“Thank you, Nico.”
He jumps out of his seat and settles in the chair catty-corner from me. His big, calloused hands grip my cheeks. “Don’t thank me, Serenity. I’m your husband. You can lean on me…for anything.”
“It’s not easy, Nico.”
“I know. But just watching you put your guard down these past few days has been a wonderful sight to see. This is all I wanted for my woman.”
I pucker my lips and Nico takes them in an intoxicating kiss.
Pulling back, I ask, “After dinner, can we take a bath?”
“Yes. After that we’re lying outside on the hammock.”
“I’d love that.”
He returns to his seat.
“Can we talk about how I won the last four games?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and laughs. “You played well,” he mutters.
I burst into laughter. “I dug into my memory bank. I remembered when I beat your ass the last time.”
He shovels pasta into his mouth and chuckles. “You act like I didn’t win any games this evening.”
“Baby, you did very well.”
My insides tense the second that word falls from my lips. Who am I?
He leans into the table. “When you ride my dick later, I want to hear you, call me baby again and again.”
I blush under his hungry gaze before picking up my wine and gulping it down. “Okay, Nico.”
A mischievous smirk lifts the corners of his lips. “We’ll have a video game rematch tomorrow.”
“You’re on.” I beam.
This is the most fun I’ve had in years. With my best friend.
After our soothing bubble bath, Nico stretches out on the flat hammock suspended above the crystal-clear ocean. The seventy-five-degree air is perfectly comfortable. I can easily stay out here all night.
My mind drifts back to last night. Once my husband was asleep, I hurried into the bathroom to call Madden. He was in rare form—a full-blown crying fit. Thankfully, I had one AirPod in because that boy was screaming at the top of his lungs. I’m so grateful for my nanny; without her, my grandmother wouldn’t have been able to handle him. He’s never been away from me this long, and it’s painfully clear.
“Just hold on; we’ll be together soon.”
If Nico had overheard me, he might have thought I was speaking to Kobi.
“I want you, Mommy,” he sobbed, tears and snot streaming down his face. I was tempted to ask the pilot to divert the flight to Italy. But I took hold of the situation.
“Mommy needs you to be a big boy. I love you so much,” I whispered.
“I’ll call you again soon.”
His reddish cheeks made my stomach twist with pain. My son was my entire world. I couldn’t believe I had nearly given him up for adoption.
“Louve you, Mommy.”
“Lie down. We’ll fall asleep together,” I said, settling onto the heated floor.
