Page 44 of Brutal Husband

I flick my gaze up and down his body. Lazzaro Rosetti doesn’t intimidate me. I can fight dirtier than he can. I had to, or I wouldn’t have survived these past months.

“Tell me, how do you stand the smell of engines and exhaust? Especially when the stench follows you around all day.”

“How do you sleep at night after abandoning your wife?” Laz counters, his fists tightening.

That’s funny, coming from him. “How’s Giulia these days?”

Anger blazes in Laz’s eyes.

Rieta steps between us and pushes us apart. “Enough, both of you. Thank you, Laz, but I’m all right. Nero and I should discuss our respective futures.”

I wrap my arm around Rieta’s waist and pretend I didn’t hear her sayfutures, as if hers and mine are different. “Discuss our future together? Sounds wonderful, and don’t mind me,cara mia. I’m just out of practice playing happy family. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?” I smile at Laz and Mia, who don’t return my friendliness.

Mia looks worried as she kisses her sister goodbye. “Call me if you need anything. Laz and I aren’t far away.”

“Day or night,” Laz says, and gives me a final dark look before he and Mia leave.

I keep a firm grip on Rieta as I lead her to where I’m parked. “I’m looking forward to our cozy family brunches when we have a baby.”

“You’re an asshole,” she mutters under her breath as she gets into my car.

As soon as we get home, Rieta jumps out of my car and hurries inside, locking the door behind her. I let myself in with my key and glimpse Rieta’s figure fleeing up the stairs. As I follow her, a door slams, and when I try the bedroom door, it’s locked.

I don’t have a key, and I glare at the painted wood. I could break the door down. I dearly want to, but I take a deep breath to control my temper and go wait in the kitchen.

A little over an hour later, Rieta comes downstairs. She’s taken off her makeup, she’s wearing sweats, and her hair is piled in a messy bun on her head. No doubt she thinks this will put me off from wanting to touch her, but I’ve always loved my Rieta just as she is.

I make her a cup of coffee, and set it in front of her on the kitchen island.

Rieta stares at the coffee and then up at me. “That’s not how I take my coffee. Where are you staying, and how long are you back in town?”

“Here. This is my house. And I’m back forever.”

Rieta makes a dismissive noise and shakes her head as she walks away from me around the expanse of marble, putting it between us. “You’re not welcome in this house, and forgive me if I don’t believe you about how long your presence here is going to last. Where have you been all this time?”

I clench my teeth. She doesn’t want to know the answer to that question. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s good for me. I decide what’s good for me. Why did you leave?”

I circle the kitchen island toward her, but she walks around it away from me.

I open my mouth. The doorbell rings.

Neither of us move.

“I didn’t want—” I begin.

The doorbell rings again.

“Fuck,” I mutter, and stalk to the front door, ripping it open. “Yes?”

There’s a feminine gasp of pleasure. “Itisyou. Isabel said she saw you in town with Mia and Rieta, but I had to come see for myself.”

Oh, great. My mother-in-law. I glare into Giulia’s irritating, beaming face. She’s just as I remember her, without a sincere emotion on her face. “What do you want?”

She pushes past me and walks confidently into my house. “Rieta, darling. Why didn’t you tell me that your husband is back?”

When I enter the kitchen, Rieta is still standing at the kitchen island, but she’s picked up the coffee I made her and has wrapped her hands around it for comfort.

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