From Scapegoat to Donna novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: New Terms

I sat at his father's desk and tore the paper in half.

Then I tore it again, and again, until the five terms were a pile of white scraps on the blotter.

Tancredi stood in the doorway and watched me do it.

"Those were your terms," he said.

"They were a bad deal."

I took a clean sheet and the Don's fountain pen, and I wrote while he waited.

When I finished I read it out loud.

"One. There are no six months. I stay as long as I want, and if I ever want to leave, I leave, with my name, my money and no one following me."

"Agreed."

"Two. One bed."

His mouth moved.

"Agreed."

"Three. You touch me anywhere, any time, and I touch you the same. If either of us says stop, we stop, and nobody explains."

He didn't answer that one right away.

"Agreed," he said, and his voice had gone low.

"Four. I keep my scalpel, and I run the hospital's surgery floor. Not Ignazio's, not the family's. Mine."

"Yours."

"Five. You tell me everything. Not before, not after, always."

"Always."

I put down the pen.

"I haven't forgiven you for the stairs," I said.

"I know."

"I may not for years. I decided I would rather be angry at you in a bed than in an empty house."

He didn't smile. He looked at me, and his hands stayed at his sides.

I stood up and walked around the desk.

I took his jacket off his shoulders and dropped it on the floor.

"Adriana."

"You asked me a question last night," I said. "I'm answering it."

I kissed him.

It was nothing like the chapel. In the chapel he had kissed me because the room was watching.

Now nobody was watching.

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