must have found my bag because she wore one of my t-shirts that had been packed inside.
Her face had been washed, so she must have found the toiletries too.
Some of the curls were still in her hair, but most of them had fallen out, though the volume was still intact.
She smiled when she looked at me, her eyes tired. “Morning.”
“Morning.” I left my chair and came around the table to kiss her. I wrapped my arms around her petite frame, and I held her against me, a little thing in my arms and the perfect fit. I brushed a kiss against her hairline. “Cappuccino?”
“Please.”
I made her coffee first and set it at the table before I made mine, just a black espresso. “Hungry?”
“Starving, but I don’t know why.”
“Maybe because it’s two in the afternoon,” I teased.
She sat at the table and tapped my screen to see the time on my phone. “Oh wow, we were up late last night.”
“And I have a feeling we’re going to be up late again tonight.” I turned on the burner on the stove to reheat the food still sitting in the pan, and once everything started to sizzle, I scooped it up and served it on a plate that I brought to her.
She smiled when I served her. “I don’t know… I’m pretty sore.”
“There are other places I can put it.”
She was about to take a drink of her coffee when she released a quiet chuckle instead. “I forget how innovative you are.”
“And you know I’m good with my hands—and my mouth.”
A hint of a smile was still on her lips. “You never let me forget it.”
I drank my espresso as I looked at her across the table.
She took a few sips of her cappuccino before she tried a piece of her bacon.
“Still going into work today?”
She released an abrupt laugh. “God no.”
I’d already known that wasn’t gonna happen.
“The place can burn down to the ground for all I care.”
“But I’d rather it not because I’ll have to rebuild it too.”
She grabbed the salt and pepper and sprinkled them over her eggs. “I can’t believe you did this all by yourself. The windows alone are so heavy.”
I shrugged. “I lift more than that every day.”
“And then all the other things you had to do,” she said as she looked around the room. “I don’t even know what because I don’t know shit about carpentry. The bullet holes, the paint, I know the island was pretty much destroyed…”
“Yeah, it was a lot,” I said. “But I know how much you love this house. And I love it too. I wasn’t going to let someone destroy something so special to us. Even if I could have hired a crew, I wanted to do it myself.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s our home,” I said simply. “The place where we fell in love, the place where we’ll live together, raise a family…”
Her eyes softened as she looked at me. “Kind of small for a family.”
“I can expand it,” I said. “Build an extra bedroom here and there.”
“You know how to do that?”
I shrugged. “I can figure it out.” I was a smart guy who learned quickly. “We can live in the main villa if you want, but I assumed you would want to live here.”
She considered the suggestion before she gave a slight nod.
“I do, actually.” She sliced her fork into another egg, and the yolk started to run.
“That place will always feel like my dad’s house.
I don’t mind working in his office, but I can’t see myself occupying his bedroom. I’m not sure what to do with it.”
“You don’t have to do anything with it,” I said. “That’s a decision for another day.”
“I’d ask Leo if he wants it. But I doubt he’d want it, and even if he did, I don’t think he deserves it.”
I gave a nod in agreement and took another drink of my coffee.
“What should we do with your place down the road?”
“I’ll put it back on the market,” I said.
“It’s a nice house, but I’m not sure how much we’ll use it.”
“We’ll need to prepare better boundaries around this property. You can just drive up to most of your vineyards, and that’s a problem.”
“That would cost a fortune,” she said. “We have so much land.”
“We can create boundaries in sections,” I said.
“Build a smaller wall that encompasses our place and Leo’s.
Put large gates that lead to other parts of the property.
Something needs to be done, because it’s too easy for people to come for us.
Will a wall and a gate stop them? No. But it buys you time. ”
She nodded in agreement.
“I’ll start working on that tomorrow,” I said before I took a drink of my espresso, feeling the caffeine hit my bloodstream with every sip.
She finished her eggs before she took a drink of her cappuccino. “Should we talk about finances?”
“Sure.”
“I assumed we would just consolidate everything, unless you have a different suggestion.”
“My money is your money, and my salary for my employment is also our money, but I want the business to remain separate from our marriage.”
Her eyebrows immediately rose when she heard that. “What?”
“It’s separate property.”
“But it’s not. We own it together.”
“No, you own the business, and I work for you.”
She shook her head like she didn’t understand. “We’re husband and wife now.”
“I understand that, but I consider it separate property. It belongs to you, and—if you want to get technical about it—Leo. You’ll pass it to our children someday, and they can continue to run it or sell it.
I want you to run this business as you see fit, without my opinion or solicitation in any capacity.
My job is to help you and protect you, and you pay me for that, so we’re square. ”
She continued to maintain her confused expression. “I’m just not sure why you feel this way.”
“Because it’s a family business—and I’m not family.”
“But you are.”
“Not by blood—and that’s okay. You know I have plenty of money, and I don’t need further assets. This is your business and your property, and I would like it to be separate from our marriage. But what’s mine is absolutely yours.”
“Well, that’s not fair.” Her voice started to rise. “Why do you get to share and I don’t?”
“Because I’ve earned my living. Yours is a business that originated over a hundred years ago. It’s a legacy. And out of respect, I don’t want anything to do with it except for a paycheck. It’s yours, and it should stay yours.”
“Wolfe, I don’t—”
“Let me save you some time. I’m not going to change my mind.”
She went quiet.
“Honor my wishes, and let’s move on.”
“The business brings in a lot of money. What am I supposed to do with all that by myself?”
I shrugged. “That’s your business. Buy a collection of cars, designer clothes and jewelry, reinvest it in the business…”
“Then how about this?” she asked. “The salary I take goes into our joint account.”
I still didn’t love it, but I knew I had to be reasonable.
“Both of our paychecks go to the same place. The rest stays with the business. I get to contribute to this family as much as you do. That sounds fair to me.”
I considered it for a moment before I gave a nod. “Alright.”
A heavy stretch of silence passed. We drank our coffee, and she had the last few bites of her bacon.
“What do you want to do today?” she asked.
My eyes flicked up the stairs and back to her.
“You said we’re already going to be up late tonight.”
“Your point?”
She grinned at what she thought was a joke. “I thought we could have lunch in the village and then come home and make dinner, and then we can stay up late.”
We had a lot of sex on a daily basis, and I knew all her holes could only handle so much fun at a time, but now that she was my wife, my desire had reached a new level. “Only if you put on your wedding dress so I can take it off again…”
We went to lunch in Caltanissetta and walked around and did some window-shopping, but within a couple hours, we ended up in a hotel and I fucked her the way I had the first time I’d had her, giving her all of my length with my hand fisted into her hair, until I dumped another load inside her to soak into her thong as she walked around for the rest of the day.
Tears pooled in her eyes because she was sore and I was monstrous in size, but she came around me like she always did, her makeup smeared from the cascade of tears.
We went to the market next, she grabbed everything she needed to make dinner that night, and we returned home.
It felt like an ordinary night, but I’d missed those ordinary nights when we stayed at her little villa.
Before Warren had hit the house, that was the last time our lives were simple.
Her father had discovered our affair, and nothing good had followed that moment.