We lie tangled on the bed together like victims of a plane crash. Neither of us speaks. It’s only when I hear my cell phone ringing from inside my handbag on the other side of the room that I sit up.
Slowly, because I’m dizzy.
Quinn murmurs, “I’ll get it.”
He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and rises, tucking himself back into his briefs. Walking across the room, he zips up his trousers. He returns in a moment with my phone, two aspirin, and a glass of water.
The phone has stopped ringing, but the number on the screen is Gianni’s.
“Here. Take these.”
Quinn hands me the aspirin. I pop them into my mouth, accept the glass of water, and drink deeply, all while avoiding his eyes.
I feel as if my heart is exposed, beating outside my chest. Like every nerve has been stripped of its protective lining. I’ve never felt more naked in my life.
Quinn takes the empty glass from me and sets it on the nightstand. Then he kisses me on the forehead and pulls the fuzzy folded blanket off the end of the bed. He wraps it around my body, nuzzling my neck and sitting beside me to pull me into the warm, safe circle of his arms.
I close my eyes and let him hold me while I sniff his neck and wonder how to politely excuse myself so I can go to the bathroom.
He saves me from embarrassment by picking me up and taking me there himself.
He sets me in front of the counter, kisses my forehead again, then murmurs, “I’ll give you a minute. Don’t lock the door.”
As if I could operate something as complex as a door handle lock right now. I couldn’t even tell you what year it is.
He closes the door, leaving me alone with my stunned reflection in the mirror. Flushed and splotchy, my hair tangled and my eyes hazy, I almost don’t recognize myself.
I turn away from the stranger in the mirror. I use the toilet and wash my hands. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders again and dial Gianni.
He picks up on the first ring, sounding chipper and relaxed, as if he’s enjoying a lovely Caribbean vacation. “Reyna! How are you, sorellina?”
“Where have you been?”
I don’t know if it’s the flat, disaffected tone of my voice that makes him pause, or if he can tell that I’ve just been used in the most brutal, beautiful way, but he takes a moment before replying.
“I’m at the Four Seasons with Mamma.”
“That’s not what I asked. Listen carefully. Where have you been?”
Irritation creeps into his carefree holiday tone. “Since when do I answer to you?”
“Since I married an Irishman to save the family. I’ll only ask one more time, then I’m sending that Irishman over to break your kneecaps. Where have you been?”
He snaps, “Taking care of business.”
“What business?”
“My business, that’s what. Just because you’re married now doesn’t mean I need to give you an itinerary.”
“Maybe not. But you will give me a copy of that marriage contract. Email it to me. Right now. I want to know the terms you negotiated.”
Indignant that I’m issuing commands, he starts to sputter something about being the head of the family, but I ignore that and speak over him.
“I met with Alessandro.”
Silence. I hear him breathing on the other end of the line, but other than that, he doesn’t say a word.
“Massimo, Tomasi, and Aldo, too.”
“When? Why? What did they want?”
“This morning. They contacted Declan O’Donnell and arranged it. They seemed very interested in what you might be up to in your spare time. You know, like when you mysteriously go missing.”
Another silence, this one fraught. I feel his nervousness as plainly as if he’d reached out and grabbed me with a trembling hand.
“What’s happening, Gianni? What have you gotten yourself into?”
“Nothing. Don’t be stupid. I have everything under control.”
I say softly, “I have half a mind to tell Quinn a nasty lie about something you said about me and send him over there to rearrange your face, so you’d better stop bullshitting me or this conversation is over.”
He snarls, “Twenty-four hours with him and suddenly you think you’re in charge of this family?”
“I’ve always been in charge of this family. I’ve just been letting you hold the reins for a while. Now talk to me before things get out of hand.”
“Fuck you, Reyna. I’m not telling you anything.”
We sit and breathe angrily at each other for a while, until I decide he’s not worth getting upset over. Whatever it is he’s into will come out in the wash eventually.
“Lili and Juan Pablo made it to Mexico safely. In case you’re interested.”
He mutters an oath in Italian. “I’m not interested. I no longer have a daughter.”
