“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, baby,” he murmured. “I’ll use a condom, pull out, put it in your mouth—whatever you choose.”
I laughed. “Such a chore for you to put it in my mouth, is it?”
He winked. “It is, but I’d do it for you.”
At the end of the two weeks, we returned home. I’d thought I wanted to keep my house, but our first night there, I woke up crying. The rooms were cold and full of ghosts. The pretty linens and flowers reminded me of a funeral. Perhaps because it had been Gino’s house and he had died here and been laid out on the table downstairs. Or perhaps because this house had belonged to a different woman. A woman I was no longer interested in being.
Cosimo woke and held me while I cried and then he packed up the car and we went to his condo at three in the morning.
The next day, I rose and did my makeup and put on a creamy pencil dress and Cosimo had a driver take me into the city. I spent the next few hours talking to a real estate agent and had Gino’s house listed by the end of the day. While Cosimo was at work, I let the agent take me for a tour of the properties along the river. By the end of the week, I had a construction site and a floor plan picked out.
Cosimo met me there after lunch on Friday. I stood in my heels in the unfinished living room, looking out through the empty windows at the river. I heard my husband come up behind me and I turned, offering him my mouth for a kiss. He looked impossibly handsome in his dark button-up and dress pants, his hair trimmed short on the sides and tousled on top. He’d rolled up his sleeves, revealing his tattoos. The sight melted my insides.
“You look good, standing here in my living room, wife,” he said, sliding a hand around my waist.
“Our living room,” I corrected, even though his money had paid for everything.
“Yes, our living room,” he agreed. “My wife in our living room. Exactly as it should be.”
“It’s important—”
He took my face in his hand and kissed my mouth. “I really don’t give a fuck. You’re mine, Enza, mine to fuck, to love, to care for, regardless of whose living room you’re standing in.”
I let him kiss me, sinking into his hard chest. He was right, regardless of where we were, we belonged to each other. Forever.