before. It was not something I had truly considered, until that moment.
He took another sip of coffee. Then asked his nonna for some privacy. She looked between us before she headed out of the door to her garden, a few women trailing behind her.
He looked up at me. “You’ll get some new clothes today. Most of the ones from Italy are perfect. The gold one—and ones like it—only go on in the bedroom from now on.”
“I will kill you,” I said again, but this time in Sicilian. My voice matched his, nonchalant, but inside, I trembled.
He grinned at me.
I had to squeeze the counter to keep my fingers busy. I was going to throw my coffee cup at his head.
He brought his dishes to the sink, which was next to me, running water on the plate and into the cup. He shut the faucet off. Then he caged me in, one arm on each side of my hip. “Why do you think I married you, angel eyes?”
I refused to answer him until he acknowledged what I had said.
“I married you because you are a respectable woman, and because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. More beautiful than any goomah a man could have. Every fucking fantasy I’ve ever had plays out in our bedroom every night—and every fantasy I’ll ever have will have you in it.
“You are the best of both fucking worlds. A man asks for more than that?” He shrugged. “He’s fucking gluttonous.” He kissed me once on my forehead, once on my nose, and once on my lips. “I married you because I love you, Alcina.”
I refused to respond.
He turned to go, but before he did, I said his name, stopping him. “I will kill you.”
“I’ll give you the knife to carve my heart out,” he said, his tone as serious as mine. “Go shopping and take Brooklyn with you. She’ll be with you and Nunzio from now on.”
I’ll give you the knife to carve my heart out.
Since he would be carving mine out if he were unfaithful to me. Maybe there was such a thing as loving someone too much. His soul tattooed itself on mine the first time he looked into my eyes. It went beyond what the eye could see. It went beyond flesh, blood, and bone.
My mamma always told me that marriage was a merger between two people who had to learn how to create one life together. Give and take being a big part of it. As long as both partners understood that, it would work. I knew how much respect and honor meant to Corrado. So I went shopping. I bought clothes that were a mixture of my life back in Italy and my new life in New York.
I blinked at the brightness of the day and all of the colors, the memory of that morning in the kitchen fading as Nunzio drove us to Bella Luna. Instead of staring out of the window of the car, lost to my thoughts, or at my stomach, even more lost to my thoughts, I looked over at Brooklyn, who was one of Corrado’s cousins and sighed.
She had just graduated from college with a degree in art. Instead of going out into the world, she was stuck with me. Brooklyn came with me wherever I went. She was to make sure Nunzio and I were never alone. At least she told me Corrado paid her well. More than any other job had offered her. The experience would be lacking, but she seemed happy enough.
She flipped through my sketchbook, a smile on her face. “I like this one. A lot.” She held up a rough sketch of a mosaic-tile design I had done for a candleholder.
I smiled at her. I actually liked her company. “Grazie,” I said. “You like them all.”
“I think they’re going to be a big hit! HUGE! I brought some of your sample candles to my friends and they totally love them.” She looked up, her eyes connecting with Nunzio’s in the mirror. Her cheeks flushed and she looked down, a curtain of black hair falling around her face.
I hid my grin, but she kept stealing glances of him. He had noticed. Every so often their eyes would meet in the mirror.
“This is our stop,” she said, reaching for the door handle.
I put a hand on her arm to stop her. The car had not stopped moving yet.
“Ah!” She squeezed my arm as we made our way to