Chapter 8: Under the Stars

I made my face soft.

I had three years of practice at letting Saverio see me hurt.

"He wanted me back," I said.

Saverio didn't move.

"He heard about the dinner. He said he's still in love with me."

"He said he'd marry me again tomorrow if I'd let him."

I let my voice shake.

It wasn't hard.

"He was drunk, Saverio. He smelled like a bar floor. He cried."

"And what did you say?"

"I told him to go home."

Saverio came across the grass slowly.

He stopped in front of me and looked at Corrado's jacket on my shoulders.

He took the lapel between two fingers.

"Whose is this?"

"Amato's. He gave it to me at the door. I was cold."

"You were cold."

He slid the jacket off my shoulders and dropped it on the wet grass.

Then he took off his own and put it around me.

It smelled of Graziella's perfume.

"Gaetano's a drunk," he said. "Gaetano's been a drunk since he lost you. Anything he says, he says because he wants what I have."

"I know."

"Do you?"

He tipped my chin up with one finger and looked into my eyes for a long time.

I let him look.

I thought about my grandmother's hands, shelling beans on the Trapani quay, and I didn't blink.

Finally he smiled.

"Come upstairs."

"Saverio..."

"Not for that." He sounded almost hurt. "I just want to sleep next to you. Like before."

He took my hand.

I let him.

We went up the curving staircase, past the guest room where Graziella slept, into the room under the dome.

He switched off the lamp.

The glass above the bed was full of stars.

The sky had cleared after the rain, and they were so bright they threw shadows.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé Confessed to Cheating from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.