Page 19 of Banished and Pregnant by Her Sicilian Billionaire Husband

He’s here.

On the same bed.

Rica between us.

He’s on his back on top of the covers, still in his shirt, one arm behind his head, and when it seems like he’s about to turn to look at me...

I quickly squeeze my eyes shut to pretend that I’m still sleeping.

“I know you’re awake.”

But sadly, my acting seems to be just as bad as his brothers’.

“Rica wanted to sleep with me tonight.”

I turn to my side so that I’m facing the wall as I answer him.

“That’s what Rica told me, too.”

“Then it’s how it should be.”

I know he’s right.

Rica should be our priority right now.

Whatever makes her feel safe, whatever makes her less afraid...

That should be our top priority.

And yet...

“Stop.”

It comes out of the dark from the other side of my sleeping daughter, so low I feel it more than hear it.

I go rigid. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Chisa.”

“I’m not making any noise,” I whisper. My voice cracks straight down the middle of it, which rather proves his point.

For a long time there’s nothing. Just the rain, Rica’s breathing, the lamp.

And it’s exactly as I say it is.

My tears don’t make any noise at all. But somehow he knows.

“No,” my husband says finally. “You never did.”

Somehow, he always knows.

Marcello

SHE CAME TO HIS STUDY at ten in the morning with a padded envelope held against her chest like a shield. Marcello put down his pen and prepared himself to say no to her.

He had been saying it since Saturday. No to the house in Evanston, no to the car she wanted to drive herself, no to every reasonable thing a reasonable woman would ask for after two men came out of a van at her daughter.

He had expected a fight this morning. God help him, he’d been looking forward to one, because a fight was four minutes in a room with her that he could tell himself was necessary.