Stone just lets the door swing close behind him and pulls me into his arms. “Thank fuck. But you know I’m going to wanna hear you tell me that again. A lot more times. And at least once, while I’m fucking you good.”
My cheeks warm. “Okay,” I agree quickly to get him off the subject.
But apparently Stone doesn’t care about Amber’s nearby presence, he continues to stare down at me, his eyes burning with hunger. Hunger that is all for me.
Wow…I’ve been getting ignored in rooms with Amber for the majority of my life. Even Rock unconsciously stared at her, like she was a painting when we are all in the same space. But Stone acts as if Amber’s presence is barely on his radar, as he says, “Promise? I will drag your ass in for weekly marriage counseling with Dr. Nouri if you try to take it back. I swear to God.”
“I promise,” I answer with a laugh, suddenly also not caring so much about Amber being in the room.
“Good,” he says, looking deep into my eyes. “Amber, I suggest you give us the room unless you wanna hear what’s about to happen next.”
Stone’s already kissing me by the time he locks the door behind her. And the next day at the funeral, all the terrible stage whisperers have something new to gossip about.
Not just that Stone married the mother of his dead twin’s baby, but also that they heard we “did it” at his father’s wake.
All the gossip is totally true. Just like my love for the man who survived the cruel father we put in the ground that day.
And somehow that makes me feel like Teflon as all the gossip and stares bounce right off me. Stone’s crass and bullish and pretty much nothing on the list of qualities I wanted in a husband.
But he’s everything I need.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Despite of us kicking his wife out of the bathroom and give the entire Ferraro clan something to gossip about, Luca invites us back to his house after the funeral.
They’ve moved out of the Tribeca penthouse Luca jailed us in when he was trying to convince his ex-wife to give their relationship a third chance. Now they live in a huge compound in Alpine, New Jersey that makes our house in North Carolina look like a tiny shack.
But the comparisons stop there. I’m nothing but happy for Amber as her sweet daughter proudly shows off their open plan first floor to Talia and Cami, explaining how the entire estate was designed for her mom. Each wall is differently textured to make touch navigation easier for Amber, and the floors are heavily dynamic, with small bumps at the boundaries of every living section.
What a dream house for Amber. Suddenly I’m not just resigned, but glad she chose Luca.
I’m also glad our families get along. Amber and I end up talking on the couch, like the old days, while the kids play with Cami, and Luca and Stone talk business over whiskeys and beer.
“I don’t have to ask if you’re really happy, I can plainly see,” I tell my best friend.
“Yeah, I am,” she agrees, with a Cheshire cat smile, like she’s gotten away with something. “Did I ever think this was how I’d end up using my law degree? No. But now I can’t imagine my life any differently.”
“I know how you feel,” I tell her. “Two years ago, I never would have guessed I could be happy with Stone. I thought I hated him, in fact. But now, all I want is to stay in this fairytale with him forever.”
I laugh at myself, but stop when a weird expression comes over her face. “What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she answers. “It’s just, I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation like this. About your happiness. About what you want. Oh, wait, we did. And it turned into a huge argument, because the one time you fought back against one of my plans, I acted like you’d gone crazy.”
“We don’t have to talk about this,” I say, shaking my head.
“No, I think we do. I’ve had a lot of time to think about where our friendship went wrong over the last two years. And if I’m being honest, it wasn’t just you deciding to up and leave. It was me letting you being a good friend to me, but never the other way around.”
“That’s not true. You helped my parents with their landlord suit,” I point out.
“Like a decade ago!” Amber counters with a laugh. “And I helped your parents. Not you. You were always there for me, no matter what, but when you needed me, I wasn’t there. In fact…”
Tears suddenly pool in Amber’s usually hard eyes. “I told you to go away. I was such a selfish idiot. No wonder you stopped talking to me after Rock died.”
“No, you weren’t a selfish idiot. You were moving on with your life. And that forced me to come out of the limbo I was living in and get on with my life, too. I was pretty bitter about it back then. But girl, trust me. You going back to Luca was the best thing that ever happened to me. Please don’t cry.”
Amber sniffs and wipes at her tears. “You know, I didn’t see it at first, but no wonder Stone decided to become a caporegime down South. He obviously knows a good woman when he unemotionally observes her.”
“Capo-what now?” I ask.
“Capo for short. It’s like a rank they use for the heads of offshoot branches of a mafia operation,” Amber explains, but then she frowns. “Stone didn’t tell you this? He told Luca he wanted to stay down south and run his own operation last August. Luca gave him a year to get it up and running, and the plan is for Stone to move down there full time in August. Anyway, it’ll be a lot less exciting but also a lot less dangerous than enforcer work.”
“No…he didn’t tell me,” I answer as my stomach drops with the realization that Stone always intended to live full time with me and Garnet, even when he was dragging me into our courthouse wedding. “He doesn’t like talking about that kind of stuff with me.”
“Oh, a lot of them don’t,” Amber says with an understanding nod. “If you’re wife isn’t also your mob lawyer, there’s really no reason not to leave work at work when you come home in this line of business.”
