The Kiss Thief
: Chapter 15

I WOKE UP WITH THE same, terrible craving. A sweet tooth that wouldn’t go away.

I feel like a strawberry milkshake.

No. I need one. Bad.

I rolled from my side of the bed and bumped into hard abs, groaning as I cracked one eye open. Five weeks after our retreat to Lake Michigan, and I’d found out some interesting facts about my new life with Senator Wolfe Keaton. For one thing, I very much enjoyed waking my husband up with a blow job. For another, he thoroughly enjoyed my new role as his human alarm. I kissed my way down his stomach, following the happy trail of dark hair, and lowered his gray sweatpants with his college name on them. Once I had him in my mouth, he stirred awake, but unlike the other times, he flung the blankets off of us and pulled me by my hair, gentle, but firm.

“Not gonna cut it today I’m afraid.” He threw me back on the mattress so I was on all fours, retrieving a condom from the nightstand. I still wasn’t on the pill. I was supposed to book an appointment as soon as we got back from Lake Michigan, but I was embarrassed to go by myself, knowing I’d get checked down there. I didn’t want to go with Ms. Sterling, and knew that Mama and Clara did not believe in contraception, in general. I called Andrea three times, and she said that she’d have loved to come with me, but my father would kill her if she was seen with me in public.

“It’s not personal, Frankie. You know that, right?”

I did. I knew that. Hell, I couldn’t even blame her. I feared my father just as much at some point.

This left me with asking my husband to come with. When I heavily hinted at appreciating his company over dinner that week, he dismissed me and said I could go on my own.

“What if it hurts?” I asked him. He shrugged.

“My being there won’t take away the pain.” It was BS, and he knew it.

The next day, he came back from work with a huge package of condoms and a receipt from Costco.

Wolfe threw the no-sleeping together rule out the window. We still had our clothes and belongings in separate wings of the house, but we always spent the entire night together. Most nights, he came to my room, holding me close after making love to me. But sometimes, especially on days he worked very late, I entered his domain and served him in his bed. We began to attend galas and charity events together. We became that couple. The couple I always thought Angelo and I would be. People watched us with open fascination as we flirted with each other at our dinner table. Wolfe would always have his hand on mine, press a kiss to my lips, and behave like the perfect gentleman that he was—a far cry from the sarcastic, taunting bastard who dragged me to Bishop’s son’s wedding.

I even began to lower my guard when it came to other women. In fact, Senator Keaton showed no interest in any of them even though the offers kept pouring in, including, but not limited to, panties I’d found in our mailbox (Ms. Sterling was outraged and disgusted; she waved the pair of thongs all the way to the trash bin), and endless business cards Wolfe and I found ourselves emptying from his pocket at the end of every night.

Life with Wolfe was good.

Between school, horseback riding with Artemis, my garden, and the piano lessons I resumed, I had very little time to sit and ponder over my father’s next chess move. Mama came over every week, and we gossiped, drank tea, and flipped through fashion magazines, something she enjoyed and I couldn’t stand, but I humored her. My husband never showed any opposition to having Mama or Clara over. In fact, he often invited them to stay longer, and Ms. Sterling and Clara really seemed to hit it off, sharing their love for daytime soap operas and even sneakily trading romance books with each other.

I bumped into Angelo a few times at school after Lake Michigan. He was taking classes, too, though we didn’t have any together. I was pretty sure that could never happen. Not when my husband was so acutely aware of his presence at Northwestern. I felt the need to apologize for what happened the day of my wedding, and he waved it off and told me that it wasn’t my fault. Which might’ve been true but that didn’t make me feel any less guilty. At the same time, I could understand why Wolfe didn’t want Angelo and me to maintain our friendship, seeing as I was silly in love with him when we’d first met. Angelo, however, wasn’t a fan of my husband’s opinion. Every time we met at the cafeteria or local coffee shop, he’d strike up lengthy conversations with me and fill me in on every little detail from my old neighborhood.

I snickered when he told me who got married, who got divorced, and that Emily—“our Emily”—was seeing a Bostonian mobster from New York, Irish, no less.

“Good Lord!” I made a scandalized face. He laughed.

“Thought you should know, in case you were still wondering about me and her, goddess.”

Goddess.

My husband was stoic, powerful, and ruthless. Angelo was sweet and confident and forgiving. They were night and day. Summer and winter. And I was beginning to realize I knew where I belonged—in the storm with Wolfe.

