Chapter 4 - The Mafia Boss Could Give His Son an Empire—But Claire Made Him Prove He Could Give Them Something Better
Adrian did not ask us to move into his house.
That surprised everyone.
Especially Nicholas.
“Why can't we live with Dad?”
“Because your father and I have things to figure out.”
“What things?”
“Adult things.”
“That means boring things.”
“Usually.”
Adrian rented a house fifteen minutes from ours.
Not bought.
Rented.
When I asked why, he said:
“Because buying property near you without asking felt like something old Adrian would do.”
I stared at him.
“Who taught you self-awareness?”
“Therapy.”
I almost dropped my coffee.
“You're in therapy?”
“Don't sound so shocked.”
“You once said therapy was paying a stranger to ask annoying questions.”
“It is.”
“And?”
“Apparently I need annoying questions.”
Nicholas adored him.
Not immediately.
Trust came in pieces.
Adrian attended school events.
Soccer games.
Parent conferences.
He learned Nicholas hated carrots.
Learned he was afraid of thunderstorms.
Learned he read adventure books beneath his blankets after bedtime.
Learned he wanted to become a veterinarian.
One afternoon, Nicholas fell from a horse.
Nothing serious.
Scraped elbow.
Adrian went white.
He carried him toward the car.
Nicholas protested.
“Dad! I'm fine!”
“We're going to the hospital.”
“It's a scratch.”
“You could have internal injuries.”
“On my elbow?”
I laughed so hard I had to sit down.
Adrian glared.
“This isn't funny.”
“It absolutely is.”
Nicholas whispered:
“Mom, he's crazy.”
“I know.”
Adrian heard.
“I can hear both of you.”
Those moments were dangerous.
Not because of guns.
Because they made me remember happiness.
Adrian and I began having dinner.
Then coffee.
Then long conversations after Nicholas slept.
He told me everything he should have told me seven years earlier.
About his father.
His fears.
His guilt.
Victoria.
Richard.
The organization.
No more protected truths.
In return, I told him about Vermont.
Pregnancy.
Labor.
Nicholas's first word.
His first step.
The night he had pneumonia and I sat awake until dawn.
Adrian cried quietly when I described those years.
He never asked me to stop.
One evening, he brought a box.
Inside were seven smaller boxes.
“What are these?”
“One for every birthday I missed.”
My throat tightened.
I opened the first.
A wooden horse.
Second.
Children's book.
Third.
Baseball glove.
Fourth.
A compass.
Fifth.
Model airplane.
Sixth.
Camera.
Seventh.
Nothing.
I looked up.
“The last box is empty.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't know what seven-year-old Nicholas would have wanted.”
Adrian looked toward the window where our son played.
“I can pretend I know the child he was at one, two, three, four, five, six.”
His voice softened.
“But I don't.”
He looked at me.
“I don't want to invent memories I wasn't there for.”
That was when I kissed him.
I didn't plan it.
I simply crossed the room.
Touched his face.
And kissed my husband for the first time in seven years.
Adrian froze.
He didn't grab me.
Didn't pull me closer.
He waited.
I kissed him again.
Then he whispered:
“Claire.”
“I know.”
“What does this mean?”
“I don't know.”
“Okay.”
“You're supposed to be more dramatic.”
“I've been advised to stop controlling outcomes.”
I laughed against his mouth.
We began again.
Slowly.
Not husband and wife.
Two people.
Adrian took me to dinner.
I made him wait outside while I finished getting ready.
He brought flowers.
Not fifty roses.
Six wildflowers because I had once told him I preferred them.
He remembered.
We argued.
Once badly.
Adrian wanted additional security outside Nicholas's school.
I said no.
He pushed.
I became furious.
Old fear returned.
Then Adrian stopped.
“I am scared.”
That changed everything.
Not:
I know better.
Not:
Because I said so.
I am scared.
“Why?”
“Because I missed seven years, and now every possibility of losing him feels unbearable.”
I understood.
We compromised.
School security was improved for everyone, anonymously.
No Blackwood guards following Nicholas.
Healthy love, I learned, wasn't the absence of disagreement.
It was the absence of domination.
A year passed.
Richard was convicted.
Victoria returned from federal protection.
She asked to see me.
I almost refused.
Then accepted.
We met in my small bookstore café in Vermont.
Yes.
I had finally opened one.
It had been my dream before Adrian.
A dream I abandoned when I married him.
Now it was mine again.
Victoria entered quietly.
Older.
A scar near her temple.
She sat.
“I owe you more than a letter.”
“Yes.”
“I never slept with Adrian.”
“I know.”
“I never kissed him.”
“I know.”
“But I knew you suspected us.”
“Yes.”
“And I used that suspicion.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because Richard believed Adrian's weakness was women.”
She smiled bitterly.
“He thought Adrian was careless because he thought you were jealous of me. It made him underestimate us.”
“At my expense.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“I told myself your marriage could survive it.”
“It didn't.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Then Victoria said:
“Adrian hated me for years.”
“What?”
“For letting you believe it.”
“He participated.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn't get to blame you for a choice he made.”
Victoria smiled faintly.
“That's what he eventually said too.”
I studied her.
“Why are you here?”
“To say I'm sorry without asking you to forgive me.”
That mattered.
“I don't know if I forgive you.”
“I understand.”
“But I'm glad you're alive.”
Victoria cried.
So did I.
We didn't become friends.
Life isn't always that neat.
But we stopped being ghosts in each other's stories.
Six months later, Adrian came to my bookstore after closing.
Nicholas was spending the night with Margaret.
Adrian looked nervous.
That alone made me suspicious.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That's exactly what guilty people say.”
He smiled.
Then placed my old wedding ring on the counter.
I stopped breathing.
“I thought that burned.”
“No.”
“You kept it?”
“Every day.”
I stared.
He didn't kneel.
Didn't propose.
Instead he pushed it toward me.
“This belongs to you.”
My eyes filled.
“I don't understand.”
“I spent seven years thinking that ring represented what I lost.”
He shook his head.
“It didn't.”
“What did it represent?”
“What I failed to protect correctly.”
He looked at me.
“Your trust.”
My tears fell.
“So I'm giving it back.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't want you to wear it.”
I stared.
“That's a terrible proposal.”
“I'm not proposing.”
He smiled sadly.
“If we ever marry again, I want a new ring.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't want our second marriage to be an attempt to recreate the first.”
He touched the old ring.
“This belongs to the people we were.”
Then he looked at me.
“I love who we are now.”
May you like
I kissed him.
And for the first time, I realized I did too.
