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“What does that mean?”
“My treasure,” he replies, pressing his forehead to mine. “Robert was wrong what he said about me ever being in love with Elizabeth. I have never felt like this about anybody except Maria and that’s a different kind of love.”
“Obviously.”
He smiles with his eyes and I lose myself in their perfection, not needing to count the flecks and shards because he makes me forget about counting and my anxieties.
“I would give my life for you, cuore mio, and I wouldn’t have to think about it.”
“You hardly know me.”
“I know you.”
“You d—”
“I know you,” he insists, giving me a pointed look. “I don’t know everything about you, but I know enough to know that I want to be with you. Don’t you feel the same?”
“You know I do.”
“Then let’s keep going as we are. I will deal with my family. They will come around and all will work out for the best.”
“Promise?”
“I do. I’m not walking away from this, Rose. I’m not walking away from you.”
I kiss his chin, smiling when his growing mustache tickles my nostril. “Were you serious about that trip away?”
“Definitely.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“I will make the arrangements.”
At that, I snort and raise my brows.
“Okay, I will have my beautiful PA make the arrangements.”
“Figured as much.” I drop the towel and pull away his. “We have time, right?”
Grinning, he throws me backwards onto the bed making me squeal and then covers my body with his.
We have the most amazing sex as always and lie together in each other’s arms soon after. Sweaty and panting, but sated and relaxed.
“We’re going to tell people we’re dating,” he says suddenly and my heart stops. “No more keeping you in the shadows like some dirty secret.”
“What?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
He makes me feel beautiful. So beautiful.
This week has been all about those confessions and being honest but telling Laurie over cookie dough might not have been my best idea.
She drops her loaded spoon onto the table, her mouth hanging open. I’ve never seen her so still. For a moment I worry I might have shocked the tics right out of her.
“YOU’RE FUCKING YOUR BOSS?” she shrieks, finally coming out of her awake-comatose state.
Everybody looks our way… she was that loud.
“Shhh.” I flick a bit of ice cream at her face from my spoon. “There are children present.”
She searches the room with her wide eyes and gaping mouth. I don’t think she’s breathing.
“Do you hate me?”
She sits back and covers her face with her hands, eyes peeking through gaps in her fingers.
We sit like this forever, letting ice cream melt and cookie dough cool as she practices a certain stillness that she never has been able to before.
“Do you hate me?”
“No,” she blurts, letting both palms hit the table. “How could I hate you? I’m surprised. I was not expecting that at all. Truth be told I was worried you were going to get back with Pax, so this is actually a bit of relief.”
“Eww. No way.”
“Exactly… I guess… One, I’m jealous. Two, Mrs. Cuntyflaps is on my shit list, so I don’t care. I’m just glad you fucked her husband before I did purely to piss her off.”
“Not funny.”
“It kind of is.” She stifles her smile with the tips of her fingers. “I mean you’ve had office sex… you. With your married boss. Nuh-uh. No way. You never did.”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“You didn’t lose your virginity until college and you cried for two weeks after. You wouldn’t kiss boys on the mouth because it’s gross. You passed out when we watched porn together as teens.”
“It was anal,” I hiss, glaring at her. “It freaked me out.”
“ACHOOO!” she yells and then shakes her head violently. She didn’t sneeze, she just had a big tic release. She must have really been stifling herself.
“Oh God no, you’re not starting that one again, are you?” I ask, frowning. It’s the only tic of hers that I struggle to deal with because it makes me jump. It’s such a loud and aggressive sound. She said it constantly for about four months once. It was hell for me because we lived together back then, but worse for her of course because it really held her back.
“ACHOOO!” she goes again, this time both of her arms fly up. She bangs one of them on the underside of the table.
I laugh and rub it for her. “You good?”
“I’m just startled by this information. Good girl Rose, my little flower, my virginal nun buddy…”
“Okay, I was never that bad.”
“You fainted at the sight of anal sex.”
“At that point I didn’t even know what real sex was,” I whisper.
“ANAL SEX IS A TREE-HUGGING WEIRDO!”
I press my lips together. “Is it really?”
Her hands go up again as do her nerves when everybody turns our way and a woman at the table to the right of us snarls, “Do you mind?”