One conscious decision I took in order to maintain my blissful life with my husband was not to open the wooden box. Technically, I needed to do that a long time ago. Right after my wedding to Wolfe. But I only had one note left, and Wolfe turned out to be the rightful owner of my heart with both previous notes. I didn’t want to ruin his perfect strike. Not when I was so close to happiness, I could almost feel it at my fingertips.

Now I was feeling woozy and drowsy, still craving the milkshake, but also dangling my butt in my husband’s face, wanting him to satisfy my other need. Wolfe entered me from behind, sheathed and fully erect.

“My sweet poison, my gorgeous rival.” He kissed the back of my neck as he drove into me from behind. I purred. When he finished inside me, he took off his condom, tied it up and strolled to the bathroom, completely naked. I collapsed on his bed facedown, a heap of warm flesh and lust.

He emerged ten minutes later, freshly shaven, showered, and already getting dressed in a full suit. By the time I rolled on my back to take a look at him, he had a tie on.

“I want a strawberry milkshake.” I pouted.

He frowned, flipping his tie and tying it without even looking at a mirror. “You don’t normally have a sweet tooth.”

“I’m about to get my period.” It was, in fact, a little overdue.

“I’ll have Smithy get you one before I go to work. You good for school? Need a ride?”

I was due to take my driver’s test next week. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNovᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“I don’t want Smithy to get me a milkshake. I want you to get me one,” I rose on my knees, walking on them across the bed and toward him. “He always screws my orders up.”

“What’s to screw up in ordering a strawberry milkshake?” Wolfe returned to his bathroom to put some of the delicious-smelling product in his hair. One day, I was going to have a heart attack with how attractive he was and how tantalizing he smelled.

“You’d be surprised,” I lied. Smithy was great. I just had an irrational need to have my husband do something nice for me. Since Artemis, he was careful not to show any signs of romantic gestures.

“I’ll get you your milkshake,” he said in no particular tone, leaving the room.

“Thank you!” I called out.

A moment later, Ms. Sterling, the number-one eavesdropper in North America, popped her head into the room.

“You two are the thickest smart people I know.” She shook her head. I was still lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, basking in my post-orgasm bliss. The sheets were wrapped around my body, but I wasn’t particularly worried about what she saw. She must’ve heard us hundreds of time by now doing what married couples did.

“What do you mean?” I stretched lazily, stifling a yawn.

“You’re pregnant, my sweet, foolish child!”

No.

It’s not happening.

It can’t happen.

Only it can. It must. And it makes so much sense.

The words looped in my head when I paid for my pregnancy test at Walgreens before I went to school. I devoured the strawberry milkshake as if my life depended on it, only to feel terribly nauseous afterwards, and I had a bad feeling, even before I crouched down and peed on the stick in the restrooms of my school, that Ms. Sterling was right. I swore under my breath. I could use Andrea right now. Someone to hold me when it was time to flip that stick and check the results. But Andrea was scared of my dad, and it was time to find and make new friends, outside of The Outfit.

Putting the cap back on the test and setting my phone to count down the minutes, I pressed my forehead against the door. I knew two things for certain:

1. I didn’t want to be pregnant.
2. I didn’t want to not be pregnant.

If I were pregnant, I’d have a huge problem on my hands. My husband did not want kids. He told me so himself. Quite a few times, actually. He even went so far as suggesting I’d live in a different place and get a sperm donor if I cared so much for children. Bringing an unwanted baby into the world was immoral, if not completely deranged, considering our circumstances.

But then, oddly, not being with child was also going to leave me disappointed. Because there was excitement and anticipation in finding out that I was carrying Wolfe’s baby. My mind took me to insane places. Places I had no business visiting. What eye color would our child have? They would have dark hair. Slim build, like both of us. But—gray or blue? Tall or short? And would they have his wit and my talent with the piano? Would they be ivory and snow, like my pale skin? Or would they have his rather tan complexion? I wanted to know everything. I resisted the urge to drag my palm over my stomach, imagining it getting swollen and round and perfect, carrying the fruit of our love.

The fruit of my love.

No one ever said that he loved me. No one even suggested that. Not even Ms. Sterling.

My phone beeped, and I jumped, my heart stuttering in my chest. No matter the result, I wanted to get it over with. I flipped the pregnancy test over and blinked back.

Two lines. Blue. Sharp. Prominent. Strong.

I was pregnant.

I broke into tears.

