Luis untied the knot at his wrist and gently piled silk rope in her palm. “He’s a hard man. He came up during the rebuilding of the city after the war, and then had to survive the shit heels that were his cousins. It made him pretty closed off.”
She watched his face closely as he curled her fingers around the rope. There was something there — a sadness that wasn’t just for his father. “He seems pretty content, though. With his family, I mean.”
A small smile pulled at his mouth. “He got lucky. Well, not at first. Him and my mom, Isabelle, they were an arranged match.She’s venom neutral and was from a family looking to make connections, while my father was trying to move up in the ranks. It was a good fit — except that they hated each other.”
“Really?” she asked incredulously.
Francesca found that hard to picture. After she’d showered, dressed in a sundress from her suitcase, and sat in Albert’s office with a tray of soup, she’d observed them all closely. The triad were a perfect solar system, each of them orbiting the others with seamless choreography.
Albert, a stern-faced man of few words who’d very clearly given his looks to both his sons, watched both his wives with a quiet admiration that was hard to miss. He seemed to prefer letting them speak for him and regularly stopped the conversation to ask what they thought of the situation. His love for both women wasn’t flashy or full of smiles but a steady, silent kind that filled the room — much as her own parents’ love was.
Strong. Dependable. A little reserved, maybe, but there whenever one went looking for it.
Luis sat heavily on the bed. It was nearing dawn and she could see the stress of the day wearing on him — not to mention what had to be considerable pain from the beatings he took the previous night.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he explained, “They didn’t fit right until Mama came along. Dad says it gave them something to bond over. Their love for the same woman, I guess.”
Sitting beside him, she noted, “Most relationships would’ve dissolved under those circumstances. Says a lot that it didn’t.”
He gave her a tired but curious look. “Do your parents love each other?”
“Yes, but they’ve been together a really long time, so it’s a very… mellow kind of love. They’re best friends.” Eyeing the tension in his shoulders, she laid a hand on his chest. “Are you hurting?”
“My stitches aren’t happy with me,” he admitted. Flashing her a smile that was absolutely aimed to distract her, he added, “Too much strenuous exercise today.”
She rolled her eyes, but it didn’t stop the blush from creeping up her neck. Giving his chest a pat, she urged, “Lay down, then, Casanova. It’s almost your bed time anyway.”
“Yours too,” he grunted, kicking off his boots.
Teasing him, she complained, “Oh, but I thought I’d stay up a while and explore the beach. You know, I’ve never been in the o?—”
Luis wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her backward onto he bed. She hit the pillows with a laugh.
“You never go anywhere without me again,” he mumbled into her hair.
After the night they’d had, she couldn’t exactly argue. Francesca turned on her side. Wrapping her arm around his sturdy waist, she tucked his head under her chin — holdinghimfor once.
“Thank you,” she whispered, rubbing small circles on his back with her thumb. “You’ve saved me a lot in the past forty-eight hours and taken a beating because of it.”
A warm puff of air tickled her throat when he sighed. “Worth it to finally have you in my arms. Even if we’ve been fuckingbanished.”
“Not a bad place to be banished to,” she pointed out.
Luis let out a short, frustrated sigh. “I had plans, Frankie. I had things I wanted to do with you. I was going to take you to dinner. Buy you a bunch of ridiculous shit. Take you swimming in the rooftop pool. You gave me thirty days to woo you, so I was gonna fucking woo you.”
Surprised, she asked, “So you weren’t just upset that you wouldn’t be the one taking care of Malachi?”
“I want the fucker dead,” he promised her, “but I don’t actually care who does it. I just want to know he’s not a threat to you anymore.”
Oh.
Warmth gathered in her chest, filling it until there didn’t seem to be enough room for her lungs.
He hadn’t worn that surly, upset look the entire debate because he had some macho idea about being the one to take out Malachi. It was because he was disappointed he couldn’t give her what he’d planned.
Francesca hugged him closer. In a soft voice, she told him, “As nice as all that sounds, I think I prefer this. Just you and me.”
“I guess the upside to this is that you’ll beforcedto relax,” he allowed, fighting a yawn. “And I get to have you totally and completely to myself. Which wasn’t guaranteed, you know, because Marietta and Dahlia are obsessed with you now.”