“Do you still have a mother? Because she’s been sitting alone in a hotel room all day and night. I’ve been worried.”
“Are you joking? She’s been having the time of her life. When I got back to the room, she was hosting a party for the housekeeping staff. I’ve got a two-thousand-dollar room service bill sitting here with her signature on it.”
That makes me smile. And I suppose I shouldn’t have worried about her. She’s been through as much as I have and is still surviving.
“We’re leaving for New York in the morning. What are your plans?”
“They’re in development. I’ll let you know. By the way, you’re welcome.”
He pauses. “For what?”
“Jesus Christ, Gianni. You’re a fucking asshole. Don’t forget to send me the contract.”
I disconnect and set the phone on the counter. When I open the bathroom door, Quinn is right there, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest.
He says, “You could’ve asked me for the contract.”
“Earwigging, were you?”
“Aye. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on.”
“Really? What a stupendous surprise.”
His smile is as soft as his eyes. “I ordered room service. Thought you might be hungry.”
“Oh, thank God. I really like Sloane, but I’ve never had a worse meal in my life.”
“She’s very into her health.”
“Is she into Declan’s health? Because it seems like her poor husband could starve to death eating that shredded cardboard she calls food.”
He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair off my cheek, tucking it behind my ear. “Declan would eat broken glass if that’s what Sloane was serving.”
I recall how his eyes tracked her every movement and smile. “He does seem a little obsessed with her.”
Quinn pulls me against his chest, wraps his arms around me, and stares down into my eyes. “Aye,” he says gruffly. “The Irish take love very seriously.”
Don’t melt. You have a lot of important things to get to. If you melt, you won’t get to any of them.
I think he can tell I’m flustered by that comment, so he changes the subject. “Declan says he’ll have information for us within a few days.”
“About what?”
“Who came into the house after Lili.”
I furrow my brown in confusion. “How can Declan get that information?”
His smile is mysterious. “He’s got friends in low places.”
“Well, that’s good. Though I doubt Gianni will care at this point. He just told me he doesn’t have a daughter anymore.”
“Let’s stop talking about your idiotic brother now.”
“Deal. What should we talk about instead?”
He considers me in thoughtful silence for a moment, then swings me up into his arms and takes us back to the bed.
Stretching out beside me, he slides a heavy arm over my waist and puts his nose into my hair. With his eyes closed and his voice rough, he says, “Think about what you want. What you really want, not what you think needs to happen. Let’s talk about that.”
I lie there, my mind blank. “I’ve never had anyone ask me what I want before.”
“I’m asking.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Start with what a good day would look like. Your perfect day. Picture it.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll make it happen.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, take a deep breath, and try to talk around the frog in my throat. “Quinn, you don’t have to take care of me.”
“Someone has to do it. Might as well be your fake husband.”
I wrap my fingers around his hard biceps and shiver in delight. He makes me feel as if a red carpet has been unrolled under my feet, stretching out in front of me as far as I can see. And when I walk down it, I’ll be showered in rose petals from the choir of singing angels floating overhead.
“Okay…my perfect day.” I think for a while, trying on different scenarios. “It would start with breakfast in bed. That someone else made for me.”
Quinn makes a soft noise of encouragement.
“Then I’d get a massage. At home. From a very good-looking young man who was getting paid an enormous sum of money to pamper me.”
“You wouldn’t have to pay him anything. Men would line up in the street for a chance to get their hands on your naked body.”
“Shut up, please. This is my fantasy.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Where was I?”
“Naked on a massage bed with a handsome young man.”
“I can tell by your tone that idea doesn’t please you.”
“It doesn’t. He’d leave the house with an imprint of my fist on his face.”
I sigh. “Anyway. After the massage, I’d have a lovely long hot shower.”
“Alone?”
“Will you shut up?”
A grumble of displeasure is my answer.
“Then I’d get dressed in something that made me look ten pounds thinner.”
“You think you’re overweight? That’s daft!”
“For fuck’s sake. This is going to take forever.”
“Sorry. Go ahead. My lips are sealed.”
