It wasn’t a sore spot anymore, but she didn’t think it needed mentioning again. She’d come to terms with it, they both had, and had found they’d got far more out of the marriage than they’d ever dreamed of. There was no need to throw it out there at him.
“So, you really do want to travel?” He picked the pad of paper back up again and looked it over. “I could buy us something nice, put Anton in charge, and maybe Trina, she’s a smart girl. She wants to have something more to do anyway. This might be possible.”
She squealed happily and leaned over to hug him. “Oh, I hope we can do this. It would be amazing, I swear. We could start in New York and go in any direction you wanted to go to. We could even go up to Canada if we wait until spring. The roads will be better. No snow.”
“Hmm, maybe we should buy one in Florida. Fly down and go across and down until the warmer months hit, then go up.” He showed her a new path and she nodded in agreement.
“That sounds good too. Oh, and I looked it up, we can get wifi in most of the places we’d park up, and if not, we can buy a mobile device to plug into a laptop or something. I don’t know the specifics of it yet, but I know we can do that. And there’s cell service too, so we don’t have to be completely out of touch. You can check in with whoever you leave in charge if that’s what you want to do.”
He looked over at her, amazed at all the information she’d gathered so quickly. “This is really what you want to do? I know I keep asking, but I want you to be sure.”
“For a while, I wanted to take over the family business, your job, but then, well, I don’t think I’m ever going to be that tough, that hard, that I can do what you do.” She looked down at her nails and twisted her lips into a frown. “If you want to stay and run the empire, Matteo, I understand. But, if you want to do this, then I’m all in like I said. Don’t do this just for me. I don’t want you to hate me for walking away, or leaving it for a while.”
“I won’t.” He assured her with his palm against her cheek. “I’d give it all up for you, baby.”
“But you don’t have to. We can find a way to make this work, I know we can.” Her eyes implored him to agree to it, and she could see he was pulled to agree. His eyes flicked to the list of places and she laughed with happiness when he nodded.
“I’ll start looking for a bus, RV, whatever it is that will be suitable. We have to remember though, Marie, there is a contract out on you.”
“Still no word on who put it out?” She hadn’t asked him a lot about it, but she’d heard him talking about it with Anton.
“No, and it’s really starting to piss me off. I have a list of suspects, but I can’t prove who it is. It’s usually not that hard to find out, but this time, it’s like finding a ghost. Usually, whoever put it out would declare it proudly, but not this time, and that makes me wonder.” He cut the words off and turned his face away.
With narrowed eyes, Marie stared at Matteo. “Do you think it’s Celeste? The way she was that day she came to see me…”
“She came to see you? Why didn’t you tell me?” His head whipped back around to face her, his face angry for a moment, but then it smoothed out. “Sorry, when was that?”
“Right before she left and everything kind of turned into chaos, and I wasn’t well, so I forgot to tell you. I think I pissed her off.” She frowned and looked at her nails again. “I might have implied she was a little too consumed with your private life.”
“You wouldn’t be wrong about that,” he chuckled and sat back. “What else happened?”
“Not a lot. She came in, asked if you were there, then asked if we could call a truce. I agreed, for your sake, then she commenced to insulting me. Kept talking about how she’d raised you to think with your brain and not your dick, and how you only wanted me in your bed, and the minute I got too old you’d replace me. Which is why I asked her if she was jealous.”
The memories were clear in her mind and Marie could still picture Celeste’s shock when the question was asked if Matteo’s aunt was jealous that Marie was in his bed.
“Oh, dear. Brave of you to give as good as you got, but yeah, you baited a tiger there.” He stroked his jaw and she could hear the bristle of his beard. He hadn’t shaved that morning, which she found kind of sexy, but the prickle of it against her skin could be a little painful. He’d shave when he felt like it. “What else?”
“She said she didn’t like me, didn’t think I was the wife you deserved. And that if she didn’t get rid of me, you would when you grew tired of me.” The words came out more slowly as she thought about the implication. If she didn’t get rid of Marie. What lengths would she go to in order to accomplish that?
“Hm. Anything else?” He waited for her answer, his face lined with concern.
“Not much. She said she hoped we wouldn’t meet again and left.”
“Right.” He clasped his hands together and brought his index fingers up to his lips. “Hm.”
“What? Do you think it’s her?” Marie turned her whole body to face him, her feet on the wrung beneath his seat. “Is she the one that put the contract out?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. I need to talk to Anton.” He inhaled deeply and a dark cloud passed over his face, a look that was a mix of hurt, anger, and confusion. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry baby. It’s just, at first I was so angry I couldn’t think straight. And there was so much going on. I wanted to forget it, to just be with you and wipe things like her and my mother out of my mind. Because that’s what it was like, listening to my mother all over again. Only, I didn’t back down, as I would so often with my mother.” She shuddered and looked out at the snow on the ground. It was so bright outside that she’d thought about drawing the curtains but had left them alone. She liked being able to see outside.
She hadn’t let this whole contract business worry her, she felt safe out here and might have even forgotten about it if Anton and Matteo weren’t always talking about security. Now, though, she had to face it.
“It’s not your fault, Marie,” he answered and took her hands in between his. “You were under a lot of stress, and then the attack happened, you aren’t to blame.”
“No, but maybe I should have told you earlier.” She shrugged yet again and met his eyes. “If it’s her, what can be done?”
“I’m not sure. She wasn’t one of my favorite people before you came along. Now? I’ll do what I have to.” He pulled away from her, stood up, and walked over to the fridge.
She knew he needed that distance from her, to not touch her because he never wanted her to be near anything he considered dirty. If the expression on his face told her anything, it told her that he was thinking very bad things. Things he wouldn’t want her to know about.
Instead of pushing him to tell her, she stood up to refill her apple juice and got the bottle out of the fridge. He moved over to the stove and watched as she poured the juice into a glass. “Do you want anything?”
“No, I’m good.” He came up to her, hugged her tight in his arms, and pecked her forehead with a kiss. “And so are you, Marie. You’re so very good. All that is good in my world.”