Page 110 of Promised to the Don of Naples

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He looked at me with his black eyes tired.

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"Not today."

"Luca, I'm your wife. You just told me ti amo in Italian inside our room. You're not going to leave me out of this."

He propped his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped.

"I don't want to leave you out."

"Then don't."

"Valentina…"

He called me Valentina. Not bella mia. I swallowed hard in a different way.

"One name," I said, lower. "Give me one."

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, it was at the ceiling.

"Cazzo."

"One, Luca."

"Tonio."

The word fell like a stone.

I went still.

Tonio, the driver. The man who drove the car that brought me from Palermo to Posillipo on the first trip. The man who carried the white lilies for me. The man who took me to the church with the nonna in the back seat. The man who'd worked for Luca's father before Luca.

"Tonio," I repeated.

"Sì."

"Twenty years in the house."

"Twenty."

I felt a knot in my throat. At the same time I felt a tightness in my chest very different from the knot—it was anger.

"And the other two?"

"Tomorrow."

"Cazzo, Luca."

"Bella mia."

He stood and came to me, putting his open hand on my cheek, the same as at the altar.

I threw his hand off.

"No."

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