Page 31 of Stolen Sin

I head upstairs to check on my wife and leave Davide with the bottle. She’s in the guest room, and I consider giving her some space, but we need to talk about what the next steps are sooner rather than later. There’s no reason to let this mess fester. I knock, don’t hear a reply, and let myself in.

She’s lying on the bed. The slacks are kicked off in the corner, replaced by her jeans, and the blouse is halfway unbuttoned. She sits up on an elbow and looks at me, her lips pressed together, her hair falling around her face, looking sultry and beautiful, and I hate the way my heart skips and stomach lurches as my eyes look down at her breasts and back to her mouth. This fucking girl—I don’t know how she managed to elude me for as long as she did, but now that I’ve seen her, now that I’ve tasted her kiss, I can’t stop thinking about it.

“He shouldn’t have talked to you that way, and I’m sorry that he did,” I say, the words tumbling out, and her mouth tugs into a surprised frown.

“Really? That’s what you want to say?”

I step into the room and close the door behind me. Desire aches through my stomach and chest. “That wasn’t how I wanted the first meeting to go, but it doesn’t change anything for me. I’m committed to you, Emily. You’re my wife now, whether my father wants it or not. He’ll come around.”

She sits up, leaning her back against the headboard, and laughs lightly. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose though?”

I walk over and sit at the edge of the bed. I could reach out and touch one bare foot. I’m tempted to touch her big toe, or to grab her ankle and drag her closer to me.

“If what he said were true, I’d drop you right now. But I’m not that kind of man. We made a promise. We have a deal. And I won’t abandon you just because there was one little fucking problem.”

All of which is true, but leaves out one extremely important point: I want her. I want to keep her. Because she’s mine, she’s my wife, she’s the woman I chose and that fucking matters.

She looks like she’s thinking. She pulls her heels back and leans her chin on her knees, hugging herself tight. “What do we do now?”

“Now we move your things from your apartment into my house and we start our life together.” I move closer to her. “How set are you on that four-month clause? I’m guessing if I got you pregnant sooner rather than later?—”

“We aren’t changing the agreement,” she says, but I notice that her cheeks turn pink. She’s thinking about it. “And you can kindly get off my bed, please.”

“This isn’t your bed, topolina. You can stay in here for now, but I want you sleeping with me in the near future.”

She snorts, shaking her head. “I never agreed to that.”

“You didn’t have to.” I’m tempted to reach for her again, but I force myself to stand. I walk to the door but pause before leaving. “You’re my wife now. If there’s anything you need, just ask. Clothes, jewelry, cars, anything you want, come to me.”

“How very generous.” She stretches out again, looking wary. “What if all I want is a little space? And my own bed?”

“Some things are out of my control, topolina. Turns out, I like fucking with you far too much to make your life easy.”

She sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “Wonderful. I married a monster.”

“Yes, baby, you did.” I leave, closing the door behind me, but I stay outside of her room for a while just listening to whatever sounds of her that drift through, dreaming of the way she moves her body in bed, afraid of the obsession I feel blossoming inside me—the obsession I’ve felt growing ever since I first broke into her car.

Chapter 18

Emily

I find myself the unwilling recipient of way too much free time.

Seriously, it’s overwhelming. I went from working two jobs every single day, burning myself out and grinding myself to dust, to suddenly sitting on my ass from morning until night with nothing to do.

I spend a couple days unpacking, but there’s only so much I can do with that. Simon’s not around much—he’s busy doing mafia things, whatever those are—and I find myself puttering around the house, looking through drawers and cabinets, basically exploring my new world.

The only silver lining is a phone call from my father three days into my new life. I’m sitting out back with a cup of tea, my knees pulled to my chest and I’m wondering what the hell I’m going to do with my day, when his name pops up on my screen. I answer, nervous there’s another problem, but he sounds ecstatic instead.

“It’s the damnedest thing,” he breathes into the phone, laughing like he’s ten years younger. I can’t remember the last time I heard my father sounding like this. “I got a call from the Social Security office, and it turns out they’ve been underpaying me for years.”

My back’s immediately up and all my warning bells blare red alert. “Dad, you know that sounds extremely shady, right?”

He cracks up, even though it’s not funny at all, and assures me that he thought the same thing at first. “They never asked for any info at all, just said a check would be in the mail, and I told them sure, I’d believe it when I see it. Then guess what shows up?” He describes the envelope in loving detail, followed by the check itself, for an amount that seems ludicrous.

Then it clicks: Dad really did get scammed again. But this time, it’s a reverse scam, and the man at the other end is my husband.

“That’s incredible,” I say, and I sink back into my seat. “Did the check clear?”

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