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He glares at me, and I glare back. He stands from the table and moves into my space, trying to intimidate me. But it’s clear if I’m going to survive life with Aidan I’m going to have to set boundaries and make sure he knows he’ll have to fight me for every inch of ground. I may not be as strong as him, or wield all the same power, but I will exhaust him in the fight.
The door swings open and a familiar man, dressed very much like Aidan—obviously wearing part of The Hit Man Summer Collection—strides into the room.
“Honeymoon already over?” Brian asks as he takes in our tense postures. He gives me a knowing smirk, and I feel myself blush, even though he can’t possibly know what did or did not happen last night.
Aidan straightens and turns away from me. “How do you just waltz in here?”
Brian shrugs, grabs a croissant, and pours himself a cup of coffee as though this is his house. “You think the guy who taught you everything you know can’t get into your little fortress?”
Aidan rolls his eyes. “Did everything go okay?”
Brian’s gaze shifts to me and then back to Aidan. “Everything is handled, no problems.”
“No witnesses?” Aidan asks.
“You sure you want to have this conversation in front of her?” Brian says, gesturing at me with his half-eaten croissant.
“We’re not talking details. She’s not stupid, Brian. She knows I’m not an upstanding citizen.”
Brian shrugs. “Nope. Everything is fine. I just wanted to report in.”
“You couldn’t have called?”
“And miss the breakfast buffet?” he asks, making a sweeping gesture over the food. “Besides, you weren’t answering your phone, and it was on my way. Mina’s out in the car.”
“You guys out on a job?” Aidan asks.
Brian finishes the croissant and downs the rest of his coffee before plucking a strawberry out of the fruit salad. “Always.”
“This early on a Sunday morning?”
Brian puts his coffee cup in the sink and turns back to Aidan. “No rest for the wicked.” Then he winks at me and leaves.
Aidan turns back to me. For a moment he seems lost about what we were even talking about, but I remember, and I’m not about to let it go. So I just pick right back up where I left off before Brian—who clearly killed someone for Aidan recently—interrupted us.
“If you try to make me convert, I’ll tell Father Rossi.” I don’t know a lot about religion, but I do know the Catholic church takes their conversion process very seriously and that they don’t do unwilling conversion, at least not in the modern age.
An unsettled look passes over Aidan’s face, but it’s so fast I feel I must have imagined it. His gaze rakes over me, and I can tell he likes what I’m wearing, even if he doesn’t want to admit he likes it. He sits back down at the table across from me.
He’s clearly done with this conversational topic, even if I’m not.
“Do you need cream or sugar for that?” he asks, nodding at my coffee.
“I take it black, like your heart.”
He lets that comment pass.
“It’ll look weird if you aren’t at Mass with me. I go every Sunday,” he says.
“Why?”
“I’m Catholic.”
I put some butter on the croissant, and take a bite, then I say the thing that has been bouncing around in my brain on and off since I first considered it. “So, you don’t believe in birth control? Do you expect me to have ten kids, because I’m telling you right now, Aidan, I will kill myself before I allow that to happen.”
It might be a bit dramatic, but I think I really would. I will not be his livestock on top of everything else, and I won’t be bound to his morals when he clearly isn’t bound by them either.
He gets up and leaves the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. I continue to eat my croissant and sausage. It’s ridiculous that he’s throwing a tantrum like a toddler over this. I won’t let him treat me this way. I may have had no way out of this marriage, but if he thinks he can make my life hell, I will match his energy. He clearly wants me to want him, or else he wouldn’t have bought me all that stuff, or paid for that Dior gown for the wedding. But it’s not enough to just buy me things. How shallow does he think I am?