Page 67 of A Treasure To Keep (Leone Legacy #2)

El

T oday was a shit show. My lawyer couldn’t come, for a completely valid reason, of course.

That reminds me, I need to send Oliver something cute to cuddle with.

Anyway. Marco’s lawyer couldn’t get his shit together.

And now the store is out of the pretzels I crave the most. The off-brand sits in the cart, and I’m convinced I may have a breakdown.

I cannot let myself cry in the middle of this store.

I’ve already cried in too many places in public.

I want to turn heads because of my outfits and the confidence I can fake when needed, not the messy mascara under my eyes.

I’m also not a pretty crier. Especially after the fact.

I normally need a minimum of twenty minutes to resemble at least a version of myself.

And trust me, I spent a concerning amount of time crying in front of the mirror as a teenager, attempting to be a prettier crier.

“What’s your internal monologue saying?” Andrea appears out of nowhere, snapping me back to real life. He’s the only one I’ve told about my internal monologue. His concerned eyes meet mine when he turns my head to him with his ridiculously soft hands.

“They didn’t have the right pretzels.” My cart is full of snacks, treats, and unrelated items that I’m not sure how they ended up in there. The evil, disgusting pretzels are the black sheep of the smorgasbord. Is this considered a smorgasbord?

“I see that. Let me scan around and see if they’ve put it somewhere else. Continue grabbing any snacks you’d enjoy. My treat for mon trésor.” Andrea kisses me on the forehead, calming my nerves before he walks off. I’m the luckiest woman ever. No one can convince me otherwise.

I let myself get lost and distracted in the store, and now I've prioritized what snacks I’m getting, added a new movie, and have several baby items in my cart.

This store is dangerous. It’s been close to thirty minutes since Andrea went searching for my pretzels, and I can’t imagine it taking him this long.

I walk down each aisle in my attempt to find him. The second I turn down the fifth aisle, the shadow of a figure disappears, leaving Andrea there instead. He turns his head, eyes wide and mouth closed, trying to excuse what happened. Who did he see? And why will it irritate me?

Andrea slowly walks over to me, cautiously grasping my hands in his. He takes his time, gently kissing each of my hands when I ask him the question that I’m sure I’ll hate the answer to. “Who was that?”

Andrea drops my hands from his, sighing before he drags the back of his fingers down the side of my face.

The words that are about to come out of his mouth may annoy me, but his touch makes me weak at the knees.

“Mon trésor, you know I love you with every piece of my mind, body, and soul. I’ve promised you over and over again to tell you anything and everything.

This case needs to be different. I will tell you one day, I promise. You need to trust me for now. Oui?”

My eyes don’t break eye contact with his while he spends what could be hours staring straight into my soul. “I don’t like this, Andrea. I trust you, though. If you don’t tell me before we get married, I’ll withhold my vows from you until you tell me. Deal?”

I step back, holding my hand out to shake his, sealing the deal like men do. Or whatever.

Andrea lets out a cheeky laugh before grasping my hand in his, shaking twice.

As I go to pull my hand away, he pulls me close to him and kisses me deeply.

My knees practically give out from under me until he breaks our kiss.

I’m practically ready to jump out of my clothes right here, right now, in this store.

“Deal. Also. Before I forget, I found these.”

He takes the cart from me, walking me to the end of the aisle.

He grabs the pretzels I love from the shelf, exchanging them for the off-brand ones that I was about to settle on.

Oh goodness, here I go, almost crying again.

Blink away the tears, El. Get your shit together.

It’s okay. We’re okay. Let’s keep walking.

This secret sits deep in my stomach and makes me nauseated the rest of the time we’re in the store. Or is that my baby? Who cares? Anyway, back to the original point. I know Andrea wouldn’t keep something from me willy-nilly, yet I can’t shake what he could be keeping from me.

By the time we’ve checked out from the store and gotten in the car, the last thing I want is those damn pretzels. Seriously. What is serious enough that Andrea has to keep this from me?