Page 118 of Coerced Kiss
“For what you achieved?”
“For whatyouachieved.”
She only stares at me, and I’m glad. I prefer it that way. I don’t like to talk about my childhood or my failure to make my parents proud. I made my choices. I’m happy to live with them. Nevertheless, the pain that flays my chest wide open when I drive away is always fresh. What gets to me is seeing my father so broken and knowing he’d rather die in that hellhole than take a penny from me. I guess he’s right to hate me. A part of me never stopped blaming him for letting my mother suffer andwaste to skin and bones when my money could’ve paid for the cure.
Fuck.
I don’t even know why I brought Anya here. I haven’t showed the sad, dilapidated excuse of a house to another soul, certainly not to Rachele who picks her friends and the people she associates with like she chooses her stylish outfits in the morning. She would’ve been appalled. Horrified. If she ever saw this, she wouldn’t have touched me with a ten-foot pole.
“Saverio?”
I take my eyes off the road for a second to look at Anya.
She fiddles with the strap of her bag in her lap. “Why did you tell Bertrand we’re getting engaged?”
Honestly? I have no fucking idea. Maybe it was how he judged me with that wise old gaze that said I wasn’t good enough for Anya. He was right. I’m bad for her in every way. But she already knows that too.
“I improvised,” I say with a shrug designed to look nonchalant. “Any serious relationship progresses.”
“You’re complicating this unnecessarily.”
I shoot her another glance. My voice turns dark. “Am I?”
“You’re making it more difficult to have a discreet breakup when this is over.”
Because it won’t be over. Luigi won’t rest until she’s dead, and I already decided she’s mine. Forever.
My reaction to her isn’t normal. It’s nothing short of miraculous. I’m afraid if I let it go, I’ll never have it again. Anyway, the idea of another man’s hands on her turns me rabid. I’ll never allow that as long as I live.
But I don’t tell her that either. All I say is, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” Which is never.
She blows out a breath and looks through the window, hiding her expression from me.
I don’t like it. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on in her head. I don’t like it when she’s not happy because then the baby isn’t happy. That’s what the coach at the prenatal class said. My plan was spending a nice day together while showing her off in public, not digging up bones and marinating in pain from the past.
“I know a great seafood restaurant on the river,” I say. “Hungry? You didn’t eat much this morning.”
She glances at the clock on the dashboard. “It’s only eleven thirty.”
“So what? Who said you can’t have lunch for breakfast?”
She smiles. “Don’t you mean brunch?”
Fuck, yeah. I like that look on her much better. I’m not going to lie. She’s gorgeous when she’s scared. When death stares her in the eyes, her love of life, everything she hasn’t lived yet, burns with vigor in those whisky-colored pools. Her fight makes them glow like the sun. But when she smiles, her whole face lights up. It’s as if the sun comes from inside her, as if summer lives in her chest. She’s my precious treasure. Unlike the random shit I shoved into a hole in a tree, she’s the real fucking deal, the only woman who can set me on fire.
The restaurant isn’t far from the firm where Anya works. I park a block away and walk her to the modern glass building that floats on the quay. It takes months to get a reservation, but the owner knows me.
Before we reach the drawbridge that gives access to the restaurant deck, Anya hangs back.
I stop and give her a questioning look. Her face has taken on an ashen color. She cups her stomach like someone who’s about to be sick.
“Here,” I say, quickly guiding her to the rows of flowerpots on the side.
She hunches over, sucking in air through her mouth.
“Breathe,tesoro.” I rub her back. “Is it the morning sickness?”
It takes her a moment to catch her breath. Straightening, she says, “It’s the smell of the fish.”