A Hunger for the Forbidden(45)

“No,” he said.

“Oh.”

“Will you miss your father?”

“I think so. He’s not a wonderful man, but he’s the only father I have.”

“I would have been better off without one than the one that I had.”

Alessia moved to put the pasta into the pan. “You say that with a lot of certainty.”

“Trust me on this, Alessia.”

They stood in silence until the pasta was done. Matteo got bowls out of the cupboard and set them on the counter and Alessia dished them both a bowl of noodles and sauce.

“Nothing like a little post … you know, snack,” she said, lifting her bowl to her lips, her eyes glued to his chest. “You’re barely dressed.”

“You should talk,” he said.

She looked down. “I’m dressed.”

“Turn around.” She complied, flashing her bare butt to him. “That’s not dressed, my darling wife.”

“Are you issuing a formal complaint?”

“Not in the least. I prefer you this way.”

“Well, the apron is practical. Don’t go tearing it off me if you get all impatient.” She took a bit of pasta and smiled, her grin slightly impish. It made it hard to breathe.

There was something so normal about this. But it wasn’t a kind of normal he knew. Not the kind he’d ever known. He wasn’t the sort of man who walked barefoot in the grass and then ate pasta at midnight in his underwear.

He’d never had a chance to be that man. He wondered again at what it would be like if all the things of the world could simply fall away.

“Matteo?”

“Yes?”

“I lost you for a second. Where were you?”

“Just thinking.”

“Mmm.” She nodded. “I’m tempted to ask you what about but I sort of doubt you’d want to tell me.”

“About my father,” he said, before he could stop himself.

“You really don’t miss him?”

“No.” A wall of flame filled his mind. An image of the warehouse, burning. “Never.”

“My father has mainly ignored my existence. The only time he’s ever really acknowledged me is if he needs something, or if he’s angry.”

Rage churned in Matteo’s stomach. “Did he hit you?”

“Yes. Not beatings or anything, but if I said something that displeased him, he would slap my face.”

“He should feel very fortunate he never did so in front of me.”

Alessia was surprised at the sudden change in Matteo’s demeanor. At the ice in his tone. For a moment, they’d actually been getting along. For a moment, they’d been connecting with clothes on, and that was a rarity for the two of them.

He was willing to try. He’d told her that. And he would be faithful. Those were the only two promises she required from him. Beyond that, she was willing to take her chances.

Willing to try to know the man she’d married. Past her fantasy of him as a hero, as her white knight, and as the man he truly was. No matter what that might mean.

“I handled it,” she said.

“It was wrong of him.”

She nodded. “I know. But I was able to keep him from ever hitting one of the other kids and that just reinforced why I was there. Yes, I bore the brunt of a lot of it. I had to plan parties and play hostess, I had to take the wrath. But I’ve been given praise, too.”

“I was given praise by my father sometimes, too,” Matteo said. There was a flatness to his tone, a darkness in his words that made her feel cold. “He spent some time, when I was a bit older, teaching me how to do business like a Corretti. Not the business we presented to the world. The clean, smooth front. Hotels, fashion houses. All of that was a cover then. A successful cover in its own right, but it wasn’t the main source of industry for our family.”

“I think … I mean, I think everyone knows that.”

“Yes, I’m sure they do. But do you have any idea how far-reaching it was? How much power my father possessed? How he chose to exercise it?”

She shook her head, a sick weight settling in her stomach. “What did he do, Matteo? What did he do to you?”

“To me? Nothing. In the sense that he never physically harmed me.”

“There are other kinds of harm.”

“Remember I told you I wasn’t a criminal? That’s on a technicality. It’s only because I was never convicted of my crimes.”