Page 63 of The Mafia's Bride
“Have anything you don’t mind destroying?” I ask, rubbing my lip as the thought of seeing Sloane messy and unraveled takes me away.
She gives me an incredulous look, thrown off by the topic change. “What?”
I hold open my hand. “Come with me.”
25
SLOANE
Sauce making, I’m learning, is a labor of love.
“No.” Maria takes the knife from me and pushes me aside with her hip. The cutting board is covered in discarded bits of tomato, green stems or bruised spots. Most are fresh but frozen tomatoes sit in stainless steel strainers lining the table.
When I asked about making sauce in the middle of late spring, because obviously tomatoes aren’t in season, Maria gave me a pitying look. One that made Lex laugh louder than I had ever heard.
“You freeze the tomatoes from summer and use some fresher ones. That way you don’t kill yourself at the end of summer to process all of them.” She waved her slender finger in my face as if imparting some sort of wisdom to me. Maybe she was. I don’t garden, I sure as hell have never made sauce before. “I don’t have weeks dedicated to making sauce. So, we break it up.”
That was two bottles of wine ago, and now, she’s humming a tune I don’t recognize. My white shirt—Lex’s shite dress shirt that he took from our closet—is splattered in red spots, while sweat lines my brow. Messy hair falls into my face and I huff out in aggravation.
When he mentioned sauce night, I thought he was joking.
Now, here I am, days later, covered in tomato guts.
Lex is just as messy, covered in spilled sauce, and glistening with sweat. His dark jeans hug his thighs and ass just right, but he's still wearing gloves.
I’m growing curious about them. He didn’t remove them all the times we’ve been intimate. He ignored my attempt at conversation when we first met, weeks ago. What is he hiding?
“See? Watch,” Maria says to my left and I try to pay attention, but my gaze drifts to the crowd gathered. A large crowd, with a bonfire in the center and tiny propane gas grills all around as pots of sauce boil to the top.
“Pay attention,” Maria snaps at me. I jolt, unused to her tone. This is the longest she’s spoken to me since I arrived, weeks ago. “You need to cut the tomatoes just right, or the sauce will not be very good.”
They look exactly as how I’ve been cutting them.
By the third cursing, she takes me off the cutting line with a few other cousins and moves me to crushing the tomatoes. She hands me an apron and winks. “You’ll need it.”
My shirt is already ruined so I doubt it’ll help much.
There are only two others working on processing the chucks of vegetables and it’s weirdly soothing. The push of tomatoes, the cranking of the press. It’s repetitive and dull but helps to settle my mind.
Settle it because inside I’m a freaking mess.
The night with Lex was one of the best and the sex was out of this world. But I made a mistake, I agreed to stay.
Where was the Sloane who wanted freedom and choice and not be sold off like cattle? She was rolling over in her grave at my willingness to follow Lex. At the willingness to stay here, married.
I can’t deny it, though—it was totally worth it.
Now, watching him around his family, seeing his easy laughter, his perfect clothes mussed and stained, it twists my heart. He’s handsome, of course, but he’s relaxed.Normal.The family atmosphere brings something out in him that causes my heart to crack open with warmth. The first drips of adoration, maybe even more.
This is my husband, behind the mask in the world he runs. Thisis who he is at his core, doting and bright, and for the first time it strikes me.He’smy husband. This is who I’ve been given to, who I’ve married and strangely, I’m proud to see this side. This kind, jovial side that the other family member flock to, to soak up his attention.
Adoration, pride, and happiness churn like a maelstrom in my gut, causing my hands to slip on the press.
This whole situation is weird and confusing. I should be fighting tooth and nail for a divorce, to rip apart this family and walk away in a pair of designer Jimmy Choo shoes. Instead, I’m pushing crushed tomatoes through for a second time and sending it down the line with a little smile on my face.
Making sauce is a family tradition, one Lex wanted me to participate in.
Because I’m family. This ismyfamily now.
