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About to head home soon, she finally writes back, following up with, Wasn’t aware I was out past my curfew?
Take your time. I’m going to need at least forty-five minutes, I send.
Margaux shoots back an annoyed emoji followed by a sleeping emoji. I get it. She’s tired.
Need I remind you I’m doing this for you? I type out because it bears reminding. I add a smiley face to keep things from escalating in the wrong direction.
No one told you to take him back to our freaking apartment! she writes back almost instantly.
I compose another message to her. Going to his place wasn’t exactly an option.
“All good over there?” Roman calls from the living room.
“Yeah, just texting my sister. Be there in a sec. The remote should be on the coffee table.”
I shoot her one last text before joining Roman. Forty-five minutes and not a second before. He places his arm around me the second I sit down, and I rest my head on his shoulder.
In the half hour that follows, he watches some random show before gently nodding off, and I debate when to tell him the truth. A hundred variations of the same conversation play out. Some of them funny. Some of them horrific. Many of them emotional and heartfelt.
But the fact is, until the conversation is had, there’s no point in theorizing how it’s going to go. There’s only one way to find out, and the longer I wait, the greater the odds are that this conversation isn’t going to go the way I hope it will.
I cover him with a throw blanket and leave him asleep on the sofa while slipping away to the kitchen to frost and sprinkle his daughters’ cake. When I’m done, I quietly locate the cake pan lid from a drawer and pop it on.
Regardless of what happens next, no matter which way this shakes out, I just hope he knows I truly care about him.
I like him.
A lot . . .
More than I ever thought possible.
“Roman.” I wake him with a whisper and my palm on his shoulder. “The cake is ready.”
He stirs, drawing in a sharp inhalation. His eyelids are heavy, and a disoriented expression washes over his handsome face. For a moment, I imagine what he looks like first thing in the morning, waking from a deep night’s sleep. The heavy pit in my stomach tells me I’ll probably never experience that with him. The fullness in my chest tells me not to give up hope, that anything is possible.
“You fell asleep,” I tell him, “so I finished it.”
I decided halfway between frosting the cake and covering it with a million sprinkles and then some that I need to come clean to him this week.
It can’t wait.
It shouldn’t wait.
Not a day longer.
As much as it pains me to jeopardize Margaux’s promotion, and as much as I worry he’ll never speak to me again, it’s the right thing to do. If I have to help Margaux financially with the babies, so be it.
At the end of the day, Roman Bellisario is a good man who doesn’t deserve to be a pawn in someone else’s game.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ROMAN
“Kristie,” I say when my assistant answers my call Monday morning. “It’s Roman. I’m taking the day.”
Antonio glances up in the rearview, his gray brows knitting together.
“If you could reschedule my appointments,” I add, “I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course, Mr. Bellisario,” she says against a background of idle office chatter and rustling papers. “Is everything okay? It’s not one of the girls, is it?”
“No,” I say. “I mean, yes, everything is fine. And no, it’s not the girls. Just taking a personal day. I’ll be in tomorrow.”
After sharing an intense and unexpected Saturday night with Margaux, I’ve been feeling . . . different. Nothing bad. A little lighter, perhaps. Colors are slightly brighter. Music is more appealing to my ear. It’s almost as if I’ve stepped out of a black-and-white movie and into a world of high-definition Technicolor.
“Got it,” she says. “I’ll work on moving everything as soon as possible.”
“Perfect. And Kristie?”
“Yes?” she asks.
“Take the afternoon when you’re done.” I’d have to be blind not to notice how the poor thing sits around bored to tears half the time. Once or twice I’ve caught her with a single white AirPod in her ear, listening to some audiobook or podcast from her phone. The problem isn’t that she’s lazy or unmotivated—quite the opposite. She’s too efficient. She finishes her work by ten o’clock each day, ten thirty at the latest. I could easily cut her down to part time if I wanted to, but I’d never do that to her. She lives with her disabled grandmother in Brooklyn, and Kristie’s salary pays their rent.
“Are . . . are you sure about that?” she asks.
“You’re welcome to stay the entire day if you’d like?” A teasing smirk covers my face. Sometimes I wish Kristie wouldn’t be so serious, so eager to please. Sometimes I wish she’d give me guff every once in a while.
