Page 97 of The Mafia Enforcer's Temptation

“I thought… I’d?—”

“Poison me?”

I snort. “Cook, you ass.”

“Poison.”

I narrow my eyes. “I can cook.”

“Fine, as long as you stay home, I’m fine. I’ll chain you to the kitchen if you like.”

“You can try. I’m not your prisoner.”

“If you say so.”

It’s like an uneasy truce that’s not a truce but more like a waiting. Because Seamus is waiting. For something to happen. For me to turn into an enemy from a nightmare or for my lies to surface.

But in this moment, I’m not lying.

When we get back, I take my groceries with me to the kitchen, and then, feeling grimy, I head to the bedroom. I need to get clean.

I shower, change into one of the dresses he made me choose, and then I go back to the kitchen to unpack my purchases. I put things away. The olive oil, the wine. The tins of imported tomatoes.

Each thing finds a place in an understocked kitchen. The fridge, which has juices, wine, and a can of Guinness, fills with food to be cooked.

The brothers’ voices float in the air as I rifle through the cookbook and search for something to make.

I flip through the worn pages, running my fingers over Mama’s handwritten notes, a lump forming in my throat. I decide on a pasta dish. Tomatoes, parmesan, garlic, basil. Simple with added rich chicken stock I bought from Eataly.

Soon I lose myself in the slow cooking down of the broth and the tomatoes in the sauteed garlic to make it thick and rich.

The cat and dog come to hang out, to see what’s up with the new scents in the air. Neither one is interested in begging, but they both enjoy a bit of parmesan.

And after a while, I’m warmed by their presence. I can kind of see why people have pets. I don’t feel alone with them here.

It’s not until the pressure seems to change and my senses start to prickle that I know Seamus has walked in.

I don’t turn as he comes up and leans on the counter. “Everyone else is out. I’m going to the garage.”

He doesn’t move.

I pick up the glass of white wine and pour some into the sauce. He steals a piece of the cheese and then the wineglass and doesn’t go anywhere at all.

“You don’t have a garage. This is Manhattan.”

He shifts a little closer, the scent of him sliding though the aroma of the sauce to wind around me. “I do. It’s where I keep my climbing wall and my motorbike.”

“And all the bodies?”

“No, that’s what the Hudson and shallow graves are for.”

I shoot him a look. I don’t think I like it when he’s charming; it’s an unhanded move to disarm me. As he leans on the counter, sipping my wine, looking utterly devastating, I can feel the layers of my self-protection dissolving.

Then he sticks a finger in the sauce, and I rap his hand with the wooden spoon.

Heat flares as he looks at me, and my stomach starts to twist and turn and flip.

“You want to watch that. I might take it the wrong way.”