Page 107 of The Woman in the Hollow
“Nothing. That’s not what I heard.”
“Who was talking?” Dante asked, body tensing.
“Oh, no. None of that,” Giulia insisted, waving away her son’s tension. “I heard it from your brother. He didn’t walk away from me fast enough when the call came in.”
“And you were eavesdropping?” Dante asked, sounding close to clucking his tongue.
“It’s not my fault I have great hearing. It’s a mother thing. You’ll see eventually. Oh, what pretty babies you will make.”
“Ma…” Dante’s voice held warning, but there was a softness in his eyes when he looked down at me to offer his silent apology.
Was he thinking those things too?
Did he know that something had changed tonight? That any of the reservations I had about his lifestyle, his profession, they all evaporated?
I would have to find a time and place to tell him exactly that.
But not with his mom hanging around, making dessert, asking a thousand questions, and making more than a handful of predictions for our future.
By the time she finally headed home, we were both too exhausted to do anything but brush our teeth and fall into bed, dead tired.
Still, Dante reached for me. He pulled me onto his chest.
I fell asleep listening to the steady beat of his heart.
And I knew down to my marrow that this was exactly where I belonged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hazel
One new thing I learned about Dante Grassi.
He was an early riser.
I thought I got up at a relatively decent hour, but this was the second time I woke up alone in the bed with the space beside me cool.
I got myself together before making my way downstairs, unsurprised to find Domenico in the kitchen.
Ant, on the other hand, being present was quite the shock.
There was a heaviness to his lids that suggested he’d been up all night.
There was a strip of gauze wrapped around his palm, making me realize he hadn’t walked away unscathed the night before.
He raised that hand to wave at me before he realized what he was doing. Through the gauze, his hand must have broken back open, fresh blood saturating the material.
“You’re bleeding,” I said, starting to rush forward.
“I’m fine.”
“He’s fine,” Domenico said at the same time.
“He’s clearly not. Hold on. Let me get the first aid kit,” I said, rushing away to grab the kit Dante used to clean me up. “Dantehas everything we could need to clean that up. He even has a suture kit. Which we are not going to be using.” I moved a stool in front of Ant, putting his hand on my leg, then cutting off his gauze.
“I’ll stab you with a needle a dozen times, if you want,” Domenico offered.
“Be nice,” I demanded, getting a small smirk from Domenico. “Oh, wow. This is ugly,” I said, forcing my stomach to steel when it flipped. I was glad I was seeing the damage on an empty stomach.
