Page 314 of Mario
It is barely more than breath.
I nod again.
His eyes move to my stomach.
For a moment, he does not speak.
His hand lowers, but it does not touch me there. It rests on his own thigh, fingers flexing once, as if he is holding himself back from something.
Possessiveness. Wonder. Fear.
Maybe all of it.
“I was going to tell you,” I say, and it sounds pathetic even to me.
His eyes return to mine.
“I was. I just needed to know first.”
“Know whether I murdered Anna.”
I flinch.
His expression tightens, but he does not apologize for saying it.
I deserve it.
“Yes,” I whisper.
His gaze holds mine for a long time.
Then he says, “I did not kill my wife.”
The answer is simple. Absolute.
I believe him.
That is the worst part.
I believe him immediately, and that makes the last four days feel even more unforgivable.
My breath breaks. “I know.”
“You know now?”
“I knew before,” I admit, voice shaking. “Somewhere. I think I knew before. But I got scared after finding out that I was pregnant, and I found just enough to make the fear seem justified, even while knowing it wasn’t.”
“And instead of coming to me, you went to a stranger.”
I close my eyes.
“Yes.”
His silence is worse than anger.
I open them again because I owe him that much.
“Because I was pregnant,” I say. “Because if there was any chance, even the smallest chance, that the father of my baby had killed his wife, I had to know before I told you. Before you could decide anything. Before I was in the middle of your life and couldn’t get out.”
