He Took His Childhood Friend Away, So I Came Back a Mafia Heiress novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What He Said at the Christening

Gemma's POV

He came at eleven that night, his knock hesitant and heavy against the wood.

I had the flat's one lamp on and a cup of tea going cold.

I opened the door.

He was still in his travel clothes, with his collar open and his hair flat from the car, and he looked as if he hadn't sat down since the dining room.

"Five minutes," he said.

"Four."

I let him in.

He stood in the middle of the small room and looked at it, at the sofa and the narrow table and the green ledger on it.

"This is where you've been?"

"For a month."

"My mother cried all week." He rubbed his face. "I thought you were at her house. I told myself that every day."

"You didn't call her."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm an idiot," he said, flat, and it was so unlike him that I looked up.

His jaw worked.

"What did I do, Gemma? Tell me. I want to hear it from you, not from a table of people."

I had waited a month for that sentence.

Now that I had it, I found I knew exactly what to say.

"At the christening," I said. "In front of everyone, you told me I was a guest in your house."

"I was angry."

"You said, Remember it."

"I remember."

"I was twelve when your father took me in. I did the dishes. I married you when he asked. For fifteen years I thought that was the price of the bed, and then at a party with a baby in the room, you said it out loud."

He shut his eyes.

"I never meant that," he said.

"You meant it enough."

"Sabrina had just fallen down the stairs. She was crying. I thought you'd pushed her."

"You thought."

"What else was I supposed to think?"

"You could have asked me."

He opened his eyes.

"Did you?"

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