I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. Wolfe asked—no, he strictly stated—he didn’t want any children, and now, not even six months after our wedding, when we finally hit our stride, I was going to tell him that I was with child. A part of me pointed out, quite reasonably, that this wasn’t entirely my fault. He was to blame, too. In fact, he was the one who tried to coax me into having unprotected sex in the first place, with the nonsense about pulling out (great job with that one), and calculating the dates and telling me I wasn’t ovulating.

Only both of us didn’t take into consideration the fact that my period had changed the minute I took the Plan B pill.

Then again, I was the one who drew him close when he came inside me, preventing him—albeit by accident—from pulling out. I knew that there was no other occasion in which this might have happened. Save for the weekend at the cabin, we always used condoms.

Shoulders sagging, I got out of the bathroom, dragging myself down the corridor, out of the college, and into the unassuming autumn day. I needed to confide in Ms. Sterling. She’d know what to do.

I was heading toward Smithy’s car when Angelo tackled me to the grass out of nowhere. I yelped. The first thing I thought about was the baby. I pushed him off, watching as he laughed breathlessly, trying to tickle me.

“Angelo…” Hysteria bubbled in my chest. Wasn’t the first trimester the most crucial one? I couldn’t afford to roll on the ground. “Get off!”

He scrambled to his feet, rubbing his dark blond hair and staring me down. Where was it coming from? Angelo was always reserved and respectful. He was always nice to me, true, but he never touched me like this in the weeks after I got married.

“Jesus, goddess, sorry.” He offered me his hand, and I took it. I hated that he still called me goddess, but I guessed there were no laws against idle flirtation. Even though maybe there ought to be. That way women wouldn’t be able to proposition my husband every time he left the house.

That way you’d also live in an oppressive country.

I stood up and looked around, not really sure what I was looking for. I cleaned my dress and cardigan free of grass blades.

“It looked like you were having a bad day. I just wanted to make you laugh,” Angelo explained. How could I tell my sweet friend that he was absolutely right? I was having both the worst and the best day combined. I brushed a blade of grass from his shoulder, smiling.

“It’s not your fault. I’m sorry I was snippy. I was just surprised.”

“Your driver is waiting for you on the other side of the lot. So are your executive protection agents, who, by the way, are doing a crappy job, seeing as they’re not with you right now.” Angelo wiggled his brows, digging his finger into my shoulder muscles in a soothing massage. Wolfe insisted I have bodyguards with me after the car chase. It was only this week that I had finally managed to convince him to break protocol and have the bodyguards stay in the car and leave me alone on school grounds. We hadn’t heard from my father or Mike Bandini in a while. Apparently, they were busy trying to keep The Outfit afloat and from Wolfe’s iron fist. And if I ever wanted to make friends at school, I couldn’t have two men the size of elephants shadowing my every step.

I didn’t tell Angelo about what his father did. Unlike Wolfe, I was good with making the separation between father and offspring. Maybe because I knew too well what it felt like to be embarrassed by your parents’ actions.

“Thanks.” I threw my bag over my shoulder, standing in front of him, awkward and guilt-stricken. He was making an effort, trying to rebuild that bridge that had burned between us, and I was standing on the other end with a match, ready to destroy it once again. But there was a delicacy in keeping my loyalty to my husband and patching things up with a boy who’d meant the world to me. A tightrope I was too clumsy to walk.

“I need to make a confession.” He messed with his tousled, beautiful hair. It hurt my heart to recognize what I refused to see in the beginning of my engagement to Wolfe. That one day, Angelo would make an amazing husband to someone, but that someone wasn’t going to be me.

“Go on.” I rubbed my eyes. I never felt so tired in my life, and it’s not like I missed an hour of sleep. He looked down now, shuffling from foot to foot. No longer confident and cocky.

“The night of your engagement party, something happened…something that shouldn’t have happened.” He swallowed, his gaze becoming hooded. He took a deep breath. “The blonde chick from the masquerade was there. You just shut me down after I had this whole speech in my head about how the evening was going to play out. I fucked up and couldn’t find my words, and you kept looking for your fiancé. I felt like my world was collapsing, one wall at a time.” He rubbed his cheek now as though he’d been slapped with the truth. “I made a mistake. A huge one. I slept with the reporter. Actually, that was only a small error. Not the terrible one. The terrible one occurred afterward when I met your husband on the stairs.”

I looked up, searching his face. To my shock, I found Angelo blinking back tears. Actual tears. Tears I absolutely hated seeing there even though I knew what he was about to tell me was nothing short of awful. That it ruined me in a lot of ways. Whatever Wolfe and I were today, he could never erase the night he took my innocence by force.

“You told him we slept together?” My voice trembled.

