Page 39 of Broken Trust

I don't think so I close the gap and kiss her.

For one terrifying heartbeat she goes rigid against me, and I'm sure I've just wrecked whatever was left. Then she makes a small, broken sound in the back of her throat, grabs two fistfuls of my T-shirt, and kisses me back like she's been starving for it.

It's nothing like the careful, polite pecks we traded in the last years of our marriage. It's desperate and messy and hungry, all teeth and breath and months of wanting. Her fingers slide up into my hair and pull hard enough to sting, and I back her up against the counter and she hits it with a gasp into my mouth. I can taste salt on her lips, tears, hers or mine, I can't tell anymore. My hands find her waist and slip beneath the hem of her sweater to the warm, bare skin of her back, and she arches into me with a sound that nearly takes my legs out from under me.

“Gia,” I breathe against her jaw, her throat, the soft spot below her ear that always used to make her tremble.

She shudders, head tipped back, her nails digging into my shoulders, and I lift her up onto the counter without a thought. The jar goes rolling and the bills scatter everywhere, and she wraps her legs around my hips and drags my mouth back to hers, and for a few blind, burning seconds there's nothing in the world but her. The heat of her, the sound of her breathing, my name coming out of her like she's forgotten every other word.

Then her palms flatten against my chest.

She barely presses. She doesn't need to. I let go the instant I feel it and step away with both hands raised, my heart slamming so violently I can hear it in my ears.

Her lips are swollen, and she’s breathing as if she's just run up all four flights of stairs. Neither of us moves. Then she slides off onto her feet, tugs her sweater back into place, and looks at me with tears running down her face.

“You don't get to do that anymore,” she says, and her voice breaks right in half.

“Gia…”

“No.” She's already backing toward the door, one hand held out between us like a wall. “You can't kiss me like that and expect me to forget. I've spent nearly two years learning how to breathe without you, Dante, and you nearly undid all of it in two minutes.”

She fumbles behind her for the handle.

“Tell Rosa goodnight for me,” she whispers.

She shuts the door behind her, then she's gone. I hear her footsteps on the stairs, fast and uneven, and then the street door slamming four floors down.

I stand in the middle of the room still tasting her, feeling the warmth of her skin under my palms, and I press the heels of my hands against my eyes so hard I see stars.

Behind me, Rosa stirs in the crib and lets out a small, sleepy whimper. I go to her on autopilot and lift her out, and she settles the second I hold her close, her hot little face tucked into my neck.

“I know, sweetheart,” I whisper into her curls. “I miss her too. And I don’t deserve her love, but I want it.”

22

GIA

I'm an hour and a half late for prep, and I haven't run behind on anything since the third grade.

I didn't sleep. I lay on top of the covers in the little apartment above the restaurant with the window open and the church bell counting off every hour, one, two, three, reliving that kiss until I wanted to scream into my pillow. Whenever I closed my eyes I was back on his counter with his hands on my skin and my name in his mouth, and when I opened them I remembered the bills scattered across his floor and the crib by the window and the look on his face when I said he couldn't have me anymore.

Around six I finally dozed off. At nine-thirty I woke up with my cheek stuck to the sheet and the sun blazing through the shutters, and I've been running ever since.

I slip in through the back door with my hair still wet from the world's fastest shower, wearing yesterday's jeans and a shirt I pulled off the chair without looking. I haven't put on a scrap of makeup, so the bruise Mia gave me is on full display, fading now to the color of old tea. My eyes are so puffy from crying that I look like I've been stung by bees.

Matteo is at the big steel table, breaking down a crate of artichokes with the radio murmuring beside him. He's already got the stocks going. I can smell them, veal and chicken simmering next to each other on the back burners, and the bread dough is proving under damp cloths by the oven. He's done half my morning as well as his own, and he hasn't called once to ask where I was.

He glances up when I appear, and his knife stops mid-cut.

“Madonna,” he says softly. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing. I overslept.” I grab an apron off the hook and start tying it with fingers that won't cooperate. “I'm sorry, Matteo. I'll take over the pasta, and you can…”

“Gia.”

“I'll stay late tonight to make up for it, I promise, I'll do the whole thing by myself…”

“Gia, stop.” He sets down the knife, wipes his palms on the towel at his hip, and comes around the table. “Look at me.”