We left the restaurant before our entrées arrived, and we walked home together without saying a word. She hooked her arm through mine and stayed close to me on the journey.
I liked it when she touched me like that. Even when I was silently seething in rage, she still had that effect on me. It was a short walk home, and we went straight upstairs to the top level of the house.
She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “I can whip up some spaghetti with meat sauce.”
I didn’t have an appetite, but if I really skipped dinner, I’d probably be hungry in the middle of the night and it would affect my workout in the morning. I needed that fuel to lift heavy and maintain my strength. “Sure.”
She took off her dress so she wouldn’t get it dirty and put on an apron she’d bought the other day when we were shopping. That was all she wore, with her panties on underneath. Normally, the sight of her cooking for me in nothing but a thong with that littlebright-blue apron would make me bend her over the counter, but my mood was way too sour.
She cooked the ground beef in the pan and made the sauce from the fresh tomatoes sitting on the counter because she’d done it so many times. She added seasonings and garlic and made the kitchen smell heavenly.
I sat on the barstool across the counter and watched her. “I know it’s not my fault, but I’m sorry our evening was ruined.” She’d agreed to live in Palermo with me, and I was probably the happiest I’d ever been—and then that all went to shit.
“There will be plenty of other evenings, Wolfe.” She turned to me while she cooked and gave me an affectionate expression with her eyes before she continued to prepare dinner. The noodles boiled in the pot, and the meat mixed with the sauce.
I watched her cook in silence, observed her in her element. She drained the noodles and then mixed them with the sauce before she sprinkled fresh basil on top. She carried the two plates to the dining table.
The second I looked at the plate with fresh cheese grated on top, I was hungry again.
I sat across from her, and we ate in silence for a while. “Maybe you should open your own restaurant here. It’d be the most popular spot in town.”
She shook her head. “Cooking is my love language—and I only want to cook for you.”
I was grumpy and pissed off, and she made me melt like fucking butter. It made me feel like I had a piece of her that no one else had ever had.
“And if I cooked for a living, I’d probably start to hate it.”
“Other people would cook your recipes. You would just oversee it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to work. I cared about the winery because it was a family thing. I still have my nursing license, so I could do that. But I don’t want to do that either.”
It meant the world to me that she just let me take care of her. That she didn’t try to work out of principle or attempt to offer me money for her part of the mortgage or whatever nonsense. I interpreted that as a testament to how serious we were. That she believed this would last forever, that we would marry so she didn’t need to make a plan for her life, that she trusted me to be there for her in every way.
It meant the fucking world.
“Maybe later down the road, but not right now.”
The second I tasted her spaghetti, my appetite kicked in even more and I started to devour it.
Her eyes flicked up to mine. “If that’s okay…”
I smirked as I spun my fork in the pasta, arms on the table. “Absolutely, baby.”
“I guess we should have talked about this before, but it all happened so fast.”
“I don’t think a conversation is necessary.”
“Well, I kinda just assumed I would live with you, and I never actually asked.”
“You don’t need to ask.” I looked at her head on. “I love that you didn’t ask.”
Her eyes gently switched back and forth between mine.
“When I suggested we live here in Palermo, you thought I meant separately?” I teased.
“Well…no.”
“You think I want to marry you but don’t want to live with you?”
