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“Si. I know thatnow. I didn’tthen, and I think I was only hanging on to that as an excuse so I could….”Not fall for you.
Cristo!I had, during this past year, fallen for my wife.
How dumb could a man as smart as me be? Pretty dumb, it appeared.
“Stay annoyed with me?” she offered.
“Something like that. And I’m sorry. I wish I could go back and do it all differently.”
“That’s not how life works, Dante. You took out your anger on me. I didn’t deserve that.”
“I never treated you poorly.” I proved I was a bigger idiot than before by becoming defensive. It was reflex. A knee-jerk reaction.
“You really believe that?” she asked in disbelief.
I lifted her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “You feel that I mistreated you?”
“Define mistreated?” she challenged.
“I have treated you with respect, haven’t I?”
“No, you haven’t. You have treated me with disdain and condescension.” She shook her head as if weary. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Disdain and condescension!Things were worse than I thought.
Since I felt like I was constantly tripping over myself with her, I decided to leave it be…for now. Instead, I brought her hand close to my mouth and kissed her knuckles.
“Dante, what do you want?” she asked.
You.
Another chance.
She wouldn’t give it to me. She was too hurt. I’d have to just take it from her and convince her to stay married to me.
“I want us to have a lovely time in Piedmont.” I brushed my lips against hers.
“I’m not going to have sex with you.” Her eyes flashed with defiance.
I smiled and pushed some hair tendrils away from her cheeks. “Why don’t we enjoy ourselves for the next two days and not make any statements?”
“I won’t allow you to seduce me.” Her face flushed at her own words. It made me want to pick her up and take her to bed and see how long it would take me to, in fact, seduce her. But sex would muddy the waters for both of us, and right now, my realization of what lay in my heart was new and fresh. I had to process this and figure out how best to win my wife back.
“Okay, no seduction.”
She swallowed. “I’m going to take a shower and…then…ah…I need to get ready.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want Patrizia or any…I just don’t.”
I had always insisted she use a stylist whenever she accompanied me to events.
I had done that for two reasons. One, she wasn’t used to dressing for high society, and this took some of the stress off her—and, if I was being honest, off me too. And two, it allowed me to pay for everything without her getting prickly about money—becauseCristo, if there was one thing Elysa was, it was stubborn as hell about that.
But did I make her feel small, as she’d just said, by implying she didn’t know how to fit into my world, that she didn’t know how to dress herself properly? I had and that made me feel like shit.
“If you need a stylist, the hotel has someone whocan help with hair and makeup.” I had checked on that before we came. “I also have brought some outfits for you selected…not by Patrizia.”