She changes the subject, but warm, loving feelings continue to rush over me as she continues to talk.
Stone always believed in the long term future of our relationship. From the very beginning, before and after he stopped abusing pills.
My heart flooding with feelings, I look over my shoulder at the man who will officially be the Ferraro’s North Carolina-based capo after August. I am so grateful and so awed.
Because he believes in us. And now I do, too.
As if sensing my eyes, Stone suddenly looks up. But instead of smiling at me from afar, like any other guy would, he leaves his conversation with Luca without a word of explanation.
By the time he makes it across the room, I’ve stood up, like a marionette being lifted on strings.
“Hey, Naima,” he says, stopping in front of me.
“Hey,” I answer, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
“You alright?”
“I’m fine,” I answer. I look down at my feet, then back up at him. “I just love being here with you and the girls. I just love…us. One hundred percent.”
He longs at me for a long, warm moment. “One twenty percent,” he says.
Then he kisses me when I giggle. In front of Amber. In front of Luca. In front of the whole world.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Things hum along happily after we return to North Carolina. I start texting every day with Amber again. Like the last two years of estrangement was merely a bad dream and totally over now.
And Stone continues to play the part of an amazing husband and exemplary father, both surrogate and adopted. He helps Cami make a plan for moving and living in Portland for her new job. Then he surprises me and Aunt Mari with the announcement that he’s chartered a plane to take us and whoever else we wanted to the Dominican Republic for Christmas.
Life is perfect. Our relationship is perfect. I’ve never been happier.
Which is why I try to ignore it when he comes back from a trip to New York the weekend before our anniversary dinner suddenly not f
eeling up for anything.
“I’m tired,” he says, instead of kissing me, when he climbs into bed. “I can wife you, but I’m not up for much else.”
“That’s okay,” I answer. “I can wait until a night when you’re not tired.”
“Thanks, babe,” he says with a tired smile.
He falls asleep instantly, but I spend a long time lying there in the dark, repeating what he said to me in Dr. Nouri’s office. And trying not to worry.
However, that not tired night never comes. And though Stone’s back in town, it feels like I never see him. He starts coming home, so late I’m already asleep, but waking up so early, I don’t see him until we’re sitting across from each other at our crowded breakfast table. Which is not the place to ask about where he was all night and what he was doing there.
I love Stone and I believe in us, but the old fears start nibbling at the back of my brain, threatening my newfound trust that a relationship involving me could actually work out.
But then something crazy happens the morning of our anniversary. I find myself in the agency’s bathroom, staring at a small plastic stick.
It has a baby head on it.
I’m pregnant, again.
This time with Stone’s baby.
I can’t believe it. For like fifteen minutes I haven’t been able to believe it. I’ve just sit there open-mouthed, gaping at the stick, like I stared at my wedding ring, not believing it.
I might have sat there for another fifteen disbelieving minutes if not for the sudden buzz from the Fitbit smartwatch Stone got me for Christmas, alerting me that I’ve got a text from Amber. “Have any plans tonight? Need to talk!”
I grab my personal phone out of the purse I’d just stuffed a couple of new toddler diapers into this weekend, because Garnet’s gotten so big.
She won’t even be two when the next baby arrives though, I think as I type back, “Sorry. Relationship anniversary dinner with Stone. Raincheck for tomorrow? Is it important?”
“Yes, just finished that J.R. Ward book you recommended to me on Audible. Want to talk. Way more important than your anniversary.”
I laugh. And for a moment I’m tempted to share the big news. But I guess Stone and me really have leveled up our relationship. I used to tell Amber everything first, but now I can’t imagine not sharing it with Stone before anyone else. And maybe this will clear up some of the weird distance I’ve felt between us over the past week.
“I’ll beg for your forgiveness tomorrow, girl. Now start the second one. It’s even better. Mary and Rhage are my favorite couple.”
A few more texts with Amber and a Dominican blowout from Aunt Mari later, I arrive at the restaurant in my going out dress. Much like my work clothes it fits a little tighter these days, but now I know why. And I can’t wait to tell Stone.
He’s already sitting at a table when I get there with two glasses of wine. And even though, I won’t be able to enjoy the drinks he ordered, I beam at him as I cross the room.
He doesn’t stand up when I approach the table like Rock used to, or even say hi. But who cares? “Hey you!” I greet him enthusiastically as I carefully set the purse with the pregnancy test on one of the empty seats, then grab and pull out my own chair.
“You’re late. I said seven.”
“Oh…” I look at my Casio watch. He’s right it’s like, 7:15. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”
“Well, you did. Better figure out what you want to order before the waiter comes back,” he says, picking up his own menu.
I’m starving, but I don’t pick up the menu, which is waiting a lot more patiently than Stone on top of my place setting.
Instead I study my husband, trying to figure out the reason for his surlier than usual mood. I’m aware Stone can be a general about time, but there’s something off about him as he scans the menu with an irritated look…
“Did something happen today?” I ask him.
“Yeah, I showed up here on time and you didn’t,” he answers.
“Something other than that?” I ask, trying to keep both my voice and my emotions level.
