Chapter 7 - Falling for My Husband
Salvatore survived.
Part of me was glad.
Death would have been too simple.
Federal investigators received the memory card, financial records and evidence recovered from the clinic.
His empire collapsed.
Mine was only beginning to rebuild.
Memory returned unevenly.
I remembered Leo most easily.
Perhaps motherhood had carved itself deeper than everything else.
I remembered pregnancy cravings.
Peanut butter with strawberries.
Luca thought it was disgusting.
I remembered the first ultrasound.
I remembered lying awake at twenty-nine weeks with my hand on my belly, begging Leo to stay inside just a little longer.
I remembered his birth.
His incubator.
His first night home.
But Luca remained fragmented.
I remembered his hands before his face.
His laugh before conversations.
The smell of his coat.
The way he always slept on the side closest to the door.
Intimacy was more complicated.
Luca never pressured me.
He moved into another bedroom.
That somehow irritated me.
“You're avoiding me.”
We were standing in the kitchen.
“I am respecting you.”
“Respectfully from another zip code?”
His mouth twitched.
“You're making jokes.”
“I'm nervous.”
“I remember.”
That word changed the air.
I looked down.
“Tell me how we fell in love.”
“You hated me.”
“I've heard.”
“You called me an arrogant criminal.”
“Was I wrong?”
“No.”
I laughed.
He smiled.
Then he told me.
After the car accident, Luca had paid for repairs despite my insistence that the collision was my fault.
I returned the money.
He sent it again.
I returned it again.
He eventually appeared at the pediatric clinic where I trained.
I threatened to call security.
He asked me to dinner.
I said no.
He asked again.
I said no.
He asked seventeen times.
“Seventeen?”
“Technically nineteen.”
“You counted?”
“I had staff.”
I threw a napkin at him.
For a moment we weren't grieving.
We were flirting.
That frightened me.
“Why did I finally say yes?”
Luca's expression softened.
“My mother.”
His mother, Elena, had collapsed at a charity event.
I had been nearby.
I stayed with her until Luca arrived.
Elena liked me immediately.
“She invited you to Sunday dinner without asking me.”
“And?”
“You came because you liked annoying me.”
“That sounds believable.”
“One dinner became every Sunday.”
I looked at him.
“And then?”
“I stopped asking you to love me.”
Silence.
“And you did anyway.”
My chest tightened.
“What if that happens again?”
Luca didn't answer immediately.
“Then I'll be the luckiest man alive twice.”
I cried.
Annoyingly.
He wiped one tear away.
His fingers lingered against my cheek.
I leaned into his hand.
A memory surfaced.
Snow outside.
Luca touching my face exactly this way.
Me whispering:
“I'm pregnant.”
His hand falling.
His knees nearly doing the same.
I laughed through tears.
“You dropped a coffee cup.”
His eyes widened.
“What?”
“When I told you about Leo.”
He stopped breathing.
“It shattered.”
“Sofia—”
“And you asked me six times if I was sure.”
He laughed.
A real, helpless laugh.
I hadn't heard it before.
Or Avery hadn't.
Sofia had.
I stepped closer.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“I remember kissing you.”
His smile disappeared.
“Where?”
“Our kitchen.”
“This kitchen?”
I nodded.
“Right there.”
He swallowed.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
He looked disappointed.
So I kissed him.
Not because Sofia remembered.
Because Avery wanted to.
Luca didn't touch me until I put my hands against his chest.
Then his arms circled my waist.
The kiss was slow.
Careful.
Almost painfully restrained.
When we separated, my forehead rested against his.
“That wasn't memory,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“Is that okay?”
His eyes opened.
“It's better.”
From the doorway came an offended little noise.
Leo stood supported by the nanny, glaring at us.
Then he stretched both hands toward me.
“Mama.”
I laughed.
Luca sighed.
May you like
“Apparently I have competition.”
For the first time, our house sounded like a home again.
