Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 724(@200wpm)___ 579(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144832 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 724(@200wpm)___ 579(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“Keep it up.” It was an empty threat. He couldn’t throw her over his shoulder—yet. There could be no tackling her. No play that involved holding her down. But verbal playing, he could introduce her to that.
“I intend to.”
Now her laughter was open, and the sound teased at his senses, creating an intimacy between them that surprised him. It was more emotional than physical, allowing his body a reprieve. He hadn’t thought that just playing could achieve as great an intimacy as having sex with a woman, but he found everything he did with Nicoletta contributed to their closeness.
He brought tea to her on the back patio. She combed out her hair, taming the wild waves into a thick braid while he watched.
“You have a recording studio,” she said.
She made it a statement, leaving it up to him whether or not he wanted to tell her about it. He debated. “I have an office, too.” He did. He helped design racing engines. The Ferraro engines were mainly his designs.
“Yes, I was very nosy this morning when you were making breakfast, and I walked around. Mostly, I was lost, so I peeked into all the rooms. I saw all the engine diagrams on the walls. Or CAD drawings, whatever you call them. Emmanuelle mentioned that you’re quite brilliant when it comes to that sort of thing. I think she was trying to tell me you weren’t a bored playboy.”
He laughed. Of course Emme would try to convince Nicoletta that Taviano was worth something. His sister knew he was in love with her.
“Francesca told me you are an amazing chef. That you’d learned in Europe and would be welcome in any of the best restaurants in the world.”
“They were laying it on thick, weren’t they?” But he was pleased his family would go to bat for him.
“That’s not all,” Nicoletta assured. She picked up the teacup and took a sip. “I love this. There’s nothing quite like a great cup of tea, is there?” Her eyes were on the setting sun.
“What else did they tell you?” His voice darkened with suspicion. What else could they tell her? Everything went downhill from there.
“Sasha said you are so good with knives it’s unbelievable. Throwing knives, but you don’t even need the weighted real thing. She claims you can use a kitchen knife with deadly accuracy. I did see your targets and all the knife holes in them. It looked as if she might have been telling the truth.”
“A by-product of being good in the kitchen.”
She took her gaze from the sunset to glance at him for just a moment, amusement shining at him. “Is that what you’re going with?”
He nodded. She turned her head to look back at nature’s display of color and power.
“Mariko said you have the soul of a poet, the heart of a warrior and your hands were gentle enough to hold Crispino lovingly and yet strong enough to keep him safe.”
His sisters-in-law spoke highly of him. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. And he was touched. They were good people. He admired, respected, and loved all four of them.
“Did they sway you at all toward me?”
“I’m here with you, aren’t I?”
“I think I trapped you into marriage,” he said, without remorse.
“That was my shadow trapping yours,” she argued. “I saw the recording studio,” she added.
They were back to that. She was his wife and she was living in the house with him. Sooner or later she would know. It was silly not to just tell her. She had her eyes on the sky, not on him, and that made it easier to act like it didn’t mean a thing when it was intensely personal.
“I record music. Lyrics. I play a little guitar and sometimes I write songs. Nothing monumental, just mostly garbage, but I get them out of my head.” Even to his own ears he sounded casual and he was proud of that.
She reached out to him and he immediately took her hand and brought her palm to his thigh, pressing it tightly to him. She knew he wasn’t as casual as he sounded. That’s what he loved about Nicoletta. She knew him. They knew each other.
“I’ve never seen you play an instrument.”
“I’m not the best, tesoro. In my family, if you aren’t the best at something, you keep practicing until you are. I play, but I don’t play for others. Only for myself. I practice and I have friends give me lessons, but I don’t let others hear me make my mistakes.”
He knew that was a leftover childhood thing. Ferraros were expected to be perfect at everything they did. They had perfect accents when they spoke other languages. They got perfect grades and learned every subject fast. They were skilled in every form of self-defense and in the use of weapons. Any sign of weakness wasn’t tolerated. No excuse was accepted. That had been drilled into them from the time they were toddlers.