31. Laney #2
I watched him while I ate. He looked different here than he ever had in Sicily.
Comfortable in a way he'd never managed there, even in the palazzo that had been his family's for generations.
His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his collar open.
No tie, no jacket. He'd been wearing the same shirt since yesterday and it was rumpled now, creased from where he'd leaned against the headboard while I labored, but he didn't seem to notice or care.
There were no calls he was waiting for, no meetings he needed to prepare for. No dinners with dangerous men who smiled with their teeth. No careful navigation of his mother's expectations or his brother's resentment.
He caught me looking and raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Liar."
I smiled and didn't answer. The truth was complicated and I was too tired to put it into words.
He'd kept his word. That was the simple version.
The marriage we had now looked nothing like the one we'd left behind in Sicily.
He worked, but the work was his consulting business, the boards he sat on for companies that had nothing to do with his family's name or their money or the empire they'd built on violence.
When his mother called, he let it go to voicemail.
When Enzo sent emails, Massimo deleted them unread.
He stayed out of the family entirely. Out of their business, out of their schemes, out of the careful dance of power and loyalty that had shaped his whole life before we left. I'd asked for that and he'd given it to me without argument or resentment.
Sofia ran in before dinner to announce the baby's name was obviously Marco, and then ran out again before we could object or ask where she'd gotten it. Massimo looked at me, his expression asking the question.
"I like Marco," I said.
"You're just too tired to argue."
"That too."
He smiled. It reached his eyes, the way it hadn't for years before we left. Before he'd defended me at the funeral, before I'd set Costanza's terms, before we'd walked out of the palazzo together.
That night, after Sofia went to bed and Marco finally stopped fussing long enough to sleep, I sat on the edge of our bed and felt the exhaustion sink all the way to my bones.
Every part of me ached. Massimo came out of the bathroom and stopped when he saw me, still dressed, sitting there like I'd forgotten what came next.
"You should sleep," he said.
"I know."
He crossed the room and sat beside me. Close enough that his shoulder brushed mine, close enough that I could feel the heat of him. The warmth soaked through my shirt and into my skin.
I turned to look at him and found him already watching me.
His hand came up to cup my jaw, his thumb tracing my cheekbone.
My pulse kicked up. Ugh. Even dead tired and having given birth that morning, my body still responded to him without asking permission first, without checking whether it was a good idea.
"Laney," he said quietly.
I kissed him. He made a soft sound of surprise and then kissed me back, careful and slow, like he was afraid I might break. His hand slid into my hair and I leaned into him, needing the solid warmth of his body against mine, needing the proof that this was real.
We moved together, clumsy and gentle. Everything still hurt from the birth, my body protesting, but I didn't care.
I wanted this. Wanted him. Wanted the marriage we'd built here in this house, in this life we'd chosen, where my name was on my work and his mother's calls went unanswered and our children slept down the hall.
Afterward I lay against his chest, his arm around my shoulders, and listened to his heartbeat slow back down to normal.
The baby would wake soon, hungry and demanding.
Sofia might have a nightmare and need me.
There were a thousand things waiting just past this moment, a whole life that would start again as soon as the sun came up.
But right now it was just us. Just this. His breath against my hair, my hand on his chest, the quiet of the house around us.
I wanted it to stay like this. Wanted the days to keep unfolding the way they had since we'd come home — him asking about my work, me watching him play with Sofia in the yard, the quiet meals at our table, the nights when we reached for each other without ghosts standing between us.
I wanted to believe it was settled, that we'd found our footing and nothing could shake it. Permanent.
I didn't let myself think about the other thing.
The fear that sat small and cold beneath my ribs, the one that whispered this couldn't last. That eventually something would pull him back, or the family would push harder, or he'd wake up one day and realize what he'd given up and decide it wasn't worth it.
I wouldn't say it out loud. Saying it would make it real, would give it weight.
Massimo's hand moved slowly up and down my arm, the touch absent and steady. His breathing had gone deep and even. Not quite asleep, but close, hovering in that space between waking and dreams.
He'd chosen this. I had to believe that.
He'd chosen me, chosen our children, chosen this small quiet life over the palazzo and the empire and his mother's expectations.
He'd given me my name back. He'd stood beside me while I gave birth in our own bedroom, thousands of miles from the family that had tried to bury me under their silence.
He knew what he'd promised. I could feel it in the way he held me, steady and certain, like he'd made a decision and meant to keep it. He was keeping his word.
I closed my eyes and let myself believe it.