Deep (Pagano Family #4)(69)

“What’d you say?”

“I told him he was freaking me out and he knew my feelings. He apologized, but he was pissy the rest of the night. I need to get back to work and get us back to normal. But if you thought you would come back, I’d hold out a little longer. I love working at Sal’s with you.”

Bev sat for a moment and forced herself to imagine working at the diner, the way it used to be. Her and Sky on together, doing their telepathy thing, chatting with the regulars, exchanging affectionate snark with Bruce, making Dink blush. She’d loved the job. Waitressing was nothing special. The work pretty much sucked. But the people—that had been fantastic.

But, like every other time she’d tried out this image, it ended with glass crashing and shots being fired, with a hot grill and a bone-handled knife.

“No. I won’t go back. I can’t. All I ever see is that night.”

Sky reached over and grabbed her hand, and Bev realized that she was gripping the arm of her chair so hard her arm shook. “Okay. I understand. I’m going to have to try to find something. Maybe just short-term, until Bruce gets Sal’s back up. If he does. He was pretty far underwater already, I think.”

Bev thought about her conversation with Bruce during her shift on that last night. He owed Donnie a lot of money. That meant he owed Nick a lot of money.



oOo



Bev had been home about an hour when Nick knocked on the door. He always knocked now. Once, when he’d walked in unexpectedly, she’d screamed, and he had not opened her door without warning again.

He smiled his beautiful smile when she opened the door. “Hi, bella. How are the patients?” As she stepped back, he walked in and kissed her cheek. That was as intimate as they got these days.

She knew he already knew Donnie’s status. He kept apprised of that at least daily and was the one who kept her informed, since the nurses wouldn’t say much of import to her.

“Donnie was sleeping when I saw him. Bruce is doing a lot better. He said they told him he might be released in a week or so, if things keep going like they are.”

“That’s excellent.” He slid his hand into his suit jacket and handed her a flat, square, light blue box. “For you.”

He hadn’t given her a gift since that night. Well, every day he gave her a gift, being there, loving her, letting her lean on him without pushing her for anything. But he hadn’t handed her a box like this since that night. It scared her—did this mean he was tired of waiting for things to be the way they were, that he would begin to push?

“Nick…”

His hand clenched around the box. “Don’t, Beverly. Don’t reject my gift without even seeing it. If you don’t like it, that’s one thing. But don’t just push it away. You’ve left me no other way to love you.”

So yes, then. This was the end of his patience. She turned and walked away.

She went to the sofa and sat down. He stood where he was, just inside her front door, and stared at her.

Seeing no point in ducking the obvious, she said, “I understand if you need more than I can give you. You can go. I’ll be okay on my own now.” That was a bald-faced lie, but she couldn’t handle him being around if he was going to push her to do things she wasn’t ready to do.

“Do you love me?” He hadn’t moved—or maybe even blinked.

“Yes. But—” He put up his hand to stop her.

“I love you. With the way things are for you, I don’t know how to express it.” He walked over, but he sat on a chair rather than next to her on the sofa.

“You just did express it.”

He scoffed. “Words. I need to show you. But I don’t know how.”

“You do every day, and not just in words. Your patience and concern for me is love. Your smile is love. I feel your love in all of that—more than a piece of jewelry could make me feel. Don’t you know that?”

“I guess not.”

“I’m worried you’ll run out of patience with me. You’re so physical and I…I don’t know when I’ll be ready for that.”

Now he came to the sofa and sat with her. “Bella. You think I don’t have more control over my body than that? Yes, I want to love you with my body. Yes, I miss it. But my patience is not at an end. For this, there might not be an end at all. What I want is to love you. I’ve never loved a woman like this before. I like it.” He stared down at the blue box in his hand. “And I like giving you things.”

This time, when he handed her the box, she took it and opened the lid. She gasped. And then she cried. The box held a rose gold bracelet. A dainty chain, and a single, fragile rose-gold feather. He took the bracelet out and lifted her left hand. As she held her arm steady, he looped the chain around her wrist and fastened the clasp.

“I thought you might need an extra these days. Ti amo, bella. Sei il mio sole.”

Sniffling, she lifted her arm to admire the gift. “You say that, I think, most of all. What does it mean?” She’d never asked; she’d been happy to assume his words in Italian were sweet nothings. But that phrase he repeated so often, it must have meant something more.

He cocked his head and grinned at her. When he looked at her like he was now, it was possible to believe that he was nothing but a kind, beautiful man, and that they were nothing but a normal, loving couple. “It means ‘I love you, beautiful. You are my sun.’”