The Don's Wife Was Never Weak novel · Chapter 30 of 32

Chapter 30: Stay

I folded the dish towel in half.

Then in half again.

I set it on the counter very neatly, the way my mother did when she was about to say something nobody would like.

"Are you finished?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Good. Now let me finish."

He leaned back against the sink.

"You think I never chose you," I said. "I chose you in a parking lot in my green silk, when every other man in that hall was looking at his plate."

He opened his mouth.

"I'm not done."

He closed it.

"I chose you on the pier with a pickle in my hand. I chose you on the Belt Parkway, and in the vault, and in a hospital in the middle of the night when I asked for you instead of anybody else." My voice was shaking now, and I let it. "I chose you on the fire escape. You were there. I kissed you first."

"You leaned. I met you halfway."

"I leaned first."

He almost smiled.

"I don't need room, Gianni. I've had a whole year of room. I've had room for a business and a daughter and a fight with half of New Jersey." I took a step toward him. "What I need is you on my side of the table."

He didn't move.

"Call Baltimore," I said. "Tell them no. Then come to work for Conforti Freight. Not as my security. As my partner. Half the port side, your name on the door next to mine."

"Talia."

"And stay," I said. "Not on the couch."

The kitchen was so quiet I could hear the clock over the stove.

He looked at me a long time with those harbor-colored eyes.

Then he reached past me, picked his phone up off the counter and dialed.

It rang four times.

"It's Lombardo," he said into it. "I'm sorry about the hour. I can't take the job."

He listened.

"No. Nothing's wrong. I'm staying in Brooklyn."

He hung up and set the phone down on the counter.

Then he put both hands on my face.

He didn't kiss me right away.

He looked at me, memorizing the kitchen around me, the clock, the drying rack, the dripping tap.

"Say it again," he said.

"Stay."

He kissed me.

It wasn't careful this time.

There was no baby between us and no window to climb back through, and he kissed me like a man who had stopped asking anyone's permission but mine.

The edge of the sink hit the small of my back.

I didn't care.

I got both fists in the front of his shirt and pulled him in until there was no air left between us.

He made a sound against my mouth, low and rough, that I felt all the way down.

His hands left my face.

One spread across my waist and held me against the counter.

The other slid into my hair and tipped my head back so he could kiss me deeper.

The tap kept dripping behind me.

I got his top button open, then the next, and put my palms flat on his chest.

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