She’s being serious, no levity or irony, she’s thought deeply about this question ahead of meeting with me, and this is her answer.
Love, to her, is like an equation. Like a sack of beans that she can divvy up between a set number of people and no more.
She confounds me.
“I can offer you two children,” she starts, “and I will protect them with my life. In return,youwill protect them, and commit to protect everyone else in my family too. I will live with you, try to look pleasant enough at parties, stay out of your affairs as well as I can, and remain faithful so long as your protection extends to every Morelli and Donovann in my inner circle.”
“Romantic,” I can’t help but remark.
“I didn’t say I was offering romance. You told my sister you need a child, and I can offer you that so long as I can trust your people will have my people’s backs.” She looks me up and down, checking me out. It’s not common that I feel heat rising up my neck, but I do now. “And sex is fine. No romance, though.”
For the second time this week, the youngest Morelli has rendered me speechless. She drinks another sip of tea, burning her tongue again, before this time setting the mug back on the counter to cool.
“Why are you telling me all of this? It’s like you want me to reject you.”
“I was going for transparency,” she says. I follow the movement of her hand as it pulls at the collar of her sweater before she clasps her hands in front of her, slender fingers interlocking. “If you’re going to marry someone as messed up as me, you ought to know beforehand. I can never love you, Maxim.”
The words should hurt me. They’re not a threat, but a stern promise, a proclamation in no unclear terms. They should dissuade me from this arrangement.
Looking at her now, loose curls hanging around her face, I can’t bring myself to care.
“Do you love someone else? Is there a middle school teacher in your favor that you’re running from?”
Marianna cracks a smile. Well, a smirk. A slight upturning of her lips. I can’t see her teeth, but I’m going to count it anyway.
“There’s no one. There’s never been anyone,” she admits simply.
I think of the dozen patrons I’ve seen her leave my club with, the ones who would’ve loved her if she let them, a plethora of pining hearts strewn about the city.
I’ve never seen her with the same person twice.
“Why?” I can’t help but ask, and then take a long sip of my own tea to hide my blatant interest. I don’t know that I can achieve any sense of nonchalance around her.
“Dating is a distraction, love is a liability. I have to stay focused.”
I watch her for a few too many silent moments. Her eyes remain fixed on mine, unflinching.
“You’re right that I need a child,” I say. “I’m thirty-eight, and if I died today, everything I’ve built would go to the wrong person. He’d undo everything. I will not lie to you, I am running out of time.”
Mary takes another sip, this one not causing her to recoil. She inclines her head for me to go on.
“You are very young.”
“Not that young,” she interrupts. “I’m twenty-six.”
Hearing this makes me feel only marginally better about my obsession, and only marginally. She’s still twelve years my junior.
I am still an old fucking pervert.
“You’d be a young mother, but I can’t wait years. I need an heir. You have to know that now.”
A flash of concern is there and wiped from her face in an instant. After brief deliberation, she straightens her shoulders.
“If I can’t make a child? If I’m incapable for some reason?”
“Are you?” I ask.
“Not that I know of. Everything seems to be in working order. But you never know.”
