Page 78 of The Viper's Wife

NICO

She’s gone.

I throw the bouquet of tulips and carton of cream on the kitchen table and sweep through the apartment like a bloodhound.

In the bedroom, the sheets are rumpled, different from how we’d left them. Lime wafts through the room, the air tacky with humidity. She’s showered.

I check the closet. Her bags are all there, stacked in an orderly column.

I prowl through the place, looking for her. If she’s gone, I’m going to find her, track her down, drag her back, andmakeher understand this isn’t a fucking?—

She’s on the balcony.

I blow out a breath. My hands unclench.

She’s sitting on the bare concrete, her legs sticking out from the corner she’s tucked herself into. The rest of her body pans into view as I creep along the wall.

Her hair is combed back, dripping water onto the back of her sweater. A big black coat drapes over her legs.

She’s watching the horizon, her expression relaxed and a little dreamy.

Slowly, carefully, I creep to the glass door.

I see the moment she becomes aware of my presence. Her shoulders tense. The corner of her mouth dips.

I should walk away and leave her to her space, but instead, I slide open the door.

I sit down next to her, so close that our shoulders brush.

She has two socks on each slender foot. A long, cheap liner sock encased in a fuzzy black one. I want those feet on my lap. I want her draped over me.

On the street below, cars honk and engines roar, but I search for the delicate rhythm of her breathing, and when I find it, everything else fades away.

I’m tempted to tease her. Stoke an incensed reaction from her just to see the fire in her eyes.

But I rein myself back. For the first time since we’ve met, I have the space for patience. For strategy instead of instinct.

And little by little, she relaxes.

Out of the corner of my eye, she turns toward me.

“Nico,” she says slowly. I glance at her. “I’ve been thinking that it might make sense for us to live together, for a while. For safety. Between Stefano and Giovanni, I don’t have any other real options.”

“You don’t.”

She frowns.

I’m not going to dissuade her from thinking she has a way out of this. She doesn’t. She just has me. And I have her.

“This way,” she says suspiciously, like she’s reading my thoughts, “we won’t have to pretend as much in public before the wedding. The Family will think we’re together, and it’ll give me reason to pretend not to know about your affair.”

I don’t give a fuck about the affair or the Family. Valeria knows this, but she needs a little more time to trick herself otherwise.

Now, we have time. She can take as long as she needs.

“There’s something else I have to tell you,” she says, glancing over the road. “When Giovanni saw me at the train station, he said I need to be pregnant before the wedding.”

My body flashes hot, and it’s fucked, because IknowGiovanni didn’t present this to her as an option, but it feels like the heavens are parting.