“What?”
“How long until the next thing. The next call. The next person you’ve got to handle.” I step back, out of the heat of him, because if I stay in it, I won’t say what I need to say. “How long do I get, between this and the next?” My voice starts to break, but I work to keep it even. “I really needed you today. They called to let me know that my Abuela is… that she’s gone. And the one person I needed by my side was off fixing the next problem instead of being here to help fix,” I swallow, “me... Or at least hold me.”
His whole face drops, and he reaches for me.
“Bea. Oh baby, I’m so sorry.”
I move away, wrapping my arms around myself. “I realized today that every time you walk in, Raffaele, every time, you’re holding something. A war. A document. A man you have to go put in the ground. There’s always something. And every time it ends, you tell me,When this is over.When Nico’s over. When the next one’s over. And I keep believing you, and thenextone keeps coming.”
“This is the last one.”
“You keep saying that.”
He doesn’t respond, just holds the paper up again, like it’s the answer. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m being unfair. I can feel the unfairness curling in my chest, but I keep talking anyway, because the alternative is being a quiet, pretty thing in a window for the rest of my life.
“There’ll always be a Nico, Raffaele. There’ll always be a thing in your hand. Something you need to achieve. You’re in this kind of life.Of coursethere will be.”
“After tonight, there’s no one. The will makes the case. Nico goes down. The families fall in line. And we?—”
“And we what?”
I watch him hunt for the answer. He doesn’t find it.
So instead, he moves.
His palm goes to the back of my neck. His other arm comes around my waist, and he’s pulling me in. His mouth is on mine before I’ve decided whether I want it to be.
“Raffaele—”
“Stop talking.”
“That isn’t?—”
“Yes, it is.”
He walks me backward. The wall finds my shoulder blades. His mouth’s at my throat now, and his hand is already inside therobe. I’m distantly aware that I’m still arguing in my head. But my hands have already come up to his shirt.
“This isn’t productive…” I sigh.
He pulls back an inch to look at me. His eyes are still bright. Still lit up from the will, from the day, from the win.
“Some things are more important than productivity.”
He kisses me again, the bargaining kiss, thecome upstairs with mekiss.
“I don’t feel very important,” I murmur.
“Twenty minutes,” he growls back. “Give me twenty minutes to make you feel like the most important woman in the world. Theonlywoman in my world. Then I’ll talk about anything you want. Anything.”
I should say no.
I know how this will end. He’s just using me again.
But sometimes a girl just wants to be used. It’s easier than fighting.
I let him take my hand and walk me through the dark of our new house, past the front room with the cup of cold tea, up the stairs neither of us has climbed together yet, into the bedroom we haven’t slept in.
He sets me down on the bed.
