The Don's Widow Carries His Heir novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Christmas Eve

Antonia didn't say a word at breakfast.

She put a coffee in front of Nick and looked at him over the top of her glasses for a long, long moment.

He drank it without blinking.

Then she put a plate of leftover smelts in front of me.

"Eat," she said. "You'll need your strength."

I didn't dare look at either of them.

The restaurant on Atwood Avenue had a wreath on the door the size of a tire.

The gold script over it said CARBONE.

At seven on Christmas Eve, men in good coats smoked on the sidewalk.

They stopped smoking when Nick's car pulled up.

I got out.

I wore a dark green velvet dress the florist's daughter had let out over my stomach, and Antonia's pearls.

Five months. You couldn't miss it now.

Nick came around the car last. He had a white bakery box in both hands, the big one, for sheet cakes.

Inside, it was hot and loud and smelled like garlic and frying fish.

Sixty people at long tables pushed into a U. A piano by the bar played "White Christmas" too slowly.

The noise went down table by table as we walked in.

At the head of the U sat Paolo, in a dark suit with his camel coat over the back of his chair.

On his right sat my sister.

She was wearing my red dress.

The one she'd worn in the front hall while my husband sent me to the river.

There was a diamond on her left hand the size of a chickpea.

At a small table near the wall sat my parents.

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