“Puttanesca’s the only thing I can make. Mom taught me when I was a kid. It was her favorite.”
Great. In my attempts to avoid mentioning Tino, I’ve managed to bring up the dead mother. I clear my throat. “Can I help with the dishes?”
“I don’t think your Italian machismo will allow you to,” he says seriously, then smiles. “Sure. Hand me that dish over there.”
When we’re done stacking the dishwasher, we face each other over the kitchen island. It’s a comfortable feeling, despite what’s gone down tonight. I can’t take my eyes off him.
“Are you gonna kill me in my sleep?” I ask lightly. “Because if not, I was thinking, maybe I won’t go back out tonight. Maybe we should just have an early night.”
“Heavens.” He puts a hand to his heart. “You mean make love to me, your husband, in our bedroom, in our bed?”
I smirk. “Yeah. That’s what I mean.”
“Sure. Since we’re married and all, I guess it’s allowed. But first, I have a surprise for you. Don’t frown, baby, you’ll like it.” He comes around the island and holds out his hand to me. I take it, and he pulls me out of the kitchen towards the stairs.
“Pro tip,” I tell him as he leads me up to our bedroom. “Never tell a Family man you have a surprise waiting for him.”
Finch grins over his shoulder at me. “Even if that surprise is sexy?”
Eyes on his ass, I say, “Hm. Maybe then it’s okay.” But when we make it to the bedroom, Finch doesn’t head straight for the bed. Instead, he goes over to the closet and takes out a long black garment bag. He hooks the hanger on the door, unzips it, and pulls the insides out, as careful as I picture those ancient Roman auguries disemboweled their animal sacrifices.
He glances back to me and gestures me over. “Feel this.”
I take the material between my fingers. It’s soft. Classy. Expensive. Everything I’m not, but Finch is. “Nice,” I say. “You get this on your shopping spree with Celia?”
“It’s for you,” he says patiently. “This one, and four more. I took your measurements from the wedding tux. Hope you haven’t gained too much weight since the wedding, got comfy now that you’re a married man.”
I don’t know what to say. I check the label, wondering, hoping.
Finch chuckles. “You take his name in vain so often, I figured you should finally own some Armani suits. Now you can quit damaging his reputation with those clown clothes you insist on wearing.”
I glare at him then. “Those suits are fine for day-to—”
“No, they’re not, and I fucking threw them out. Trash collection came this morning, so they’re long gone. Say hello to your new life. I got you shirts, socks and underwear, too.”
“Where did you get the money?” I snap, frustrated.
“Well, darling husband, there’s this trick the ultra-rich like to use, called living on credit. I charged it all to my Pops’ store account. I did plan to tell him tonight, but he went all nuclear on me. So fuck him. He can have a surprise, too.”
I always thought Howard Fincher Donovan the Third was the apple of his daddy’s eye. How wrong I was. Still... “He kept you hidden. After your mother, I mean. Got you out of Boston and into New York.”
Finch picks up my thought process. “I kept myself hidden. I’m the one who stayed off social media. I’m the one who knew when I had to get out of town. He pushed me out to New York so he never had to see me. No. I owe him nothing—didn’t even inherit the Donovan family baby blues. So now do you understand? I’ve broken ties with him, with all of them. I’m not Howard Fincher Donovan the Third anymore. I’m Finch D’Amato from now on.”
He presses up against me and I drop the Armani suit-sleeve, clutching at his body out of instinct alone. “I’m yours,” he says, his voice low with desire. “Until death.”
I kiss him for that, take his mouth and ravage it like I’m planning to do with his body once I get him in the bed. I pull at his clothes, get him naked as fast as I can. There’s something about him that makes me crazy, makes me rage inside where normally I’m like ice.
“We’re going to do great things together,” he sighs, as I push him down on the bed, kissing down his neck, biting, marking my territory. “The clothes are just the start. Tomorrow night, you’ll see what I can do for you.”
“Tomorrow?” I pull back, blinking. Shit. Of course. In all the Armani and naked Finch, I’ve forgotten about the dinner tomorrow night. “Oh, Tino.”
“Yes, Tino,” he laughs. But then his smile drops. I try to kiss it back on his lips, but he turns his head. “Baby, when Tino is here tomorrow night…can you do something for me?”
“Anything.” I actually fucking mean it, which is the scary thing. But it brings the smile back to his lips, so it’s worth it. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to ask him.”
He doesn’t have to say what he wants me to ask. It will be difficult to find a non-offensive way to ask it: Hey, Boss, did you whack some Irish broad back in the day? But it’s important for me to know, too. If there’s a story there, I want the details. I need to know exactly what my Boss is capable of, the skeletons in his closet. I need to protect my back as much as Finch’s.
Without me, he’s dead.
I lean in to kiss Finch’s trembling mouth.
“I’ll ask him,” I promise.
Chapter Thirty-Four
FINCH
Just like I reminded him this morning, Luca is back by six on the dot, so I can make him shower, shave, and dress in his brand-new Armani suit. I’ve dumped the Old Spice along with the
