He considers that without flinching. “You chose turquoise over black.”
“That was petty.”
“That was choosing,” he says. “You want small or large, Caterina? When you say queen, do you mean the crown and nothing else, or do you mean the work?”
“What is the work?”
“Everything you can see and everything you won’t until it’s on the table,” he says. “People. Money. Houses. Who sits where. Who speaks when. Who gets paid. Where we give. Which cousin’s son doesn’t go to jail because we called the right man. Which cousin’s son does because we didn’t.” His voice stays low and steady. “And inside the house, what happens is our law. If you want small, I can make it small. If you want large, you won’t be bored because you’ll control our empire at my side.”
I picture large: rooms with people I don’t trust, the way women trade information under the cover of compliments, the way men take cues from where a woman sits and who she greets first. I picture small: a degree finished, a job I pick, a door I can close. I don’t know which one is safer. I don’t know which one is me.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve never known what I want. I know what I can tolerate. I know what I can survive. I don’t know what I would pick if ‘no one will be mad at you’ was on the table.”
He doesn’t rush to fill the space. “We’ll find out,” he says finally. “Not all at once. But we will.”
“And if I pick wrong?”
“You’ll pick again,” he says. “I’m not marrying you for a posture. I’m marrying you for a life that we will create together.You’ll find your path the way my Nan found hers. The way my mother did too, before she died.”
I look at his mouth because looking at his eyes makes my brain go quiet in a way that isn’t helpful. “You do realize that’s not romantic.”
“I’m not in the romance business,” he says. “I’m in the business of truth and trust where you’re concerned.”
That is so much worse. It is also better. I don’t tell him either.
A crash interrupts us. Pru and Tiernan are at it in the side aisle near the choir loft door. A ladder has tipped and slid the last foot to the floor. No one is hurt, but Pru looks like she’s ready to commit arson on camera and add in murder just for the fun of it.
“I told you your angle is trash,” she says, stabbing a finger toward the lens tucked under the loft rail. “You’ll catch faces coming in, but your back aisle is naked.”
“Naked,” Tiernan repeats, amused like he is testing how the word fits in a church. “We have eyes on the narthex and a man inside the sacristy door. Anyone wanting to come up that aisle at speed is not doing it twice.”
“You don’t want them to do it once,” Pru says. “Put another eye there. And not one of your cheap ones that does great at noon but is useless at dusk.”
“They’re not cheap.”
“I know a guy with better lenses hanging out in the trunk of his car. And he owes me.”
Tiernan raises a brow. “Owes you what?”
“His freedom,” she says. “I didn’t snitch when I could have.”
Tiernan snorts. “That’s not how debt works.”
“It is in my world,” she says sweetly. “And before you point out the legalities, I am aware. I don’t need law on my side. I have leverage and we all know that’s enough.”
“You have an opinion,” Tiernan says. “And a basic understanding of optics.”
“I have enough to know your placement is lazy.” She plants her hands on her hips. “And if you don’t fix it, I will climb up there and do it myself.”
“I would pay to see that,” a cousin whispers behind me.
Tiernan keeps his tone level. “You’re not climbing any ladders, Prudence.”
“Call me that again like you know me,” she says, “and I’ll introduce you to a guy who would gladly get rid of your body just to see me smile.”
The pews go quiet. Tiernan’s mouth thinks about smiling. “Would he, now?”
“He’s romantic like that.”
