Chapter 4: Red Hook

Renzo's hand stayed on her sweater.

He froze, caught between triumph and sudden calculation.

Then the captains started clapping.

They clapped because the Don's mistress had said "heir" in front of them, and nobody wanted to be the last one to start.

His mother didn't clap.

She was still holding my father's will.

I felt my own hand drift toward my stomach and stopped it halfway.

The glossy square was in my bag, three inches from Cordelia's plate.

I could have put it on the table.

I could have made him choose, right there, between two women and two babies.

I thought about my child's first headline being that.

I took the will back from Renzo's mother.

"Thank you," I said to her.

She looked at me a long moment.

"Your father was a careful man," she said.

"He was."

Cordelia had sat back down with both hands folded over her stomach.

"No hard feelings, Talia," she said. "These things happen."

"They do," I said. "Congratulations."

I walked out while they were pouring the prosecco.

Gianni was halfway up the drive, early.

He took one look at me and opened the car door.

"Well?"

"The piers are mine," I said. "And she's pregnant."

He shut the door very gently.

He didn't ask if I'd told them.

On Monday morning I drove to Red Hook in my father's old Buick, which my mother had kept running out of spite.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Don's Wife Was Never Weak from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.