“Well, then we’ll cross that bridge when, and if, we come to it.”
“But you’re saying we’ll need totryto conceive,” she says bluntly. “Immediately.”
“After the wedding, yes,” I say, though the thought oftrying to conceivewith Marianna Morelli is making my throat constrict. “I’ll understand if you need time to think about it.”
I cough and drain half of my mug in one hot gulp.
Mary turns away from me. Her fingers curl around the side of the stone counter as she looks to the tall windows in the living room, and a muscle ticks in her jaw.
Her perfume is so subtle, something fresh—lavender, I think. It reminds me of spring, warm weather, and the sun on my skin.
She was sent here to torture me.
“You’re a boss, and I respect that title,” she finally says after her deliberation. “But I’m a made man just as much as you are, and if you treat me like a little wife,I will kill you.”
“You saywifelike it’s a bad thing to be. Do you think so poorly of marriage?”
I always believed her parents to be unique in their love for one another. Her sisters, too, with husbands who never waver. I envied them for this when my father was so insatiable.
“Depends,” she says. “Most made men are more likely to be struck by lightning than be faithful to their wives. Sweet things to be kept at home, made pretty with expensive gifts, and chattering with the other little dolls.”
“You speak lowly of these wives.”
“You misunderstand me.” Mary turns her eyes to mine, unrelenting and hard. “They are this way because their husbands keep them this way. While they have their girlfriends, their jobs, their respect, and their street cred, their wives can’t complain. They’re not truly partners.”
“And that’s what you want?” I ask. “To be a partner?”
There’s an intimacy associated with the word I didn’t expect to hope for in this arrangement.
“Well, I’m no good at cooking,” she says. I’m momentarily rendered speechless at what I think was a joke. “I know what’s expected of a boss, the girlfriends and the mistresses, the second apartments, but if you have so much as a date—and don’t think I won’t hear about it—your death will be painful and slow.”
“I believe you,” I say. There’s a light amusement in my eyes that I cannot quell.
I want to ask herhowshe would do it. I want her to describe it to me in great detail, but that is neither a normal question nor healthy for me to know.
“And doyouget girlfriends?” I ask.
She squints like I’ve made a joke she’s not amused by.
“I’m not stupid, Maxim. Either of us having someone else would make the other look like a fool. No girlfriends or boyfriends. Just you.”
I smile and shake my head, more certain with every moment that she will destroy me.
“Okay,” I agree. “Partners.”
Marianna studies me as if to detect my bluff. There is none, though, and she shrugs when she comes to the same conclusion. “Then I accept.”
I almost choke on my tea, caught off guard by her easy decision. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything different from her, straight to the point as she tends to be.
We’re just talking about spending the rest of our mortal lives together, no need to sleep on it.
“That’s not right.” I stand straighter and peer down at her, then clear my throat. “Marianna Morelli, will you marry me?”
Marianna smiles, unmistakable this time, and I am gone for the way it makes her eyes sparkle.
“Sure.” She holds her hand out in front of her for me to shake. I hold her palm in my grip, small in mine, and shake it.
Sure. A baffled grin would take over my face if I didn’t have such great self-discipline.