He shook his head. “No. No. I wouldn’t do that. I just…I didn’t exactly tell him it didn’t happen, either. I was busy trying to get back at him instead of clearing up what looked like a misunderstanding. I was so mad, Frankie. And a part of me still hoped that you guys were going to break up over it. I wanted to give fate a little push. I wasn’t planning on ruining it for both of you. I mean, I was, but only because I thought you were on board. I thought you wanted to try giving him a chance because your parents pressured you. Not because, well…”

“Because I love him?” I finished, my voice hoarse. I squeezed his shoulder. He looked down at my hand and sniffed.

“Yeah.”

“I do,” I said, letting out an exasperated sigh. “God, Angelo, I’m so sorry, but I do. I never planned on falling for him. It just happened. But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it? It’s like death. You know it will happen one day. You just don’t know how or why or when.”

“That’s a rather dark view on life.” He offered me a grim smile.

I couldn’t be mad at Angelo. Not really. And especially when Wolfe and I had overcome what he and Kristen threw at us. Some would even call it the pivotal moment of our entire relationship.

“Still.” Angelo grinned, his boyish dimples on full display. The same smile that broke my heart every time I saw it on his face, peeking under his dark lashes. “If you ever change your mind, I’m here.”

“I’m compromised,” I answered him with an arched brow, blushing. He sighed theatrically.

“Believe it or not, goddess, so am I.”

“Get out.” I slapped his chest, feeling the tension evaporating from my bones. “When was your first time? With who?” The question sat on the tip of my tongue for years, but up until now, I never had the chance to ask. We were trying the whole friendship thing now. Well, sort of.

Angelo let out a sharp exhale.

“Junior year. Cheryl Evans, after calc class.”

“Was she little Miss Popular?” I grinned.

“Guess you could say that. She was the teacher,” he deadpanned.

“What?” I choked on my laughter. “You lost your virginity to your teacher?”

“She was, like, twenty-three. No other girl that age would put out without a serious relationship, and I was getting antsy. I was also saving the whole real thing for you,” he admitted. It made me sad and happy at the same time. That life took us in a different direction, but that Angelo whom I loved not too long ago was on the same wavelength as I was.

“Welp.” He gave me two thumbs down. “Maybe in the next lifetime.”

Last time he said it would happen in this one. I grinned.

“Almost definitely.”

We hugged, and I hurried across the lawn toward the line of double-parked vehicles full of college students bumming rides from one another, scanning the landscape for Smithy’s shielded, brand-new Cadillac. This time, Wolfe went above and beyond with all the accessories to make sure it was bulletproof. I spotted Smithy in the car, messing with his phone, and smiled to myself. Everything was going to be okay. Wolfe might not respond to the news with enthusiasm, but I hoped he wouldn’t be crushed, either. I was almost at the car when Kristen, the journalist, appeared out of thin air, jumping in front of me, looking haggard. Her hair was frizzy and the bags under her eyes purplish from what I assumed was lack of sleep.

My two executive protection agents got out of the car simultaneously, hurrying toward us. I raised my arm and waved them away.

“It’s okay.”

“Mrs. Keaton.”

“It’s fine,” I insisted. “Take a step back, please.”

Kristen didn’t even notice them. She zigzagged in place.

“Francescaaaa,” she slurred, pointing her finger in my general direction. She was too drunk to point it at me. I tried to remember where we left things off with her. Last I heard, Wolfe said he got her fired. She was obviously feeling vindictive. But it’d been weeks.

“Where have you been?” I asked, trying not to scan her tattered shirt and dirty jeans. She waved a hand around, hiccupping.

“Oh, here and there. Everywhere, really. Crashed at my parents’ in Ohio. Came back here to try and look for a job. Called your husband hundreds of time to try and get me un-blacklisted. And then…crap, why am I telling you this anyway?” She laughed, flipping her greasy hair aside. I looked behind me to see if Angelo was around. She read my mind.

“Relax. I just fucked your friend so Wolfe would get mad at you. He’s too young for me anyway.”

And too good for you, I thought to myself.

Pregnancy obviously messed with my logic because I felt the urge to rub her arm or buy her a cup of coffee. I knew damn well that she tried to ruin my life to save hers, and that she wanted my husband for herself (at least before he got her fired). But the thing about compassion was that it wasn’t given to people who necessarily deserved it, but needed it nonetheless.

“Obviously, my plan failed miserably.” She dragged her chipped fingernails over her cheeks, scanning my pristine white cardigan over my knee-length black dress.

