Page 84 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream
I listen with a sense of disbelief because my husband’s world growing up was an entire universe away from mine.
His eyes coast the cityscape. “We were flown out here, to Washington, to meet a middleman for someone who’d got their hands on government devices that needed wiping. It was a huge deal and we made millions. We also got a shit ton of intel about backhanders and dirty deals. We’ve been using that to our advantage ever since.”
So, this is how it begins? This is how a life of crime becomes so easy to fall into?
“It must seem normal to you now, making your living this way?” I ask.
He drops his gaze back to mine. “It’s not a living. It’s a way of life. It’s who I am. I was born into it. I didn’t have the best teacher in my father, but I learned the hard lessons, I have a crazy brilliant partner, and I’m fucking good at what I do. I guess it’s my calling. I can’t see myself ever doing anything else.”
My mind drifts back to the conversations I witnessed at the Mayor’s gala and on Grayson’s yacht. He’s right about that. He isverygood at this. It comes so naturally to him, and to my surprise, I find it incredibly attractive. I always thought I would hate everything about this life, but it’s not a black and white thing. So many nuances and complexities are woven into how and why people do what they do. I’m finally seeing beyond the surface immorality of the criminal world, to the people behind it, their motivations, the hands they were dealt.
He presses a palm to my cheek. In the biting air it feels like a burning stake but I melt into it.
“Is that what hospitality was for you?” There’s a sadness in his eyes and I know deep down he isn’t happy with the hole he believes it has left in my life.
But that’s another thing. Another unexpected revelation. I don’t miss it. Not like I thought I would. I’m certainly not thinking about it right now. I’m thinking about orphaned and abandoned children growing up on the streets, entering a life of crime because there’s no encouragement or opportunity to do anything else.
I look over his shoulder to the Washington Monument and let my brows knit together. “I don’t know.”
I sense his shoulders lift. “You don’t know? I thought it was your dream.”
“So did I,” I murmur. “But I’m not sure anymore.”
His hand slides down to my arm and he pulls me into his chest.
It’s something I’ve thought about a lot in the last few weeks. The yearning I thought would linger has left. It’s almost as though it had been fabricated from the start.
Some reflection, with the help of Dr. Nowak, has suggested I grasped onto the idea of hospitality because it was my key to getting away from the life I feared—the life I thought I hated because it took away my mama. But I’m beginning to realize it’s not so much the life I hate, it’s the Marchesi’s.
Andreas’ voice vibrates above me. “I’m sorry I did that to you. It’s just…”
My ear is pressed to his chest, half of me listening to his pounding heart, but my senses reach out to hear the rest of this sentence.
“It’s just, what?”
Several beats pass before he replies. “Ineededyou.”
My pulse thumps.
“All of you. Every inch of you.”
My arms wrap around him, holding him tightly.
“And I don’t just mean your body; I needed your mind, your focus, your support, your heart. All of it.”
I lift my head, then press a kiss to his chest. It’s quite possible he already has it.
He releases my body and holds my face between his hands then kisses me with a depth that lifts me off my feet. It’s raw, unguarded and all-encompassing, his movements on the edge of rough. The presence of people walking past, the noise of the traffic all recedes into nothing as the entirety of my awareness is tunneledinto the feeling of this dangerous yet vulnerable man’s lips on mine.
And I fall just a little bit harder.
We return to the hotel just as night begins to fall. The temperature has dropped but I’m sizzling beneath my clothes. My attraction to my husband and my yearning forallof him has only intensified with the understanding of his truth. In fact, it is fast becoming an obsession.
While he steps outside the suite to make a call, I lock myself in the bathroom and change into the sauciest lingerie I was able to find. I bought it online because there isno wayI could have purchased this set with Viola and two of my husband’s men in tow.
The bra is barely half-cup, my nipples peeking over the top of the scantest, prettiest pink lace. The straps are woven vines made of silk thread, the cups meticulously finished with tiny picots. The briefs are exactly that, the edges delicately scalloped and shaped to make my curvy legs look a little longer.
When I loosen my hair so that it falls about my shoulders, the reflection staring back at me in the mirror looks downright scandalous.
