“I’m sorry I brought this into our relationship.” I drop my gaze and stare down at the rippling water, timing my breath with every small wave rolling away from our legs. “I’m sorry I can’t just be boring and dependable and able to walk away from these things like a normal human being.”
“Cordoza choreographed this whole mess. He dropped Agosti in your lap intentionally.”
I nod, soft and silent, and when tears trickle to the edge of my jaw, I swipe them away with the heel of my palm. “I heard. A smarter person wouldn’t have fallen for it.”
Reaching across, he cups my chin and draws my eyes up to his. “I don’t want a boring, annoying, regular wife, Minnnka. I don’t want any version of you that isn’t completely and wholly authentic.”
“But you get so mad when I?—”
“I get so mad when I’m scared,” he presses. “Unfortunately for us, I’m a Malone, which means my first response willalwaysbe rage, even when, inside, I’m scared to my fucking bones. This is my DNA. It’s a nasty, cold throwback to the man who forced his sperm on an unwilling victim. I’m allowed to be mad sometimes, but there isnolevel of mad in existence that would make me not love you.”
I choke out a sobbing whimper, my chest bouncing with the horrifying exhale.
“You say you’re sorry for being tricked by Cordoza?” He tilts my head back and suckles a tear straight off my cheekbone. “Babe, he played me, too. You’ve known this world for a year;I’ve known it my whole life. Only one of us should have known better, and that person isn’t you.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do?” I curl my face into his hand and brush my lips over the pounding pulse in his wrist. “I thought Estefan was our friend.”
He drags the pad of his thumb along my trembling jaw. “We’ll call a family meeting. Bring everyone together and discuss our options. I don’t relish the idea of declaring war with the fuckingGodfather.” He emphasizes the word, emptying his lungs on the three syllables. “But whatever we do, we’ll decide as a family.”
Family.
He has such a beautiful, humorously dysfunctional family, despite the swamplands of Timothy Malone they came from. And until this week, I never considered a time when I wouldn’t feel like one of them.
I was the first wife.
I was the first one to step in and love a Malone for his heart, and not for business.
“We sure fucked this up, didn’t we?” Archer wipes my cheek with his palm, his grin penetrating my blurry, aching vision. “You meet Anthony Agosti for two fucking minutes, and my entire universe comes collapsing down.”
“I’m the problem, Archer. If I didn’t?—”
He places two fingers over my lips, shaking his head. “I knew you’d figure him out. Iknewthere was no world where you and he could peacefully coexist.”
“Archer—”
“I knew,” he insists. “And I was terrified of what that meant, so I spent the whole evening steering you in oppositedirections, when what I really should’ve done was dunk his fuckin’ head in the fryers and get right back to dancing with my wife.” He shifts closer, taking nine inches of space from between us and leaving just four. “You’re honest and brave and so fucking incapable of hiding your true feelings when men like Agosti exist. It was my own fault for plugging my ears and pretending not to see what was right in front of me. I was scared.” His eyes flicker between mine, twin emeralds that sparkle brighter than the diamonds bouncing from the pool. “I got scared of what could happen if I lost you, which is ironic, because that thing I’m so fucking terrified of?” He licks his lips, drawing my eyes down to his swiping tongue. “I’mthe reason we experienced that this week.”
I blink, blink, blink, squeezing fresh tears onto my cheeks.
“I’msosorry for every single second you believed you were unwanted.” He closes the final four inches between us and presses a chaste kiss to my cheek. “I’m sorry I told you not to come home.”
A soft, pathetic sob rolls along my throat.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust us to get through this together.” He kisses my other cheek. “I’m sorry for taking Cordoza’s word and letting fear rule my decisions.” He kisses my temple. “I’m sorry for being a Malone.”
“Don’t do that.” I twine my fingers with his and sniffle. “You are a Malone.”
He scoffs. “Exactly.”
“There are four more just like you. Four amazing, selfless, generous Malone brothers who love you exactly how you are. Your mothers sacrificed their lives for you. They carried you in their bodies and brought you into this world, and weknowsome of their goodness carried through. But there’s something there in the Malone genes, too. There has to be.” I swallow the croak in my voice. The ache and prickle in the back of my throat. “To have five brothers, so different, and yet, so similar in a lot of ways…” I search his eyes. “Don’t discount hundreds of years of Malone blood, just because Timothy the First and Second were pricks. Ronald and Maureen deserve better than that.”
His stare sparkles with humor. “You mean Ronan and Maeve? The original lovebirds?”
“Mm.” I kiss his wrist and thrill in the way his pulse speeds purely because of my touch. “Ronald and Marigold. That’s what I said.”
He chuckles, the sound watery and weak as his lungs shudder. “Will you come to Jamaica with me, Minnnka?”
“Now?” I glance around the patio. The pool. The back door, and Aubree’s intensely staring face plastered to the window. I bring my focus back to Archer’s and lift a brow. “You want to climb aboard a big dumb superyacht right now, while Cordoza’s being a bitch and Felix is probably gonna start a war when he finds out I cried?”
