My Don Husband Wants Two Wives novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Couch

Bianca sleeps on Livia's couch, Rocco comes at three in the morning, and Aldo's men are in the street.

I let Bianca in because it was midnight and she had a suitcase.

I did not do it because I trusted her.

I put the shears on the counter between the bolts of lining and told her to sit on the fitting stool.

She sat with her knees together and her bag on her lap.

Up close she looked younger than twenty-three, with a nursing school lanyard hanging out of her handbag.

"Does your father know you're here?" I asked.

"He thinks I'm at my friend's." Bianca swallowed. "He told me on Thursday I was getting married on the twenty-fifth. He said to smile and let the Brandolinis do the talking."

"And you want me to feel sorry for you."

"No." She said it fast. "I want to sleep on your floor and then I want to go to my aunt's in Milwaukee. I only came to you because you're the one person who doesn't have to be nice to me."

That was true.

I didn't like that it was true.

"You can have the couch upstairs," I said. "The door stays locked and the shears stay with me."

"Okay."

"And in the morning you tell me why you didn't just go to the aunt."

She looked at her hands.

"Because my father has a man at every bus station in the city," she said. "And I think the man at the bus station is the same man who's been at my school."

I gave her a blanket and a glass of water and did not say anything kind.

She lay down in her clothes on the couch, with her shoes on the floor beside her.

I sat in the dark kitchen with my coat on.

At ten past three I heard the engine.

A heavy car, stopping hard on the curb below the shop.

Then a door slammed, and then feet on the outside stairs, and a fist on my door.

I knew the knock.

Five years of marriage teaches you a man's knock.

I opened it with the chain on.

Rocco filled the gap.

He had come without his coat, in a white shirt with the collar open and no tie, and he'd been drinking nothing, because I could smell only cold air and his soap.

"Open it," he said.

"No."

"Livia."

"You can say it through the door. I've heard you say worse to people who deserved it less."

His jaw moved.

"You walked out of my house in front of the whole table."

"I wasn't going to sit there and be told which part of my life I get to keep," I said.

For a moment neither of us said anything.

Then he put one hand flat on the door above the chain and leaned his weight on it, and I saw how tired he was.

"Take the chain off," he said, more quietly. "Please."

I don't know why that was the word that did it.

I took the chain off.

He didn't come in.

He stood in the doorway, so close the heat of him reached me through my sweater, and he took my wrist in his hand.

Not hard.

His thumb lay over the inside of my wrist, where the pulse is.

He was holding me still, and I understood that he was checking whether I was afraid.

His own pulse was loud against my fingers.

It was fast.

I told myself it was from the stairs.

"Come home," he said.

"Why?"

"Because it's three in the morning and you're sleeping on a bare mattress."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have tonight."

I looked at his mouth.

I made myself look at his eyes.

"There was a time you'd have had a better one," I said.

His hand tightened and then let go.

Behind me, in the dark flat, a floorboard creaked.

Rocco heard it.

His face changed.

He stepped over the threshold before I could stop him, and the light from the stairwell went across the couch.

Bianca was sitting up with the blanket to her chin.

Rocco looked at her.

Then he looked at me, and I had never seen his face go that still.

"Livia," he said. "How long has she been here?"

"Since midnight. She asked."

"Did anyone see her come in?"

"I don't know. Why?"

He went to the front window without answering and stood to one side of it, out of the light.

I went and stood beside him.

Below us on Harlem Avenue two black cars sat nose to tail under the streetlight.

Four men were leaning on them.

One of them looked up at our window and lifted two fingers to his hat.

"Those aren't mine," Rocco said.

"Whose are they?"

"Aldo's." His voice was flat. "He thinks his daughter was taken. And the only person he'll blame is you."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend