They Auctioned Off My Housekeeping, Then the Mob Paid a Million for It novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: What I Ran From

Livia's POV

My father's letter was one page long.

Rocco read it standing up, in the flat voice he used for things that cost him.

"I chose him because he never asked me for anything," he read. "Fifteen years, and he asked for nothing. I knew he would never take you unless you gave yourself. I could not trust a single other man in my house with that."

Rocco stopped. I saw his jaw tighten.

"Go on," I said.

"I should have told you at the church. I was afraid you would hate me, and you have every right. Silvio will come for the seat. Sign nothing of his. Whatever you decide about Rocco, decide it with your eyes open, which is what I failed to give you."

He folded the page in half along the old crease.

"That's all," he said. "Then his name."

I took the paper from his hand and held it against my chest.

The kitchen was very quiet. The water went on moving against the rocks.

"Come upstairs," I said.

"Livia."

"I didn't say it as a favor. I said it as a wife."

He looked at me for a long moment, and then he picked up the steel box and carried it with us to the stairs, as if he couldn't set it down yet.

His room was at the back of the house, with a wide bed and a window over the bay.

I had not been in it before. It was plain and tidy, and it smelled like him.

I stood in the middle of the floor, and he put the box on the chest and turned to me.

"Slow," I said. "I want it slow this time."

"I can do slow."

"I know you can. You did six years."

He crossed the room and took my face in both hands.

He kissed my forehead, then my eyelids, then my mouth.

I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and let it drop, and his shirt, what was left of it, came off with my help.

I put my palm over the bandage on his shoulder.

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