And how can my heart beat so wildly for both?
“I always thought I would fall in love with a good, kind man. Someone who cared for others, who put their needs ahead of his own. Someone who wanted to make this world a better place,” I whisper. “My husband…is not a man like that, Mom. He has done terrible, unspeakable things. And he feels no remorse about them. I don’t think he will ever change. Being in love with a man like him is against everything I believe in.”
“My child, you don’t love someone only for the good things they’ve accomplished. When you’re in love, it often means that you love them despite the bad things they may have done.”
Chapter 31
“The mechanic and spare parts are already en route.” Nathan’s voice is washed out a bit by the slight static on the line. “I don’t have an explanation, sir. Every priority vehicle was thoroughly inspected before it was dispatched.”
“Where is the truck now?” I ask.
“Still at the gas station, about thirty miles from New York.”
“I want an update as soon as it is fixed and on the move again. And I want to know what caused this fuckup. Or who.” I cut the call before he has a chance to reply and throw the phone on my desk.
For a brief moment, I worry that the rhymey bastard is behind this. The fucker has been silent for weeks, since the day his text sent me charging into my mother-in-law’s apartment, which was almost a month ago. But, considering that his latest threats have all been focused on my wife, a more logical explanation prevails. The malfunction with one of my trucks—specifically the vehicle transporting a drug shipment to DeVille in New York—must be just that. A malfunction.
I take off my glasses and squeeze my temples. The bloody migraine has once again set in and gotten progressively worse over the last hour. Ever since the smell of freshly baked cookies reached my home office. It was faint at first. Sugary sweet with a distinct hint of vanilla. My Little Iris is baking again.
In hopes of keeping the scent out, along with thoughts of her, I shut the door earlier. But that didn’t help. I can’t stop obsessing over how, very shortly, she will walk out the door, headingto spend the night at her mother’s. Like she does every Saturday. And tomorrow morning, when I ask how her night was at Mrs. Fabbri’s, she’ll look me in the eye and lie.
Christ. She must think I’m an idiot. I’ve made it so easy for her. Never questioned why she always picks Saturday nights to spend with her mom, or why she needs to stay there the entire night at all. As far as Iris knows, her security detail departs once she is safely inside her mother’s apartment, so she doesn’t need to sneak around when the Annex car picks her up and drops her off. It’s all smooth sailing for her to secretly meet with the man who is not her husband. The worst part? None of this makes her any less desirable or pure in my eyes. Jesus fuck, I’ve seriously lost my mind.
Even with the door tightly shut, the decadent scent of vanilla permeates the air. I can’t escape it. It’s in my every breath. Even if I wanted to flee, I can’t. I can’t escapeher.
The sweet aroma lures me out of my home office and to its source. The kitchen. As I draw nearer, notes of a creepy melody, something that seems utterly at odds with the warm, earthy smell, float to me from the same direction.
“Oh, no.” Iris’s worry-filled voice rings out just as I round the corner. “No…no…no.”
Instantly on alert, I rush into the kitchen and grab the chef’s knife out of the block on my right. Two steps later, I’m reaching to pull my wife away from the island and the expanse of open windows, ready to shove her behind my back and meet the oncoming threat. My hand is almost wrapped around her biceps when I hear the pop of a muffled gunshot.
“Damn.” Iris exhales a breath and pushes away a stray strand of hair. “I knew she was the killer. Too obvious.”
Heart still jackhammering against my rib cage, I look down over my wife’s shoulder to the phone propped up against a bag of flour on the counter. On the screen, a gray-haired lady is stuffing a grocery bag with wads of money from a wall safe.
“Multitalented, that one,” I say.
Iris yelps and spins around, a frantic expression on her face. “Good God, Adriano. You almost gave me a heart attack!”
As if to point out my guilt, loud barking explodes from the threshold of the walk-in pantry.
I ignore Taffy, focusing on my wife’s face instead. There’s a smear of icing, I’m guessing, on her cheek, and my fingers itch to wipe it away. Or maybe I can lick it off? Is it sweeter than the taste of her skin?
“Sorry,” I say, shaking off the haze of arousal.
“It’s okay. Um…” She points at the knife still in my hand. “Is everything alright? You look like you might be ready to…kill someone.”
I open the nearest drawer and shove the knife inside. “Not today.”
She tenses.
I grit my teeth. She never tenses withhim.
It takes everything in me not to throw her down and fuck her on the flour-dusted kitchen island. To make her moan and whimper for me while I lap at her pretty pussy. To make her pant when I slam balls-deep into her wet heat. To make her scream in pleasure. Just as she does at the Annex. Just like she will do again a couple of hours from now. For a man who doesn’t exist.
“Um, did you need something then?”
Yes. You. I need you. You’re the only thing I need in my life.“Nope.”
