Page 123 of Promised to the Don of Naples
Luca didn't say anything, so I held out both arms to him, and he came.
He knelt on the floor in front of the bed and laid his head in my lap. I ran my hand through his hair, slowly. My fingers caught in the wet hair at the nape of his neck—he'd washed it somewhere.
And then I felt it.
His breathing break once. Almost nothing—a short sob, held back, controlled.
Then again.
Luca Moretti, the padrone of the Naples Camorra, his head in my lap, crying for two breaths.
I didn't speak, just kept running my hand through his hair.
After a while—I don't know how long, maybe five minutes, maybe ten—he lifted his head and looked at me, black eyes red at the rims.
"Bella mia."
"Sì."
"Come here."
He stood and came to the bed. He didn't take off his shirt; he took off my nightgown, laying me down.
It was fast.
It was without a single word. It was with his mouth buried in my neck, his hands open on my back, all his weight on top of me.
I wrapped my legs around him, felt his ribs trembling under the shirt he hadn't taken off.
It wasn't a performance, it was need.
When he came, he held on to me almost painfully hard. And then he did what he'd never done before.
He rolled to the side, pulled me onto his chest, but reversed it—he laid his head on my chest, not mine on his.
And he stayed there.
I ran my hand through his hair again, and at some point he fell asleep.
I stayed awake. His hand was open on my belly, under the rumpled nightgown.
I felt something I couldn't name yet.
I married a man who kills his brother's godfather.
And I didn't run. I took him in.
CHAPTER 38
"I saw the man who walked my dress to the altar die between me and two bullets. He said thank you for the lilies before he closed his eyes."
Valentina MORETTI
The nonna had coffee with me in the green room.
"You're pale, signora."
"I slept badly."
