Page 100 of The Kingpin’s Bride

“We’ll leave it to dry now,” I said. “Good job, everyone!”

Camilla wiped her hands on her shirt, which was already lost to paint, and slipped her hand into mine. The other one she offered to Matteo.

Late at night, I found my husband looking at himself in the mirror.

The bathroom light was the only one still on. Camilla was asleep down the hall in a temporary room while hers dried

Matteo stood at the sink without his shirt. The black-and-gold cane was hooked on the towel bar like he didn’t want it in the reflection. His weight was off the bad knee. I could see it in the line of his hip, in the way he held himself.

He was staring at his own leg like it had betrayed him.

I stopped in the doorway. I didn’t speak at first. I had learned that with him: if I rushed the silence, he put the mask back on.

He saw me. His eyes lifted to mine in the glass.

“You should be asleep,” he said.

“So should you.”

His mouth moved like he might make a joke of it. Nothing came out. He looked down again, at the scarred skin.

I stepped closer until I could see the faint rust-colored smear he’d missed at his wrist. Old habit. Violence coming home on his cuffs.

He exhaled through his nose. The sound was sharp. “You chose me when I could pin you to a wall and not shake doing it. You don’t have to stay kind about the version of me now. I would rather you say it.”

“I don’t need a smile I didn’t earn.”

I felt the old heat rise in my throat. Not fear. Frustration. The particular kind that only existed with him.

His jaw flexed. “I think you stayed because I got your sister out. Because I killed the man who hurt her.”

He tapped two fingers against his own thigh, hard enough that I flinched for him “Does this scare you?”

“Matteo… Of course not. Why would it?”

“Don’t.” He shook his head once. “Don’t make it pretty. I can live with a limp. I cannot live with you staying out of pity.”

I crossed the last of the space and put my hand on his chest. His heart was going too fast for a man who claimed he was only being practical.

“I wanted you when I hated you,” I whispered. I slid my palm up to the side of his neck, to the bare place where a collar would have sat on me. “That’s why we’re still married.”

I lifted that hand so he had to see the ring. The stone caught the bathroom light. He stared at the ring. Then at my mouth.

“Say you love me,” he said. Not an order. A test he was terrified to fail.

I stepped in until my hips met his, careful of his balance, not careful of his pride.

“I love you,” I said. His breath left him like he’d been holding it since the clinic.

“If I fall,” he said against my temple, voice raw, “you don’t get to pretend you didn’t see it.”

“Then don’t hide.” I reached past him, took the cane off the towel bar, and put it back in his hand. He closed his fingers around the handle. The gold warmed between us.

I kissed the corner of his mouth. “I chose you.”

He rested his forehead against mine.

“Say it again,” he whispered. “Please.”