Page 163 of Merciless Daddy

His fingers closed around mine.

He did not pull away.

“She was from an allied family,” he said. “We were engaged for two years. It was a sensible arrangement. I thought affection would become enough.”

“And it didn’t?”

“It did for me.” His mouth tightened. “Then she told me she was marrying someone else.”

I waited.

“I congratulated her in public. I wished her happiness. I meant it.” He looked down at our hands. “But afterward I decided that men like me were not meant to keep soft things.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t hate her?”

“No.” He shook his head. “She made a choice. I made a wound out of it.”

The honesty of that reached me more deeply than a speech would have.

“You’re not making me into Rosalia,” I said.

“No.”

I smiled.

Then Sal’s thumb moved over my knuckles.

“If Gianni disappeared tomorrow,” he asked, “what would you choose?”

“I’d probably get another wolf.”

He laughed.

“I mean it, sweetheart. What would you do?”

The question stopped me.

I looked around the empty diner. The old jukebox. The red booths. The stuffed wolf with his vacant plastic eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. It’s a fair answer.”

“No. I should know.”

“Why?”

“Because freedom should mean something.”

“It does.”

“And I should have a plan.”

“You have spent your life surviving plans other men made for you.” His thumb stroked once over my hand. “Freedom does not require an immediate five-year plan, Lena.”