“Ha! As if that would ever happen.”
Stifling laughter, he squeezes me and nuzzles my neck.
“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I’d get dressed. Then I’d…”
I have to stop. The image that presented itself to me is so unexpected, it’s shocking.
Inconveniently being a man with finely tuned antennae, Quinn senses the change in me. He lifts his head and stares at my profile.
“Then you’d what?”
My heart pounds. It’s hard to catch my breath. Staring up at the ceiling, I say in disbelief, “Then I’d wake up the kids and get them ready for school.”
Every ounce of relaxation flees from his body so fast, it’s as if he’s been replaced by a robot.
A scorching hot sex robot with burning eyes and a dick of steel.
“Don’t say anything, Quinn. Please. I don’t think I can handle whatever’s about to come out of your mouth.”
He stares at my profile with the heated intensity of a thousand suns.
Suns that are melting my ovaries to the consistency of warmed butter.
I close my eyes to try to hide from him.
He demands, “You want children?”
Oh fuck. Here we go. Why didn’t I just keep my damn mouth shut?
“I never really thought about it.”
“Until now,” he says instantly, his body as taut as a live wire beside mine.
“Not exactly. Not before—”
He barks, “What?”
I open my eyes and glare at him. “Dial it down! This isn’t an interrogation!”
He lowers his head until our noses are touching and I’m trying not to go cross-eyed because he’s so close. His voice deadly soft and his body vibrating tension, he commands, “Finish. That. Sentence.”
I swallow and moisten my lips, wondering if this is what a mouse feels like when it spots the hungry cat about to pounce on it. Very softly, I admit, “Not before I met you.”
Pressed against my hip, his erection throbs.
Seriously, the man takes too many vitamins.
He grips my jaw in his big hand. He slides a heavy leg over both of mine. Holding me in his searing gaze, he says, “So what I’m hearing you say, Reyna Caruso, is that you want to have children…with me.”
I snap, “Not if they’re going to have your scary intensity gene. They’ll terrorize all the other kids at school.”
“Say it. You want to have my children.”
“Quinn—”
“How many? Tell me.”
“Can we please—”
“If you think I’m letting you out of this room before we finish this conversation, you’re bloody mad.”
I say through gritted teeth, “Fine. If you must know how many fantasy offspring I’d like, the answer is five.”
His blazing eyes flare wide. In an elated, astonished whisper, he says, “Five.”
My God. I’ve created a monster. If I thought his ego was big before, now there will be no containing it. We’ll have to move out to the country on a hundred-acre farm to give it enough space.
I say tartly, “Or maybe none. I’m just winging it here. You put me on the spot.”
He rolls on top of me and grips my head in his hands. He kisses me. So wildly, it’s as if he wants to eat my soul right out of my body.
I try to push him off, but the man weighs a ton. And there’s that erection to contend with. The thing has a mind of its own, not to mention the appetite of a teenage athlete.
When he finally breaks the kiss, he’s breathing hard, his eyes are ablaze, and his expression can only be described as exultant. He looks as if he just returned from a trip to heaven where he took a personal meeting with God himself.
“You want my children.”
I cover my eyes with a hand.
He pulls it away and insists, “You want me to get you pregnant.”
I groan.
He laughs, and it sounds crazed. “That’s why you begged me to come inside you, baby. You want me to knock you up.”
“What I really want is to go back in time to before we had this stupid conversation.”
“Oh, no,” he says, still laughing. “That cat’s out of the bag, lass. You might not want to be my wife, but you want to grow my babies in your belly. Five of them.”
“I feel like this is a good time to remind you that I’m perfectly capable of murder.”
He kisses me again, then rolls onto his back, flings his arms out, and laughs at the ceiling. He laughs and laughs, shaking the bed, until I rise, pulling the fuzzy blanket around me.
With as much dignity as I can muster, I say, “I’ll be in the bathroom until room service arrives. Enjoy this moment, funny boy. Laugh it up. Because when you wake up in the morning, your lips will be sewn together.”
I slam the bathroom door to the sound of Quinn’s gloating laughter ringing in my ears.
