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She watches me chew, waiting. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
She makes a note, then looks back at me. “What’s your favorite?”
“My favorite what?”
“Food.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been feeding you a lot of different stuff, and I still don’t know what you actually like best.”
I glance down at the pasta. “This.”
Her brows lift. “Really?”
“My mom used to make it.”
Her expression softens as I tell her my mom always made pasta just like that when I was a kid. Usually when I was sick or had somehow hurt myself.
“Then I definitely need to get it right,” she exclaims, her tone making it clear she’s just turned a pasta dish into a personal mission.
I spend the rest of the afternoon exactly where I am. My phone rings twice. I ignore it both times. This is new. This feeling, this compulsion to be near her even when there’s nothing I need from her.
I’ve spent most of my life in rooms where people wanted something. Where every conversation had a purpose, every interaction was a transaction dressed up as something else. There are no transactions here. Just my wife, cooking, and me watching her.
Even though it would be easy to play this off as me thinking this is good for Kira, considering Dr. Morgan isn’t optimistic about Paige Adams, who still suffers seizures under her care, it’s more than that.
I genuinely love being around my wife at all times. But especially when she’s happy and excited, like now.
The cooking madness continues over the next few days. While she cooks and plans, Kira shares stories about Saint Benedict’s. I find myself laughing when she tells me about a disastrous youth group camping trip where it rained for three days straight.
She talks about dishes she’s made that turned out catastrophically wrong. A lasagna that came out of the oven like soup. Cookies that hardened into something closer to roofing tiles. A pie crust that she still refers to as ‘the cement incident.’
In return, she asks about me. Not the business. Me. Domenico—her husband.
Eventually, the questions stop, but I still keep talking. Everything I share feels like handing her something. Not secrets—nothing that would compromise the organization or put her at risk—but pieces of myself I’ve kept filed away because no one’s ever asked for them.
20
Kira
My hand hits cold sheets before I’m fully awake. Pat, pat, pat. Nothing but empty space where Domenico should be.
I push myself upright, the bedroom dark except for the sliver of city light cutting through the gap in the curtains. A quick glance at my phone tells me it’s 4:37 am.
Annoyance hits before the memory does.
He promised. After our fight, after I screamed at him until my throat was raw, he promised he wouldn’t disappear without telling me. No more waking up to an empty bed and wondering where the hell my husband went.
But then I remember what he said about barely sleeping.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is cold under my feet, but I don’t bother with footwear. Instead, I grab the first thing my fingers find, one of Domenico’s button-down shirts that smells like him.
I shrug it on, buttoning the top buttons, and wrap the soft throw blanket from the foot of the bed around my body. There’s no point in bothering with more clothes when he has promised me only the staff is in the penthouse, and they usually make themselves scarce so I only see them during meal times. Besides, the shirt falls to mid-thigh, and the blanket covers the rest.
The hallway is dark, so I follow the faint yellow glow that spills from the living room. The sliding glass door to the balcony has been left open by a crack.
