Page 28 of Meet Me in Montreal

Flushing, he felt the old frustration rear its head at her implication that she was just a warm body to him, interchangeable with other women like a spoke in a wheel.

“There is no one else,” he stated in a flat tone. “I want time with my wife. I want us to have fun together again, not whatever it is we’ve been doing. And I want to sleep next to my wife, and wake up with you there. If I’m going to go without that for the rest of my life, I want our last time to be a good memory, not the way we left it.”

Vanessa shifted in her chair. Maybe he was wrong, but he thought he saw a glimmer of sorrow in those dark velvet eyes. “But you don’t like me,” she countered. “I don’t understand why you’d suddenly want this after three years of being an absolute asshole toward me unless this is about some other boy taking the toy you didn’t want.”

“You know why I’ve been that way,” he said, his own voice lowered. “And it wasn’t all me. The last thing I’m expecting is for us to act like none of that happened. That’s not the point of this.”

“What is the point?” she asked, flustered.

“You’re the point. We’re the point. Despite everything, you’re still mine, and I’m here to prove it to you.”

Her eyes glittered at his words with defiance, but something more. “There are names for what you’re doing. Bribery. Coercion. Extortion,” she ticked off one by one.

“Arm-twisting, yeah, I get the point, Professor Donahue,” he said, twisting his lips at her. Vanessa rolled her eyes, tapping her fingers on the table. He could see the wheels turning in her head as she considered his offer. “Just one week. Then we can part ways and I’ll never interfere in your life again. Unless.”

“Unless what?” she challenged him with a raised eyebrow.

“Unless you want to stay my wife. And to be honest, I do think that’s what you want.”

“It’s not,” she said, bristling.

“I’m betting it is. Betting big.”

“Bet all you want, I’m not staying married to you and I’m not fucking you. You can’t force that,” she said. Her voice was low yet fierce.

“Tesoro, after what happened in that elevator, I know I won’t have to,” he reminded her. The flustered expression on her face was amusing. It was enough to stir his blood and excite him. “You want this dick. You want it every way I can give it to you.”

Her pretty nose flared. “Who says I do?”

“Five grand says you do.” The pulse at her throat fluttered quicker, and he smiled with satisfaction. “Either way, it’s happening. I’m not going down without one last fight.”

She turned her face away, only showing him her profile and her naturally curly lashes while she looked across the café. After a moment, she faced him again.

“Do you have any idea how crazy this sounds?” she asked softly. “How do you know I won’t just get up and leave right now, and have nothing to do with you after the judge says it’s over?”

Her insistence on arguing with him drew a sigh out of him. “You could have gotten up and left already, but you haven’t,” Santino pointed out. “You could have had your lawyer ‘go nuclear’ on me like you said, but you haven’t. I know you. When you set your mind to something, you do it. If you really didn’t want to be married to me anymore, you wouldn’t be. I think it means you want the same thing I do, even if you’re too stubborn to admit it.”

Vanessa looked at the other patrons, at the scenery, and examined the vibrant blue of the sky. Then her gaze dropped back to his.

“So? What’s your answer?” he pressed.

Another long pause. Finally, she said, “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but okay. This is maybe one step below a wolf chewing its own foot off to get out of a trap but so be it. One week. Then we’re done.”

Ignoring the gory trapped wolf comparison, elation unfurled inside him and could have burst him open like a balloon. He smiled at her, but she wasn’t exactly smiling back. He understood full well this was arm-twisting, bribery, whatever she wanted to call it.

Did he care? Not one fucking bit.

“And just so you know, my brother and Zoe are coming up on Wednesday for a few days. To say Bobby won’t be thrilled to see you is an understatement.”

Shit.Well, that news wasn’t welcome. He thought he’d have the week with her alone to work things out. He wasn’t looking forward to Bobby’s anger and Zoe’s snotty remarks. She didn’t like him, and the feeling was mutual, ever since her and Bobby’s wedding.

“He’s your brother. It’s his job to want to kick my ass, I get that,” Santino said with a nod, suppressing the flood of nerves that arose at the mention of Bobby and Zoe. “But if I have to take a beatin’ from him, I think I’ll survive.”

Bobby might have issued his threats with the intention to carry them through, but he was most definitely a lover, not a fighter. Unlike Santino’s calloused mitts, his long-fingered hands were designed for nurturing teeny sick babies into thriving children, not wielding an axe or pounding someone’s face.

“Be that as it may,” she said briskly, “I’m not changing my mind about getting you to sign no matter what happens. And you are not going to like the place I’m staying at. It’s kinda crappy and far from everything. Even Jade, Travel Queen, couldn’t give me a good hookup so close to the festival.” Vanessa lifted her chin in that almost haughty way she did.

He fucking loved that defiant little gesture and he grinned like it was demolition day. He was really going to enjoy breaking down all those walls she’d built against him, right down to the studs.

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