The Heir He Gave Away, The Empire I Took Back

"Oh, darling," he murmured. "Nothing happened between us. I just donated, okay? Silvana loves kids, you know that. Don't worry. Once the baby's born, I won't get in touch with her again. You understand, right?"

His voice was soft. Coaxing. The voice he used when he wanted something to go away quietly. I had heard him use it on associates who were about to be cut loose. On soldiers who had disappointed him but hadn't yet crossed the line that required a more permanent conversation.

I kept my eyes shut and my mouth closed.

His thumb moved against my hip. I could feel him waiting. Waiting for me to turn toward him, to soften, to give him the absolution he had come to collect.

I moved his hand away and turned my back.

The silence lasted three heartbeats. I counted them.

Then his voice changed. The softness drained out of it like water through a crack. "What else do you want, Grazia? I'm trying to be nice, and you're rejecting me?"

He sat up. I felt the mattress shift. Felt the distance open between us like a wound.

"What happened to—" He mimicked my voice, high and eager, a cruel little imitation of the woman I'd been on our wedding night, the girl who had believed that love could grow in a house built on obligation. "'I don't care about your ex. You're mine now, and it's all that matters!'"

The words hung in the dark. My own words, thrown back at me like stones.

I heard him let out an exasperated sigh. The kind that said I am the reasonable one here. I am the one being patient.

"Can you quit acting like a jealous wife? I could've kept this from you. I didn't have to tell you anything. I could've handled it quietly, the way things are supposed to be handled in this family. But I chose to be transparent, because that's what husbands are supposed to do." His voice rose, just slightly. Just enough to cross the line between frustration and accusation. "Now here you are, giving me the silent treatment."

He let all his frustrations out. Every one of them. How ungrateful I was. How difficult. How he'd been nothing but honest with me, and this was what he got. The words piled up in the dark room like debris after a storm, and I lay there and let them fall around me.

In the end, he said, "Look. You wanted a baby. And here I am, trying to support you. But you're rejecting it. Guess I should just sleep on the couch tonight, huh?"

He stood. The floorboards creaked under his weight. He grabbed his pillow with a sharp, theatrical motion, and then the door slammed hard enough to rattle the crucifix on the wall.

In the silence that followed, I couldn't help but laugh.

It came out broken. A fractured sound in the dark, muffled by the pillow, my body shaking with it. Laughing at how messed up my marriage was and how clueless I had been. How completely, devastatingly clueless.

To him, saying sorry was something he only did so that I would forgive him. That was the entire transaction. He offered the words; I accepted them. And if I didn't accept them, then I was the problem. The jealous wife. The unreasonable woman. The girl who should have been grateful that a man like Simone Valente came home to her at all.

I guessed it was my fault, in the end. He knew I'd always forgive him because I loved him. He had learned that the way a man learns the combination to a safe. Through repetition. Through testing the limits. Through understanding that the lock would always give.

And this was the price I had to pay.

The next morning, I didn't find my husband on the couch.

The blanket was folded. The pillow was back in the hall closet. The espresso machine in the kitchen was cold, which meant he hadn't even stopped for coffee before leaving.

I didn't wonder where he went early in the morning. It wasn't the first time. He'd be back when it was already late in the evening, slipping through the front door with the particular exhaustion of a man who has spent the day being someone else's comfort.