My stomach does a funny little flip, and my throat catches. Suddenly, I wish I’d fixed myself up. But he’s already seen me, so it’s too late to run back and freshen up. At least I showered this morning, so I’m not totally feral. I pause on the steps and take a breath, my pulse fluttering in my throat.
“What—what are you doing here?” I ask, slowly descending until I reach the bottom step.
“I’m here to woo you,” King says with a little smile.
“What?” I ask, recognizing the words I threw at him on our first meeting.
He shifts on his feet, looking as stiff and uncomfortable as he did that day. “I fucked up,” he says. “I know that, and I know I can’t ask forgiveness. I thought letting you go home and have your freedom was the best way to protect you from me and my…”
He glances behind me, and I know Sylvia’s there. It makes me feel weirdly proud of her for sticking by me. I haven’t told her or Dad exactly what happened, but they let me stay. They’re wary around me, as if they’re waiting, but they haven’t pressed the issue.
After all, the Pomponios are the least traditional of all the families. My father is the man who let his wife leave him. He’s probably the only don in New York who wouldn’t force me to go back to my husband.
King clears his throat and returns his gaze to me. I know he wants me to send my father’s mistress away, but I don’t. I’m not going to make it easy for him. He crossed a boundary, broke my trust. If I want someone present during our visits, I’ll do it.
“I wanted to see you,” he says. “I was wrong to treat you that way, and I know that. But you are still my wife, and I want you to know I’m still honoring our wedding vows. I will never break them again.”
“You broke our vows?” I ask, my heart tearing inside my chest. I don’t blame him if he went to a whore that day I left or any time since then, but it still crushes me inside.
“I didn’t honor you,” he says. “That night… The night I forced you to submit. I should never have done that. I should have treated you like the princess you are. From now on, I’m going to. I won’t ask you to come home, but I hope one day I can earn your trust, and you will.”
I swallow hard, relief mixing with some other feeling, one that’s too dangerous to name, that swells in my heart and makes me want to sit down. “That’s why you came?”
“Yes,” he says. “I want to try again. I’ll do whatever it takes, Eliza. If that means waiting for a year, or ten years, or forever, I will. I’m not giving up on you. I won’t leave you the way your mother did.”
A lump rises in my throat, and instead of getting defensive, I want to cry. I wave Sylvia away and lead King into the bar. I don’t want to get drunk today, though. I get a hard seltzer from the fridge and hand one to King, too. He hesitates, not sitting until I slip onto one of the barstools and pat the one next to me. “I don’t know if I can trust you again,” I say. “You said you’d never hurt me, and you did. Not just that night, but the next day. I don’t know if I’ll ever forget seeing your wedding band lying there.”
“I know,” he says, looking so miserable it aches in my chest. “But I never stopped wanting to be your husband. I just wanted to protect you.”
“From what?” I ask. “You can’t protect me from the past.”
“From me,” he says, looking at me like I’m missing something.
“I thought… I thought you left because of what I told you.”
He draws back. “What? No. Eliza, I told you to leave because I hurt you. Because I didn’t know if I could be trusted not to do it again. But I swear to you, I won’t. I want you to be my wife, El. Even if it’s just to have dinner with me in public, and I never touch you again.”
“It wasn’t because you think I’m damaged goods?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Of course not,” he says, reaching for my hand on the edge of the bar. He hesitates, then lays his hand over mine. “I told you. That happened to you. It doesn’t define you.”
He’s wrong, though. It does define me. It shaped my whole life.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“Can I take you out?” he asks. “We can get to know each other, like we should have from the beginning.”
“You want to… Date me?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I’ll do whatever makes you comfortable.”
I watch him from the corner of my eye for a minute. “Why?” I ask at last.
“What do you mean?”
“Why would you want to date your wife? You already have me. We’re married. You fucked me.”
“Because I want to know my wife,” he says. “And yes, I hope that one day you’ll want to come home. I won’t pretend that’s not the goal. I’m ready to do whatever it takes, to wait as long as you need, before that happens, though.”