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Renato leaned against the wall outside. He was the picture of ease, his knee bent, foot planted on the exposed brick, his expression soft when he met my eyes. I knew that expression. It was just for me. He didn’t look at anyone else that way.
Did he know what’d just happened inside the restroom? Did he know the police were in there, trying to get to me? I had no idea. Nothing in his pose gave him away, if he did know.
“That was more than five minutes,” he pointed out, straightening up.
“I’m sorry, I got caught up,” I muttered and went to his side. I needed to get him away from the restroom area. I waited for a painfully long moment to see if he was going to say something about the cops.
“It’s okay, wife. I don’t mind waiting for you,” he said and took my hand in his, interlacing our fingers.
I nearly collapsed with relief.
His lips curved into a smile. We walked away from the bathroom.
“Now, though, we have a car ride to get to.”
29
RENATO
“Isaw the pictures,” Sal told me over the phone later. My uncle liked to practice his English whenever he could, even if it wasn’t the easiest to understand. “She looks like a handful.”
The description of Charlotte made me smile. “You have no idea.”
Sal chuckled. “Bene. Sometimes, you need the fire, other times, you just need a steady hand to hold.Omertà. Fede.”Loyalty. Faith.
“Sì, Zio.”
He’d bust a gut if he knew that Charlie had just been cornered by two detectives in her college restroom, or worse, that my wife had planted a bug in my office.
But she’d also destroyed the device and stood up to the cops. I’d never been so proud, and moreover, more certain.
Charlotte had fallen for me, despite her better judgment.
She was mine, even inside her own head.
She was mine to save, mine to protect, and mine to keep. The power was heady. She really did make me feel like a god.
Outside, the late afternoon December sky was heavy with snow and white flakes flurried past. The first snow of winter. A blur of red passed the window, and I stood and looked out.
“Well, good. Now, by the time I arrive, maybe there will bebuone notizieabout a baby?”
“I’m married now. Let that satisfy you for the time being. The heirs will be here soon enough.” I didn’t tellZioSal that Charlotte’s medical report, lying on my desk, had revealed another secret my little nurse had been hiding from me.
Her hormone levels were currently too high for her to conceive. She’d had a birth control shot, probably right around the time we’d met, and she hadn’t told me about it. She kept me on my toes, and she certainly made life interesting. After feeling jaded and bored with my existence for so long, suddenly there were things to enjoy all around me. It was her doing. My little ball of goodness and light. My angel to taint and twist. Mine, forever.
In the small rose garden that sat outside my office windows, Charlotte and Giada threw snow at each other. Charlotte was wearing a red parka, and twin blooms of color burned in her round cheeks. She laughed, and it was the most fucking beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Sonny stood to the side, looking cold and put upon. Giada was busy rolling stones into the snowballs, until I knocked on the glass and she sent a glare my way. I wagged my finger at her and pointed to Sonny. No one was throwing stones at my wife.
“Are you listening?” Sal demanded in my ear.
Giada and Charlotte turned their attack on the bodyguard.
“Sorry, I am now.”
Sal chuckled. “Don’t tell me the infallible Renato has finally fallen. So, you love this woman?”
“She’s my wife.” It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no, either. A man like me had next to no experience with love, so recognizing it wasn’t a skill of mine. I’d never met a woman I was tempted to love before my little nurse. That fact alone made her rare.
