Page 173 of My Big, Fat, Accidental Billionaire Husband

“And Jake,” I add, “thank you. For everything these past few weeks.”

He meets my eyes briefly, surprise evident in his usually impassive face. “Just doing my job, sir.”

“You’ve gone above and beyond. I notice it, and I appreciate it.”

We arrive at the Neue Galerie museum thirty minutes early. I position myself at a quiet corner table in Café Sabarsky, the elegant Viennese café on the first floor. The museum crowd is thin on a Tuesday, just a handful of art lovers wandering through the collection of Austrian and German art upstairs.

I check my watch approximately four hundred times before I finally see her walk through the door.

Fuck. She’s beautiful. Professional in a tailored navy dress that hugs her curves, her blond hair pulled back in that precise low ponytail she favors. Her brown eyes scan the café, and when our eyes meet, my heart hammers against my ribs.

She hesitates for just a moment before walking toward me, her posture perfect, her expression carefully neutral.

I stand as she approaches.

“Thank you for coming,” I say, resisting the urge to pull her into a hug. She wouldn’t appreciate the gesture right now.

She sits across from me, placing her purse beside her on the banquette. “You’re early.”

“I didn’t want to risk being late.”

A server approaches, and Tatiana orders a coffee. I ask for the same, though I’m already wired on caffeine and adrenaline.

When the server leaves, Tatiana looks at me directly, her gaze falling to the small cut on my lip.

“How are you really?” she asks. “After the break-in?”

“The stitches in my side itch like hell,” I admit. “But otherwise I’m fine. Nothing serious.”

“And this?” She gestures to my lip.

“That’s from a different fight. With Nico.”

Her eyebrows raise slightly. “You weren’t kidding about it getting physical...”

“No. We broke a glass coffee table, a couple of vases, and a picture frame.”

The ghost of a smile flickers across her face. “And then what?”

“Then we got drunk on forty-three-year-old wine and sang old Italian songs for the rest of the afternoon.” I shake my head at the memory. “It wasn’t a resolution, but it was... something. A reset, maybe.”

The server returns with our coffees, and I wait until she’s gone before continuing.

“I meant what I said in my message, Tatiana. I confronted him. Really confronted him. Told him he wasn’t getting anything from me. Least of allyou. That I wouldn’t let guilt control me anymore.”

She takes a sip of her coffee, watching me carefully. While she’s drinking, I notice that her left hand is bare. No wedding ring.

Of course there’s no wedding ring. Why would there be one? We’re mid-annulment, for Christ’s sake.

Yet the absence of that band hits me with unexpected force, like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. Funny how a tiny missing circle of metal can feel more significant than the million-dollar deals I sign daily without blinking. I rub my own ring... just like I couldn’t bring myself to sign the annulment, I couldn’t take off the ring.

“Dom?” she asks.

I blink, my mind coming back to the present moment. I realize she’d just asked me a question... “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said, how did that feel?” she replies. “Telling all of that to your brother...”

“Terrifying,” I admit. “But necessary. Long overdue.”

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