“You look like a fucking church girl.”

“I am a church girl.”

She snorted out a laugh.

“He’s a kinky bastard.”

“Or maybe he just likes me.” I dug in an imaginary knife into her chest. She did, after all, try to make my husband believe that I cheated on him. No matter how dire her situation was, there was no need to be mean to me. I hadn’t done anything to her.

“Good one. Wolfe just likes fucking something that belongs to Arthur Rossi. You know, because Arthur fucked with his family. Poetic justice, and all that.”

“Excuse me?” I took a step back, assessing her fully now. I’d had my fill of surprises today. Between the pregnancy test, Angelo’s confession, and now this, I realized that the universe was trying to tell me something. Hopefully not that my fairy tale, which hadn’t begun just yet, was ending abruptly.

One of my bodyguards took a step forward, and I spun on him.

“Stay away. Let her talk.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Kristen threw her head back and laughed, pointing at me. Ridiculing me. “Did you ever wonder why he took you from your father? What he had on him?”

I did. All the time. Hell, I asked Wolfe about it on a daily basis.

But of course, admitting this to her was giving her more power than she deserved.

Kristen leaned her elbow over a huge oak tree, whistling. “Where do I begin? This is all confirmed, by the way, so you can cross-examine your husband the minute you get back home. Wolfe Keaton wasn’t really born Wolfe Keaton. He was born Fabio Nucci, a poor, bastard Italian kid who lived not too far from your block. Same zip code but trust me—very different houses. His momma was a drunk, neglectful excuse for a human being, and his father was out of the picture before he was even born. His older—much older brother, Romeo—raised him. Romeo became a cop. He was doing a fine job until he was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Namely—Mama’s Pizza, the little parlor three blocks down from you. Romeo went to get Wolfe some pizza. They walked into a gun fight. Romeo, still clad in his uniform, burst through the back of the parlor to break things off. They had to kill him, or he’d have outed all of them. You father killed Romeo in front of your husband despite his desperate pleas.”

I never beg.

I never kneel.

I have my pride.

Wolfe’s words came back to haunt me, making my skin dampen and chill. That was why he was so adamant on not negotiating or showing remorse or mercy. My father didn’t spare him any of those things when he needed them the most. I stared at Kristen, knowing there was more. Knowing that was the tip of a very thick, very lethal iceberg.

She continued.

“After that happened, he was adopted by the Keatons, a rich family from the right side of the tracks. The same house you live in right now, in fact. The Keatons were Chicago’s finest. A high-profiled couple who never had any children and had the world to give to him. They changed his name to separate him from the mess that was his early life. Things were looking up for little Wolfey for a minute there. He even managed to overcome the severe trauma of seeing your father putting a bullet between his brother’s eyes.”

“Why didn’t my father deal with Wolfe? Since he watched, too?” I hated that I was asking her questions. But unlike my husband, my pride was not as vital for my survival.

Kristen huffed. “Wolfe was just a kid back then. He didn’t know the key players and didn’t have an open beef with The Outfit like his brother. Not to mention, no one was going to believe him. Plus, I guess even your father has some morals,” she scanned me with disgust. My jaw tensed, but I said nothing, too afraid she’d stop talking.

“Anyway,” she singsonged, “can you guess what happened next?”

“No,” I gritted out. “But I bet you’ll be happy to tell me.”

I knew that she was telling the truth. Not because Kristen wasn’t capable of lying, but because she was having too much fun delivering the news for it not to be accurate.

“Wolfe goes off to college. Makes friends. Lives his best life, so to speak. Second year at Harvard, he’s about to come back for summer vacation when the ballroom where his parents are attending a charity gala explodes with a ton of politicians and high-end diplomats inside. Any guesses who’s responsible for it?”

My father, of course.

I remembered that incident. One summer when I was eight, we didn’t go to Italy. My father was arrested for the ballroom incident and released shortly after for lack of evidence. My mother was crying all the time, and her friends were always around. When Dad got out, they started fighting. A lot. Maybe that was the moment my mother realized she didn’t marry a good man.

In the end, they decided that the best course of action would be to send me to boarding school. I knew they were protecting me from my father’s reputation here in Chicago and giving me my best shot.

Kristen whistled again, shaking her head. “Suffice it to say, your husband did not return from that trauma. The problem was, officially, and on paper, the blowout was the result of a gas leak. The entire hotel chain shut down soon after. Your father’s arrest was a farce. They couldn’t even send him to trial even though everyone knew he got back at Wolfe’s mother, a Supreme Court judge, for ruling against one of his best friends.”

