Page 45 of Finn

“Well, sorry, Alessia. But last time we talked about him, I thought we were still on the ‘he’s the scourge of the earth’ page. I didn’t realize we flipped to the ‘he’s hot as sin, and I let him rock my body’ page. Give a girl a second to catch up, yeah?”

A laugh escapes me at the indignant tone in her voice, and I scrub a hand over my face, letting out a low groan.

“Shit, Gemma. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I have a pretty good idea. Your husband is gorgeous with a body and smile to match. I’m honestly surprised you held out this long.”

“He's the head of a criminal organization. The exact type of man I told myself I was never going to get involved with again.”

She hums into the phone, and I can practically hear her gears turning. “True, but that doesn’t mean he’s anything like your ex. When that asshole at the fights put his hands on you, he handled it like any self-respecting man would.”

“That just says he’s possessive, not that he cares. Orlando would have done the same thing if he saw someone touching what was his.”

“Did he blame you for it later? Did he say you must have been flirting with him? Because Orlando sure as hell would have done that.”

“No. He was upset that we went there because it wasn’t the safest situation.”

“It wasn’t one of my best ideas, so I can’t fault him there.”

The day after the fight, when I talked to Gemma, she apologized for suggesting we go. Neither of us had been to an underground fight, so she didn’t know what to expect. Plus, the guy she went there to see apparently spent the evening doing lines of coke with his buddies at the bar they went to afterward, which is a huge turnoff for her. Gemma is all about staying in control at all times, and there’s nothing that can get out of control faster than being around a bunch of people high on coke.

“But he didn’t come home last night and that is definitely something Orlando did,” I grumble.

“What did he say when he left?”

I can’t tell her exactly what he said because the less Gemma knows about our business, the safer it is for her. “He had some business to take care of,” is all I tell her.

“Do you have reason to believe he’s lying? Aside from you believing every powerful man in your world is an adulterer, that is?”

“I mean, no…I know why he left and how important it was. And he did say when we got home from the fights that he isn’t a cheater and that he takes our marriage vows seriously.”

Then, yesterday, he said a lot of other things that would make me believe he wasn’t interested in having other women. But that could very well have been all talk. People say shit they don’t mean in the throes of passion all the time.

“So, he told you he’s not a cheater and he left last night because some important business came up, which, let’s be honest, isn’t out of the realm of possibility considering his business isn’t exactly a nine-to-five gig.”

“When you say it like that…”

“Honestly, Alessia, I think you might be looking for trouble that isn’t there.” She pauses, either to gather her thoughts or because she knows whatever is about to come out of her mouth is going to annoy me. Not that it matters; she’ll tell me whatever’s on her mind regardless of if she thinks I won’t like it. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand your hesitation. You’ve never been one to separate sex and feelings, so of course you’re going to have some big feelings, especially when it comes to sleeping with your husband. And I completely understand avoiding any relationships with men from your world. Believe me, I get that, but not every man is the same. Can you honestly say you think Finn is anything like Orlando? Finn still takes his mother to brunch every Sunday after church for Chrissake.”

“I feel like you shouldn’t be talking about church and using the Lord's name in vain in the same sentence.”

Gemma laughs loudly into the phone, and I smile. “You can kiss my sacrilegious ass, Mrs. Monaghan.”

That’s the first time since our wedding someone used my married name. Even at the casino, people call me Alessia. I didn’t want to put on airs with the other employees or clientele. Of course, they all know Finn and I are married, but making everyone refer to me as Mrs. Monaghan seemed a bit much.

“Honey, I think you need to talk with him. Draw some boundaries. Let him know if he’s out all night to give you a heads-up. What’s the worst he’s going to say?”

The worst would be he’d laugh at me and tell me it’s none of my business where he spends his time or with whom. Men like Finn aren’t used to answering to anyone, let alone their wives. We may have had a day of amazing sex, and he may have been saying all the right things, but how well can I trust that? Trust him?

“Maybe I’ll try it,” I concede.

“Oh, I know a brush-off when I hear one.” Gemma chuckles into the phone. “Okay, I was actually calling because we haven’t had lunch since you started working at the casino and I miss my bestie.” After a few more minutes of chatting and planning a lunch date for next week, I hang up and decide to get my ass out of Finn’s bed and make some coffee. Lucian is staring at me from the foot of the bed, probably wondering when I’m going to get my lazy ass up and feed him. I send a text to Enzo, letting him know to come an hour earlier for a workout since I’m up early anyway, and I’d like to take a trip to my favorite gun range. Nothing like shooting several rounds for a couple hours to center my whirling thoughts.

After feeding my cat, I’m standing in the kitchen at the espresso machine, a wedding gift from my mother, when the back door opens and in walks my husband. He looks tired, but the second his eyes land on me, they brighten. I give him a small smile but don’t move. When he comes up behind me, he nuzzles his face into my neck.

“You going to make me one, wife?”

“Again, you have two hands and are perfectly capable of making your own.”

---