shirt was stiff and damp from hours of my sister’s tears. My guts had been raked and twisted from her sobs and the pain she hadn’t even begun to hold back.
I’d been the one to tell her what Miller had done.
Clara chose to kill the messenger by throwing herself into my arms and letting me feel every ounce of her turmoil. She keened her husband’s name. Begged for me to make it untrue. Bargained for me to cover for him. Then screamed he should never see the light of day again.
Our parents couldn’t comfort her. My mother tried to tell her to be calm for the sake of the baby, but Clara was inconsolable. She cradled her belly and rasped her apologies to the baby kicking inside her.
My father dealt with his own rage. Like me, he wanted blood. He’d taken Miller in as his son-in-law, had treated him like family, given him an executive position at Rossi, all for Miller to spit in his face.
I’d spent the day with them. Holding Clara. Telling my father he had to calm down, or he’d end up having a second heart attack. Forcing my mother to sit down before she ran herself into the ground.
Saoirse had asked me if I’d wanted her to come, but I’d declined. Instinct told me Clara needed privacy to express her grief without restraint. Saoirse could come tomorrow, or the next day, when Clara was ready for her brand of comfort. And she would be. Even though she’d barely been coherent, Clara had asked about Saoirse.
“You should be with her,” she said, shoving at me with weak arms.
“She’s fine, Clara. Saoirse’s working today, but she’s been texting, checking in on you.”
Her head fell on my chest. “You’re such a good husband. Promise me you won’t hide anything from her. Promise me you won’t hurt her like this.”
“I promise I won’t hurt her.”
A great rolling sob racked her body. “Miller wasn’t supposed to hurt me. I know you never liked him, but I loved him so much. He was sweet to me and—”
If I had the chance, I didn’t know how I’d be able to stop myself from killing him. Lucky for Miller, he turned himself in to the FBI last night. Based on my private investigator’s contacts within the bureau, Miller confessed to everything. Even more than what had been uncovered.
In the part of me that hadn’t been charred by cynicism, I wondered if he’d turned himself in for Clara’s sake. If he felt guilty for putting her through this.
But that was probably giving him too much credit. Most likely, he’d sensed the blade dropping. Turning himself in was the only way he could save his own neck. No doubt his attorney would be angling for a plea deal.
When I entered my condo after my never-ending day with my family, all I wanted was a replay of last night, My wife in my arms. Her hands on my face. Sweet words in my ear.
But I was greeted with laughter. Saoirse’s and Miles’s.
That wasn’t uncommon since they began working together. To be honest, it had always put a smile on my face because it meant Saoirse was happy.
Tonight, it was nails on a chalkboard. All the hairs on my arms stood on end. My immediate, gut-churning reaction was betrayal. How could she be laughing when I’d spent the day holding together my crumbling family?
My logical side knew these feelings were irrational. But that side of me had been worked to fucking death today. All that was working now was my hindbrain, which took major offense to another man making my wife happy on today of all days.
It only got worse when Miles came strolling out of their shared office with Clementine in his arms.
My fucking cat.
“Hey, I thought I heard the front door.” Miles grinned and stroked Clem’s back. The little traitor barely glanced at me.
“I’m surprised you heard me.” I tossed my keys and phone down in the ceramic bowl Saoirse had added to the small table in the entryway. “Is your workday over?”
“Yeah. We’ve been done for a while. We were just hanging out. I’m gonna head home, though.” He gave Clementine a kiss, then set her on the ground. “By the way, remind your wife to move her stuff out of the apartment. If there’s anything left when I move in, it’s mine.”
My hand froze midway to my face. What the hell was he going on about?
Luckily for me, Miles was a talker, so he filled me in without asking.
“Have you been to Elise and Saoirse’s place? It’s sweet. The views are killer, and my big ass fits in the bathtub, no problem. I’m only living there temporarily while the lead paint gets removed from my house’s walls. Apparently, that’s dangerous or something. Don’t tell Saoirse, but I used one of her candles last night. And her bubble bath.” He laughed at himself and clapped me on the shoulder. “All right. Good to see you. Have a nice weekend.”
Miles exited without waiting for me to say goodbye. Which was good because I was still trying to wrap my head around what he’d just said.
Clem meowed at my feet, so I bent down and picked her up. As I straightened, Saoirse emerged from her office, striding toward me with a worried pinch in her brow.
“Hey. You look like you need to sit down.” Cupping the back of my neck, she placed a soft, lingering kiss on my lips. “Come sit down with me.”
“You never moved all your things here.”
Her head canted, the pinch in her brow deepening. “What do you mean?”
“Miles wants me to remind you to move your things out of your apartment. You never really moved in here.”
“Well, yes. I left some of my belongings there since we still had the place for a while—”
“And you had one foot out the door this entire time.”
“No. That isn’t true. I uprooted myself to move into your place. We barely knew each other then. I left a few things there, but my foot isn’t out the door.” She put her hand on top of mine, which was on Clem’s back. I looked down at our woven fingers, feeling no comfort. “Can we go sit down? I know you have to be exhausted from today, and I want to—”
“Where are your rings?”
“What?” Her wide eyes flicked from mine to her hand. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I forgot to put them on this morning.”
I had to put Clem down on the floor before I lost it. I’d been on the edge when I walked in. Pressure coming at me from all sides. Expectations I had no choice but to meet. Saoirse told me just last night she’d be my soft place to land, but there was nothing comforting about knowing the woman I loved could easily walk out the door whenever she wanted. Hell, she was only halfway here, even now.
