The Romance Revival(63)

I reach for his arm, helping him find his way back onto the mattress, and we both break out laughing.

“Shit—sorry,” he says, righting himself, still laughing but without meeting my eyes.

I feel too good to be defeated by this weird little setback. I slept in my husband’s arms! Bring it on, universe, you can’t hurt me today. I am bulletproof.

“I wasn’t complaining,” I say with a grin.

He gives me a warning look. “Not helping, Emmy.”

I’m still laughing as I roll to my back, giving him space and stretching my arms overhead, my feet toward the end of the bed, elongating. Two nights of solid sleep, and I feel incredible.

Warm slashes of morning light streak across the room. I stretch again and tilt my head to see him. “What do you feel like doing today?”

He yawns before pushing up onto an elbow and looking down at me. “I don’t even know what day it is.”

“Friday,” I tell him. “I need to give you a brief checkup at some point.” At his sour expression I add, “I know, I know. But doctor’s orders. Other than that, I’m all yours.”

“Do I, at some point, need to get back to my job?”

“Crash said he’s got it covered for a couple of weeks.”

“Still, don’t I—”

“Do you mean financially speaking?” I ask, and he hesitates, and then nods. “No.” He waits for me to say more and uneasiness twists in my gut. “Okay. So, I guess you can imagine that being a lead scientist for a supersecret agency pays a bit better than being a project manager of a surgical laser company.”

Luca’s brows lift. “Is this your way of saying I didn’t know how much money you make?”

Wincing, I confirm this with a nod. “I make a lot.”

“What’s ‘a lot’?”

“We’d be okay if you didn’t want to go back.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“What if you decide you don’t want to go back to BioNEX?”

“I can find something else.” Unless I have a host of criminal charges brought against me and lose my medical license along with all of my references, I think. But something tells me BioNEX doesn’t want the medical ethics board snooping around. If things went south, they’d have to find another way to ruin me. My mind rolls back to the possibility that Luca’s accident wasn’t an accident, or that someone was trying to send me a message.

Beside me, he takes a long, slow inhale. “Didn’t we talk about money before? Do you have bank accounts that I didn’t know about?”

I chew on my nail, hesitating. I could lie, and odds are he’d never know the difference. It would be the easier answer for sure. But I’m not going to.

“We had separate money when we met, and both made deposits when we started our joint accounts. You assumed my money came from my parents’ estate, and I just never corrected you.” I hold my breath as I chance a look up at him. “You’re the beneficiary on everything. The account numbers and directions to access it all are in our shared safe-deposit box at the bank. It’s the yellow key on your key chain.”

“Have I ever used the safe-deposit box?”

“Not that I know of. You usually let me handle that kind of stuff.”

“And I never asked questions.” Luca exhales, rolling to sit up at the side of the bed with his feet on the floor, and my stomach drops. He’s right, and we both know it, but I don’t want him to shoulder any of this blame.

It’s quiet in the room, and as if to remind him that they’re in this crazy trip together, Honey bounds into the room from wherever she’s been and covers his face with kisses. Don’t worry, she seems to say. Everything will be okay.

Or, at least that’s what I hope she’s saying.

“We both need to promise something,” he says.

He runs a hand down Honey’s neck, and my eyes follow the flex of muscle, the twist and curve of his naked back. “Of course. Anything.”

“No more lies by omission, Em. If we’re going to do this… it has to be the truth, all of it. I want us to find what we had, but better than before, more real. The grown-up version.”

“I promise,” I tell him. “Luca, I promise.”

He turns to hold my gaze over his shoulder. “And I’ll tell you what I need. I’ll call you on your shit and won’t take the easy way out. I promise, okay?”

I’m already nodding, my heart ready to leap out of my chest. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he says with a nod, then, “Come here.”

Like a starter pistol has been fired, I’m across the bed, my arms wrapped around his shoulders so tight. So tight.

I’m never letting him go.



* * *



Unfortunately, I have to let him go eventually. A guy’s gotta pee after all. So when Luca climbs out of bed and goes into the bathroom, I slip to the kitchen, pulling out a can of cinnamon rolls to bake, assuming that even I can capably bake these.

I’m mostly right—I only burn the bottoms a little—and Luca looks like a cartoon dog who’s followed his nose to a delicious plate of food as he walks into the kitchen, sniffing. “Something smells amazing.”