Alexa placed her bowl in front of Nick. “Try it.”
He looked up. “Did you make this?”
“yes. Tell me what you think.”
He picked up his fork and took a bite. She watched his face in sheer anticipation. Nick broke into a broad grin and shook his head. “Amazing. This is the best pasta I ever had in my life.” She beamed with pride and joy and leaned over to place a kiss on his mouth. “you get a reward for that later.”
His brow arched. “Is Maggie babysitting?”
His sister snorted. “Dream on. you’re babysitting for us.”
Carina sighed. “Would you two just stop? Max and I will take the kids for you, if you want some alone time.”
Max choked. “No, we won’t. I didn’t agree to that.” He grunted at the obvious kick under the table.
Julietta stood with her bowl in her hands. Her hands slipped on the edges, and she chastised herself for being so ridiculous. He wouldn’t know. No one would. It was a silly tradition anyway and meant nothing. She set the bowl in front of him. “Here you go. Buon appetito. ”
The sudden chatter dimmed. All gazes focused on Sawyer, who stared down at his plate and then back up in pure confusion. Damn them all. Why were they making it meaningful? “Umm, is something wrong?” Sawyer asked.
Her mother gave her the look. The look that prodded her to speak and had forced her to do many things she didn’t want to do over the years. Julietta pressed her lips together. Mama Conte snorted at her daughter’s stubbornness and took the reins. “My daughter has made your plate by her own hands. She has done this with the honor of serv-ing you, her husband, for your pleasure.”
Heat struck her cheekbones. This was such an archaic tradition. Sawyer was probably dying from being the focus of everyone’s attention with no idea how to react. Her nerves fluttered. “It’s nothing.” She forced a laugh. “Just eat.”
She slid into the seat beside him and laid her napkin on her lap. When he didn’t say anything, she lifted her lids to sneak a peek.
He stared down at the pasta in sheer amazement. As if gazing at pure gold, he shifted his glance back and forth, staring with a strange vulnerability and need that called out to her. “you made this for me?” he asked.
Julietta gave a jerky nod.
In silence, he picked up his fork and twisted the noodles around the utensil. Placed it in his mouth with a reverence that stole her breath and her heart. She watched his every movement, his profile a portrait of angelic grace, even with his scar. Sawyer swallowed, then slowly placed his utensil down. In front of all witnesses, he reached over and took her hand in his. The warm strength of his grip settled her nerves and caused a pure joy to flood every crevice of her body.
“Thank you for this gift. It’s simply the best thing I ever ate in my life.”
Julietta smiled and squeezed his hand. “Prego,” she whispered.
As if knowing the tension had dissipated, Lily burst out, “More pasta, please!”
Nick tapped her nose and refilled her bowl. Chatter re-sumed, stories were shared, and Julietta ate. But she knew something had changed between them. Something that couldn’t be undone. Something that broke all the rules.
She pushed the thought away and focused on her family.
…
She cooked for him.
Sawyer ate with a methodical precision as the scene at the table faded to the background. odd, when she laid the plate in front of him, he sensed something different. Like he’d reverted to an alternate time and place where certain actions masked deep emotions that were experienced but unspoken. His wife had prepared a dish with him solely in mind. Served him with a humbleness he didn’t deserve. And looked at him with a banked fire in her eyes that drew him to her like a homing pigeon on a mission.
Food was survival. When he’d become rich enough for it to be a pleasure, he dined at gourmet restaurants. Culinary chefs had prepared meals on yachts and in endless hotel rooms. He’d ordered room service for women he slept with.
Since their wedding night, Julietta prepared simple meals for Wolfe and him that he recognized and appreci-ated. Lamb chops, pasta, risotto, grilled fish. He’d never had a frozen vegetable with her and was beginning to get used to the bottles of herbs on the windowsill, the baskets of tomatoes and prunes, grapes and lemons that littered the countertops.
But today was different. She offered him something of herself, as beautifully as she offered her body to him night after night. And in the way he only knew from his life, he took and took and took, giving her orgasms and pleasure but keeping himself solidly locked behind a wall that crum-bled inch by inch with each day that passed.
Confusion and want swamped him in a deadly mixture.
The memory caught, shifted, and dragged him under.
Thanksgiving. He sat in the closet with his foster brother and sister. One slice of turkey lay before them. Bread. Half a cup of milk. “You’re gonna get in trouble,” Danny whis-Probst_MarriageMerger_3P_kk.indd 304
pered, his eyes greedy at the sight of the meat. “Did you steal it?”
“Yeah. But I don’t care. It’s Thanksgiving, and we should celebrate.”
“School talked about it. I learned about the Pilgrims and stuff, but the other kids talked about turkeys and stuffing and cranberries. What is stuffing like?”
His sister touched the turkey like it would disappear. “We should return it.” Worry laced her voice. “You’ll get beaten.”
“I don’t care. He won’t find out. I was really careful. Here, I’ll cut up a slice for each of us.” He made sure to give them the bulk and take a tiny piece for himself. They ate the meal in silence, enjoying every bite of something that had actual texture and good taste. Food was another way of controlling them and their behavior, along with the beating, the solitude.
“We should say what we’re grateful for.”
Sawyer bit back his bitter response and desperately tried to think positive for his siblings. “Sure. You go first, Danny.”
His brother took it seriously, scrunching his brows together as he thought. “I’m grateful you gave this meal to us.”
Sawyer smiled. “Me, too. How about you, Molly?”
The girl was more solemn, her green eyes haunting in the sallow lines of her face. “I’m grateful we have legs and arms.
I saw a man on the street who had none of those body parts.
I’m really glad I have them.”
“Me, too.”
“How about you, Sawyer? What are you grateful for?”
Tightness constricted his throat. The path ahead was endless, strewn with pain and emptiness and the struggle to get through another day. His freedom loomed before him like the Holy Grail. Eighteen. If he made it. If he could help the others. He forced a smile. “I’m grateful for you guys. I’d be awfully bored without your company.”
“And what do we have here?”
The door ripped open. Sawyer pushed the two behind him as his foster father loomed like Satan, blocking the only exit to heaven. His gaze took in the empty plate with the crumbs of turkey and he reached out with a meaty fist and dragged Sawyer out. “Think you can outsmart me, boy?
Stole the combination of the lock to the fridge, huh? Think you’re pretty smart?”