“I haven’t taken my ring off since we got married.”
She touched her forehead. “I’m sorry. It was an accident. You know I normally wear them, but things have been out of the ordinary lately and it slipped my mind.”
“All day.”
Her lips pursed like she’d sucked on something sour. “Yes, apparently so. I spent my day fretting for you, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was texting you, or Miles was talking me out of getting in my car to go to you.”
“Miles? Did you tell him what’s going on?”
Suddenly, I couldn’t stand that he’d been here with her. He got parts of her I didn’t. While I’d been watching my sister’s world fall apart, he’d been making her laugh.
I had no say in it. She could do what she wanted, and I’d be expected to carry on. Hold it all together.
“No, of course not.” She stepped into me and clutched my folded arms. “Luca, please. Come sit down. Let me get you a drink and we can talk about this. Or whatever you want, I just—”
“When the two years are over, do you still plan to walk away from me?”
The plea in her eyes and the thin line her lips pressed into gave me my answer.
“I don’t—why are we talking about this now?” She cupped the side of my neck and pressed her chest to my arms. “Neither of us knows what will happen, but I don’t want to be anywhere else but here. I want to be with you, Luca. Isn’t that enough?”
“Do you love me?”
She nodded sharply, immediately. “I do. I love you very much. Do you love me?”
“Madly.” My jaw rippled with everything I was holding back. “Which is why I’m ending our agreement.”
She sucked in a harsh breath. “Why does loving me mean the end of our agreement?”
Unfolding my arms, I took her face in my hands. “Because you’re my wife. That’s real to me, and fuck, maybe it always has been, but I can’t go on loving you like this if I don’t have any guarantees. I have to know I’m your husband in every sense of the word. Tell me our marriage is real to you.”
“Luca,” she breathed. “This isn’t the time.”
“No.” I dropped her face, taking a step back. “You said it’s your job to make my life easier. Well…this is it. I’m asking for your promise that this is real to you. No more agreement. It’s me and you, husband and wife.”
She turned her head, but not before her eyes filled with tears. I knew what the answer would be before I asked, but knowing and seeing it live and in color were two different things.
“I can’t do that right now.” She touched her delicate fingertips to her lips. “When this is all over, we can—”
“Say yes.” I shoved my fingers into my hair, a throb like nothing I’d ever felt surging through my skull. “I’m asking you to say yes.”
She shook her head, still facing away. “I’m not doing this right now. Not like this.”
She didn’t get it. It had to be now. Everything else was unsettled. The foundation of my world was crumbling, and all I could do was apply duct tape and throw a wish up to the stars it would hold. Things I knew to be true were lies. Up was down and down was up.
I needed her to be the one unchanging thing I could count on. If I was worried I was going to lose her when some arbitrary date came along, how did I deal with the thousand other things I had to?
“Say yes, Saoirse.” I yanked at the collar of my shirt. It was too fucking tight for the knot in my throat. Somewhere in the condo, my phone rang, but there was no one else I wanted to talk to, so it barely registered. “Look at me and say yes.”
She wouldn’t give me her face, so I walked around her until she had no choice but to see me. Her eyes flared, but she wouldn’t say the word. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip, trapping her answers inside.
“I am asking you to say yes.” I slapped my chest in frustration. “I’m telling you I need it.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
There was a hurricane inside me. Wild and uncontrollable, shaking my knees and balling my fists. A deluge of exhaustion and anger warred in my brain. My sister’s cries echoed like rolling thunder in my ears. I had to yell to make myself heard over it all.
“Then say yes.”
Saoirse flinched, taking a step away from me. “Stop it, Luca.”
My phone began ringing again, driving a spike into my aching head.
“You say yes to everyone else. You dropped everything to work for another man for free. But you won’t say yes to me? You love me and you won’t say yes?”
Her shoulders jumped and bunched around her ears, which told me I was louder than I’d meant to be, but everything was swirling out of control. She was supposed to be my fucking buoy. My soft place. And I couldn’t get a grasp on her. On anything.
Tears were rolling down her cheeks when her eyes locked on mine. “You’re asking me to spill wine on myself.”
That brought me to a dead stop.
“What?” But I’d heard her—and everything behind those words.
“If I said yes to you, it would be to make you happy. And god, Luca, I want to make you happy. I would do anything for you to feel that way.”
I finished her thought since I knew exactly where she was going with it. “But not at your own expense, right? Being married to me for real would mean spilling wine on yourself. That’s how you see it.”
My phone rang again. This was the third or fourth time. Saoirse and I both turned in the direction of the grating sound.
“You should get that,” she whispered.
“We’re not finished talking.” But the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. In a moment of clarity, I remembered the crisis currently happening outside these walls.
I walked back to the entry. Seeing my dad’s name on the screen drew me up tight. Something was wrong.
“Hello?”
“Thank Christ,” he uttered. “You need to get down to Davis Memorial as soon as you can. Clara’s been in a car accident and they’re taking her into surgery to deliver the baby.”
Blood drained from my face. “No. Accident?”
“I’ll explain it when you get here. She’s going to need all of us around her.”
My heartbeat whooshed in my ears. “I’ll be there. Davis Memorial.”
Saoirse was beside me when I hung up, concern etched on the face I loved more than anything but could barely look at.
“Clara’s in the hospital. I need to go.”
She nodded. “Okay. Let me get my shoes.”
“I don’t have time to wait. My sister needs me.”
She murmured a protest, but it was too late. I was already gone.
