“But—”If. But.All words that lead to conditions. It was like starting a conversation withyou know I love youand then adding the dreaded fuckingbut…
“But we have to keep it a secret.”
“A secret,” I murmured, feeling my blood pressure rise. “For how long?”
“Stop,” she said, knowing what I was doing already.
I was stringing her along before I pulled this car over and found something to destroy. The more she answered, the more enraged I became.
“No,” I said. “Tell me, Mia. How fucking long do you hide me from the world. It’s a valid question. Since you created the condition.”
Tell me.Those were two words her father and brothers used, and they always got answers.
“I—” Maybe she sensed how dangerously close I was to losing it because she took a deep breath, stared out of the window for another minute, and then turned to face me again. “I’m not hiding you, but us.”
“Tell me how long, Mia.”
“Forever.”
That word hung in the air between us before I spoke again.
“Let me get this straight. Make sure I understand. We get married. Then I leave my wife to go anywhere—” I waved a hand like she did “—and we hide our marriage. We only come together to fuck.”
“That’s a crude way of putting it,” she said. And she had the fucking nerve to sound pissed about it. “It’s more like conjugal visits.”
If I didn’t laugh, I was going to explode.
“Saverio,” she said, her voice cautious. She kept alternating between looking at me and at the road. “You’re scaring me.”
I stopped laughing, and the car went deathly silent. I found a place to park. Silence followed us as we left the car and started to walk toward the theater. Before she could enter, I took her by the arm and set her against the building. With my free hand, I motioned for my men to stand down.
A gasp left her mouth when I took her left hand and removed the ring from it. I set it on the opposite hand, where it belonged until she got her mind straight.
I leaned down close to her mouth. Her lips parted, and I had to fight the urge to breathe her in. “I don’t know what game you’re trying to play, but give it up now. I’m not playing. You marry me, the whole world fucking knows, understand?”
She shook her head, either agreeing or not.
“If I marry someone else—”
I smiled, and it made her stop talking. “Go on,” I said.
“If I do—”
“He’s dead before he gets to the church.”
“I can’t do this, Saverio.” She motioned between us. “I can’t commit to this. I can’t say yes to it.”
“Give me one reason why.”
“You,” she said, like that was the simplest answer in the world.
I could tell by her closed expression that she wasn’t going to give me more than that. We’d had this conversation many times. I figured she was scared of what existed between us, how final it was. How longalwaysseemed. But in that moment, my gut told me there was more she wasn’t telling me.
“All this bullshit you’re pulling,” I said, “is not going to fucking work. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but this.”
“Us,” she whispered, and I could hear the doom she tried to hide in her voice.
“Us,” I said, and released her from the hold I had.