Stone doesn’t answer.
And that makes me frown even harder, as a new gut-wrenching suspicion makes it to the top of my hypothetical list. “Stone, look at me.”
Without any hesitation, Stone lowers the menu and looks at me. “What?”
Just like I suspected, his eyes aren’t blazing with fire. They’re cold. Almost dead.
“Are you on something tonight?” I ask, my heart chilling over.
Stone doesn’t answer. But that’s answer enough.
Anxiety clutches at my throat and something heavier presses against my heart. “Stone,” I say. “Why?”
I need to know what happened. What major event would make him turn back to his pill bottle when everything was going so well. I reach across the table for his hand.
But before I can get to it, he picks back up the menu. Like choosing an appetizer is way more important than telling me why he’s decided to go back on mood-altering drugs. Ones I’m fairly sure his “Stone is learning to trust himself” therapist didn’t prescribe.
“Stone,” I say, grabbing on to the top of his menu. “We need to talk about this—”
“Jesus fucking Christ. No we don’t! We don’t have to talk about this! I bought you a house. Nice car. That’d be enough for most women. But not you. Every fucking thing, you got to run it into the ground. Nothing’s ever enough for you.”
I stare at him, aghast. Not just because he’s yelling so loud that half the restaurant seems to be looking at us now, but also because, “That’s not true.”
“Why? Because you being a nagging bitch doesn’t fit into the ‘hey, look at me, I’m a nice social worker’ story you’re always trying to push?”
Did I say just half the restaurant before? Nearly everyone’s looking at us now. And a waiter who seemed to be headed in our direction to take our order, abruptly cuts left, now avoiding our table at all cost.
Humiliation crawls through me, but I keep on trying to get through to him, to drag him out of that cotton. “Stone, I’m just trying to figure out why you would—”
“See, you can never let shit go,” he interrupts, his words coming out like arrows through his clenched teeth.” Get it through your head, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” I repeat. “But I thought that’s what we did these days. Talked, communicated…with one hundred percent love.”
I search his eyes, desperate to find any hint of the man who so passionately argued our case in his therapist’s office. “Remember our big breakthrough?”
For a moment, Stone falters. But then his face resets to hard. “Fuck Dr. Nouri. Fuck talking all the stupid time, just to raise a kid who ain’t even mine. Rock’s dead. Not me.”
It’s like every moment of doubt, every single fear I’ve ever had about our relationship has suddenly combined like Voltron to bring this nightmare to life.
“Stone…” I whisper, my heart begging for him not to be serious. For him to wake me up, and kiss me and say, “Happy anniversary,” like he did this morning.
“You know what? I’m so sick of this,” he says instead of Happy Anniversary. And instead of waking me up, he throws down his napkin. “I’m done with you, Naima. Call yourself a ride home. I can’t do this pretend shit with you anymore.”
With that, he gets up from the table. And I realize he’s actually planning to leave me here in the restaurant before we’ve even had a chance to order.
“Are you serious?” I ask, standing up myself to grab his arm. “What happened to a hundred percent?”
He tenses, his bicep expanding under my hand. “Look, I thought I could do this. Raise a kid that wasn’t even mine. Put up with you. But I was deluding myself. We both were. I think we always knew this wasn’t going to work out.”
“Wasn’t going to work out?” My heart skitters as his doomsday prediction, so close to the
one I used to carry, even after we started having sex. But then remembering how many times we uttered I love you in New York, I remind him, “Stone, I’m your wife. The mother of your children. You can’t just call this off—”
I’m wrong about that. Stone proves how easily he can just call it off in the next moment, when he yanks his arm away and continues toward the door. Like he can’t get away from me fast enough.
I watch him go, reeling with a conflicting urge to both scream and throw up. In the end, I settle for standing there frozen. Still not believing what just happened, long after Stone disappears out the restaurant’s front door.
We haven’t paid for the drinks Stone ordered. That’s the only reason I don’t run after him. Though Stone is apparently A-OK with both causing a scene, and stomping out of restaurant without paying, I’m not. Unfortunately, I only have a single $20 in my wallet, and this seems like the kind of place that charges at least two digits for a glass of wine.
Too Nice Naima, I think as I sit back down to wait to give someone my credit card…and try not to cry.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Despite the argument, and the app I have to fumble through for a ride home, I’m sure this is some kind of misunderstanding.
Stone might have left the restaurant, but he didn’t really leave me. I just know it.
Except I’m wrong.
Aunt Mari and Cami meet me at the door, their faces the same kind of stricken.
“He just came barging in, saying he couldn’t do this anymore,” Cami tells me.
“Yelling at the top of his lungs,” Aunt Mari adds. “He woke me and the baby! It took me a good minute to calm her down. By the time I was done, he was slamming out the door with a bag full of his stuff.”
“Luckily Talia didn’t hear,” Cami says casting a mournful look towards the room they share. “But I don’t understand. Did something happen between you two?”
“Yeah, what did you say to him?” Aunt Mari asks, assuming this is somehow my fault.
STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer: 50 Loving States, North Carolina Page 17