Lorenzo Florence. He was still in prison. He smuggled over five-hundred kilograms of heroin into the US, working for my father.

I stumbled back, collapsing to the grass. My bodyguards had had enough. They both started in my direction. Kristen pushed off the tree, squatting to my eye level, and smiling brightly. “So now Wolfe really wants to get back at your father and gather ammo against him. He’s been doing that ever since he graduated, actually. Through private investigators and endless resources, he managed to find something on your father. Whatever it is, he is hanging it over his head. You know the end game was always to kill your father, right?”

I couldn’t answer. They dragged me toward the car while I kicked and screamed. I wanted to stay and listen. I wanted to run away.

“He’ll be the heir to The Outfit…” Kristen yelled, running after us. One of the bodyguards pushed her, but she was having too much fun.

“He doesn’t want The Outfit,” I screamed back to her.

“He’ll discard you just as he’s always planned. Have you ever wondered why he never bothered to have you sign a pre-nup? Don’t be so sure you’ll get out of this in one piece. It’s not like anyone from Wolfe’s family did…”

“No, you’re wrong.” I felt my lower lip trembling. They ducked me into the back seat of the vehicle and slammed the door behind me. I felt dizzy and nauseous. I was too physically weak and emotionally shocked to cope with these revelations.

Kristen appeared at the window and signaled for me to roll it down. One of the EPAs nearly beat her off from inside the car, but I rolled the window down, anyway. She pushed her head into the car.

“He’ll throw you out by the end of the year, sweetheart. Once he’s had enough of fucking you. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times before. Wolfe Keaton doesn’t do love, sweetie.”

“Maybe not with you,” I bit back. She frowned, looking wounded.

“You’re delusional,” she said.

“And you’re desperate. How did you find out this information?”

She shrugged, a bitter smile spreading on her face like margarine. Easy but toxic.

I didn’t have to ask again. I knew.

My father.

That night, when Wolfe arrived at my bed to bring me the dinner I’d missed, I turned him away. I wasn’t ready to face him, and I definitely wasn’t ready to tell him about the pregnancy. I knew deep down that Kristen was at least partly right. This was Wolfe’s plan all along. To ruin my family and discard me somewhere along the way. Whether the plan was still in motion or not was beside the point. Not that I had the greenest clue what his plan was nowadays.

All I knew was that the odds were against us.

“Everything okay?” he asked, brushing my hair away from my face.

I couldn’t look him in the eye. I flipped through pages in a book I didn’t really read. I was pretty sure I was holding it upside down, too, but couldn’t tell, since my eyes could barely register the shape of the book, let alone its contents.

“Sure. I just got my period,” I lied.

“I could still stay,” he suggested, his hand sliding from my cheek, his thumb tilting my chin up to face him. “I’m not coming here just for the sex.”

“Well, I’m not in the mood to give you a blow job, either.”

“Francesca,” he growled, and my eyes darted up to meet his. I hated the fact that I loved him so much. He was right. Love, by definition, was unrequited. One party always loved more.

“Should I be worried?” he demanded.

“What about?” I flipped another page.

“Your ability to read, for one thing. You’re holding it upside down,” he snapped. I closed the book. “You. Us. This.” He motioned between us with his hand.

“No.”

Silence fell between us, but he still wouldn’t leave. I became agitated. It was weird how we started the morning unassumingly, with a strawberry milkshake and a quickie, and how fast we could turn into enemies again.

“Let’s go outside. You can suck on a cancer stick and bring me up to speed about what crawled up your ass.” He stood up and snatched my cigarette pack from my desk.

“No, thank you.” I forgot to throw away the cigarettes when I got back home tonight, but they were definitely not on the menu for me in the foreseeable future.

“Nothing you want to say to me?” He scanned my face again, his jaw tense, his eyes dark and feral.

“No.” I reopened the book, this time in the right direction.

“Do you want me to come with you to the OB-GYN?”

My pulse jumped, hammering against my throat.

“Nice of you to offer months later, but the answer is still no. Can I be left alone, please? I think I outdid my duty as a trophy wife and a warm hole at night this week.”

He narrowed his eyes, taking a step back. My words hurt him—the man who was steel and metal. He turned around and dashed away before we exploded on one another.

I fell to my pillow and cried as soon as the door shut behind him, making up my mind.

Tomorrow, I was going to open the box and retrieve the very last note.

The one that would determine if Wolfe really was the love of my life.

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