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I raise an eyebrow, trying not to wrinkle my nose. “That’s not a vacation.”
Salvatore laughs quietly, and I can feel the tension dissipating between us a little. He takes a bite of his dessert, and I become aware of the crackle of the fireplace on the other side of the room, the warm, low light, the intimacy of the moment. Look at us, I think grimly, my gaze fixed on the handsome older man across from me. Having a conversation like a normal couple. Not a hint of an argument in sight right now.
“Like I said.” He takes another bite. “Not your idea of a vacation. But Enzo was never comfortable going too far from you for long. And he worried about taking you somewhere. He feared something would happen to you.” He hesitates, and I wonder what he isn’t saying.
If he’s thinking of the threat he believes the Bratva poses, what he thinks my father almost unintentionally handed me over to, and not saying it because he doesn’t want to fight with me again.
“He thought taking me on a vacation would endanger me?” I frown, reaching for the small glass of port that the server brought. I’ve had more wine with this dinner than I think I’ve ever had in my life, and my head feels a little fuzzy. “That doesn’t really make sense.” I had always wondered, though, why we always stayed so close to home. All of my friends have been on tours of Europe with their families, to other places in the States, often going on summer trips to Sicily. But my father never went to any of those Family summits, or took me anywhere at all. I assumed he was a homebody, but I know he could have afforded to take us anywhere he wanted.
Salvatore lets out a slow breath, his brow furrowing as if he’s deciding what he wants to say, and how. “There’s a lot you don’t know about your father, Gia.”
I stiffen at that. “I knew my father perfectly well.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He holds up his hands, as if to stave off whatever barbed words I might fling at him. “I’m not saying your father was someone totally different, or you never really knew him, or trying to chip at your bond in any way. Alright?”
I feel a small flush on the high points of my cheekbones. Maybe that was a little out of line. “Alright,” I reply calmly, and I see the slightest flicker of surprise on Salvatore’s face, there so quickly that I almost miss it before it’s gone.
“I’ve never been a father—to my knowledge,” he adds, a wry twist to his mouth that sends an odd flush of jealousy through me. For some reason, even though I know Salvatore has been in bed with other women—he’s forty-something, for god’s sake—I don’t like hearing it, or thinking about the reality of it. Especially not when he gets me free and clear, without a man ever having done more than briefly touch me before. “But I expect there’s things that all fathers try to hide from their children. Things they see as weakness, maybe. I expect if I had a child, I’d want them to see me as strong. Unshakeable. Someone not prone to the weaknesses of other men.”
I frown, trying to understand what he’s saying as he continues. I never thought of my father as weak. And I certainly don’t see anything weak about Salvatore.
“Your father loved your mother very much. It was a rare love match. He was inconsolable when he lost her, although he tried to hide it. And he was so afraid of losing you in some way. He coddled you, sheltered you, because you were all he had left of her. And he was hesitant to take you anywhere, to expose you to any danger. A car accident, a plane crash. An enemy who marked you as a target. A mugging gone wrong. Any of the ordinary dangers of life, and the inordinate ones that come with the life we live. He wanted to keep you as sheltered from it as possible. And that meant keeping you home, where nothing could happen to you.”
Salvatore takes a deep breath, and I get the feeling that he’s watching my face keenly, looking for my reaction. “I think maybe it’s time to change that. The danger is as much at home as anywhere else now. And I think it would do us both good to have a change of scenery.”
I can’t think of what to say. I feel like I’m still absorbing everything he’s just said to me.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Gia,” Salvatore says quietly, and I look up, meeting his eyes. He looks surprisingly—concerned, as if he genuinely is worried for me. “I don’t want to make you think less of Enzo. I would never want that.”
“I don’t.” I shake my head, finishing my port and setting the glass aside. “I could never think less of him. He was my father, and he was a good one. Maybe that wasn’t the right way to handle it, but—I can understand it.” I bite my lip. “I can’t really imagine what it would be like to love someone that much. I hope I’ll do things differently. But I can’t fault what he did.”
Something crosses Salvatore’s face, an emotion I can’t read, or maybe one I just don’t recognize. He straightens, his expression smoothing, as he sets his cloth napkin on the table.
“As long as you take a considerable amount of security with you, you may go shopping tomorrow in the city,” he says, his voice brusque and businesslike once again. All traces of softness and intimacy are gone, the momentary closeness evaporated, and a clear demarcation of space between us once again. “You can have my driver take you. Meet your friends, if you like.”
I feel myself bristle at being told what I can do, at being given instructions and guidelines. I want to snap back, to tell him that I’ll do as I please—but the truth is that I can’t. If I refuse his rules, I simply won’t be able to go. And that chafes at me, too. It chases away the brief softness I felt towards him, reminding me of the imbalance of power between us. I’m not his equal, or his partner. I’m his duty. His responsibility. I might be his wife in the eyes of God and the law, but he won’t treat me as anything other than one more thing to be managed and contained.
“Fine.” I drop my napkin on the table, too. “Driver. Security. Whatever you say.” The sarcasm is thick in my voice, and I know he hears it. His expression hardens, and he stands up, stiffly coming around to pull out my chair for me as I stand up.
Just like that, I feel the moment of possibility between us fade away, the room around us going cold as I’m snapped back into reality.
Gia
I wake up in the morning to a cold, empty bed. Salvatore is already gone for the day. In the brief amount of time I’ve shared a room with him, I’ve noticed a few small things that can only be learned by sharing private space with someone else—that he leaves his watch at the side of the bed, that he hangs his suit for the next day on the front of the wardrobe, his tie coiled neatly on the dresser next to it and his shoes lined up.
All of those items are gone, leaving only the book he was reading last night and his reading glasses atop it, sitting next to the lamp on the bedside table.
I sit up, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. I have a faint headache, undoubtedly from the amount of wine I drank last night. It made me foggy and sleepy on the ride home, and I passed out almost as soon as I got undressed and slid into bed.
Despite the assumptions I’d made about Salvatore’s plans for the night when he sent me the beautiful dress, he didn’t touch me. Didn’t even try. He went into the bathroom and stayed there while I changed into a pair of modest sleep shorts and a tank top, and reemerged in those soft black pants and a t-shirt, as if to prevent any thoughts I might have about his bare chest.
Which is, as I recall, an uncomfortably nice chest.
I shake my head, clearing it. My innocence—or what remains of it, anyway—is still intact, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know whether I feel relieved that he hasn’t finished the job, hopeful that it will mean Pyotr might still retrieve me, or disappointed that I’m still being denied the most basic part of a marriage—both the potential pleasures of the marriage bed, and the possibility of children.
And, possibly a little offended that he seems to so easily be able to stifle any desire for me, able to sleep next to me without giving in to the urge to touch me when he hasn’t even really had me yet.
Is he, though? A memory of yesterday morning flickers back into my mind, of those soft black pants hanging off Salvatore’s sharp hipbones as he gripped the edge of the counter with one hand, his other?—
