But certainly nowhere near as important to me as Finch.
“You go,” I told Nick, waving a hand in dismissal. “The lawyer will be there. Let him negotiate, and just get it done.”
“Bianchi’ll be there?” I couldn’t place Nick’s tone. “Senior or junior?”
“Carlo,” I told him. “But he’s just as good as the old man. Better, even.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Nick gave a quick nod to Finch, then me, and backed out of the room. I locked it after him and turned back to Finch, ready for our argument to continue.
But Finch, who had taken a decanter and glass from the side table, was pouring me out a drink at his desk. “We’re not going to fight,” he said, glancing up at me from under his eyebrows. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not.”
Finch gave a brief, twisted smirk. “Right.” He picked up the glass, swirled the liquid inside a few times, and then offered it to me.
I undid the second button of my shirt as I came over and accepted the whiskey-flavored olive branch. “So you’ll stop trying to defend those fools downstairs?”
“No, baby. But I’m not going to spend the night going back and forth with you about it, either. Now, come on, Luca.” He gestured to the leather sofa at the side of the room, and walked over there himself to sit on it. “Drink up. Calm down. Then tell me why you’re really here.”
“Iamcalm,” I said, but Finch was already making himself comfortable on one side of the sofa, so I threw myself down on the other side, took a large swallow of the whiskey, and waited.
And waited.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I snapped at last, as Finch regarded me with those green-gold eyes, soft and liquid in the warm, low lights of his office.
“I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
“I told you already—”
“Not the bodyguards. Thewhybehind it. Why are you so worried about my protection all of a sudden?”
“The Irish—”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘the Irish.’ Or it’s ‘the Clemenzas,’ or it’s ‘the West Coast.’ I want to know the real problem behind all this. You’re notyourself, husband, and it worries me.”
I was surprised enough that I did not reply right away. “Not myself?” was what I settled on at last.
Finch scooted forward, took the drink from my hand, and set the glass on the coffee table. He slipped his fingers into mine and lifted my hand into both of his. “You’re not sleeping. You’re on edge all the time, angry over small things that don’t matter.”
“Your personal protection is theonlything that matters to me,” I began hotly, and Finch lifted my hand to his lips. His soft kiss against my wedding ring helped douse my temper.
“You’re beingmeanto everyone,” he murmured against my skin.
“I’m trying to run a goddamn Mafia empire, here, Finch. I don’t know how else you think—”
“Youknowwhat I mean. Take those guys downstairs. Yeah, they’re new, and yeah, they need to be better. But throwing fresh meat off my detailwon’tmake them better, and it just means I’ll have another set of newbies next time who know even less. Teo put extra protection around the club tonight already, since he and Gio aren’t here. The fact that you didn’t seethemmeans that everyoneisdoing the jobs they’re supposed to be doing.”
I sniffed. “Some extra protection, if I can still sneak up and—”
“Luca,” he snapped, his jaw clenching. “No one in this world would dare stop you from getting close to me unless they had a death wish. You can’t blame your own men for allowing it.”
Even irritated with me, Finch was still the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, and the only one I had ever loved. I would never love anyone else, not like I loved him. And what he said about everyone in town knowing itwastrue, so I pulled my hand from his, cupped his face instead, and kissed him. “Fine,” I said afterward. “I won’t kill the bodyguards.”
It was supposed to be a joke to defuse the tension. It did not have the desired effect.
“I’m kidding,” I added, as Finch stood up and pulled away from me. “Baby bird, I’mkidding.”
“That’s the thing,” he said, returning to his desk. “I don’t know that you are, not these days. These days, you could tell me you planned to execute every single guard out there, right in the middle of the dance floor, and Luca?” He sat in his chair, pulled up to the desk and folded his hands together. “I wouldbelieveit.”
