"Hmm..." I scratch my chin. "Is it just time you need, or is it something else?"
"Like what?" She brushes past me, then heads out of the kitchen and down the corridor to the study, which is where she spends a lot of her time these days. When I had furnished the space with all of my favorite books, I’d had no idea then that my wife, the mother-to-be of my child, would love the space so much. If I’d known, I’d have made sure to have books which were more to her liking on the shelves… Not that she has complained about my taste in literature so far.
I follow her down the hall and watch as she sinks down onto the settee in front of the fire, then pulls her legs up under her.
"What else would I need?"
"You tell me," I murmur as I lean a hip against the back of the chair near her.
"No, why don’tyoutell me?" She scoffs, "Since you seem to think that you can read my mind or something." She sniffs.
"Maybe you are ashamed to be married to the Mafia? Maybe you don’t want to tell your family that you are carrying the child of a criminal?" I lower my chin, "May…be…you are hoping that if you wait long enough, things will go back to the way they used to be?"
She flushes, then glances away from me, "Honestly, I want to deny all of that, but—" She raises a shoulder. "I won’t deny that all of those thoughts have gone through my mind," she murmurs, "but I also know things aren’t just going to go back to being what they were."
"Do you?" I cross the floor to stand in front of her, "Do you understand that you are my wife and I am not letting you go? Ever? That this child is the one thing that can ensure that my bid for Don is sealed?
She starts, "So that’s the only reason you want this child? Because he or she guarantees your position as the head of the Cosa Nostra?"
I stare into her now flushed features, "What other reason could there be?"