Ordering was always serious business for her. Whatever she ordered, she made sure she wasn’t going to wish she’d ordered something else.
I set my hand over hers, making her put her menu down. Though we’d climbed and descended an uncountable number of steps, her fingers were cold, all of veins spreading out like blue roots beneath her pale skin. I kissed her and told her how beautiful she looked in Italian.
She smiled. “Grazie. But you told me earlier, right after you saw me dressed. Then again before we left. Keep it up, and my head might swell.”
Grinning, I set her hand in mine, our rings clinking like a toast. “I’ll spoil you if I want to.”
“You do,” she said, leaning in for another kiss. “All the time.”
“Bene,” I said, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
I watched while she debated the choices on the menu. She made a grin come to my face. She was so serious, as if she was making a life-altering decision. She probably hadn’t put that much thought into whether she wanted children.
“Scarlett.”
“Have you decided?” She kept her stare locked on the menu. “I just need—”
Putting the menu down on the table with a push from my hand, she frowned before she looked at me. Smoothing out the lines on her forehead, I kept my hand to the side of her face, using my thumb to stroke the corner of her mouth.
“You still give me butterflies when you walk into the room,” I whispered in Italian. “My skin still burns when you touch me. I love you more now.”
“What’s going on?”
“You tell me.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she was furiously thinking.
“The veiled joke earlier,” I reminded her. “After I told you how gorgeous you were when I first saw you tonight.”
Her face eased. “Oh, the remark about hoping you’d always stay attracted to me? Even after kids? I was—”
“Joking,” I supplied. “Yeah, so you say.”
“So I mean.”
I shook my head, disagreeing. I knew her. It had been a veiled attempt at reassurance disguised as humor. “Before we were married—tell me what I told you when you worried about the same thing.”
“You said a lot of things.”
Our gazes locked and held.
Our waiter came to the table, and I gave the order—all she wanted and more. Handing him our menus back, she shook her head.
“That’s a lot of food, Brando.”
“It won’t go to waste.” I shrugged. “We’ll enjoy it.” I was going to enjoy feeding her.“And let me remind you of what I told you before we were married, even though I know you remember. I was carrying you into your parents’ apartment in Paris, not long after I’d asked you to marry me, and I told you that you were mine and I’d always want you. My word is my vow. I meant it then. I mean it even more now.”
“Love grows if you nurture it?”
She meant it to sound playful, but I caught the uncertainty.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Something like that.” Then I turned her face toward mine. “Tell me.”
She lifted her hands, let them fall, and then started playing with the runner over the table. “I want to be sure that you…are always attracted to me. I want to make sure that we have enough—nastysex.” The words ran together, a hurried attempt to beat the blush surging into her cheeks. “Even though we have kids.”
A beat of silence passed between us, as chatter rose and dipped in the street, the rumble of a bike someplace close by, before I erupted into laughter.
“Nasty sex,” I repeated.
