The Don's Widow Carries His Heir novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Yes

I didn't answer him.

Not with words.

I took the dish towel out of his hands and hung it on the oven door, neatly, the way Antonia liked.

Then I turned around and looked at him.

Really looked.

The crooked nose. The soot that had finally washed out of his beard.

The pink burn on his arm that he kept his sleeve down over in front of everybody but me.

The man who'd laid his gun on the table, and picked it up again only when I told him to.

"You said you don't need me to say anything back," I said.

"I don't."

"Good. Because I'm not going to say it in a kitchen that smells like eel."

He laughed, surprised.

I took his face in my wet hands.

"Yes," I said.

He went very still.

"Yes to what?"

"To you. To tonight. To all of it." I let go of his face and put my hands flat on his chest, where I'd stopped him at the flour bench. "I'm not stopping you this time."

He looked at my hands.

He didn't move.

"Lia. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"The baby..."

"I asked the doctor," I said. "Three weeks ago. When Antonia went to the bathroom."

He stared at me.

"You asked the doctor."

"She said, 'Mrs. Castiglione, you're pregnant, not made of glass.'"

"Three weeks ago."

"I'm a planner," I said. "I own a bakery."

His mouth came down on mine before I'd finished the word.

He kissed me against the counter, slow and deep.

One hand spread on my back, and the other was careful, so careful, on the curve of my stomach.

I kissed him back until the radio song ended and another one started.

His sweater was soft. He was hard against my hip, and he didn't hide it.

"Upstairs," I said against his mouth.

"Antonia's upstairs."

"Antonia's at the far end of the hall, and she sleeps like the dead."

"She does not. She heard me take a cookie at three in the morning when I was twelve."

"Then be quiet," I said. "You're good at quiet. You stood by a curtain for a whole month."

He made a noise into my hair, low and helpless, that was half a laugh.

Then he turned off the radio.

He turned off the light over the stove.

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