The Woman at the Docks (Grassi Framily)

In quiet moments when no one was around, when I was sitting in the bath in an empty apartment, I went ahead and tortured myself a little. I let myself imagine a future where I didn't have to leave, where Celenia and I stayed here in Navesink Bank, maybe even with her in the guest room. Where I could keep the security blanket of Luca's affections around me tight.

There would be time with his family.

And holidays where I wasn't alone anymore.

And someone to talk to after a bad day.

Someone who would always be on my side.

Someone who could give me a ring and babies and a lovely colonial in a good neighborhood.

Someone who could help me create the kind of childhood everyone deserves.

I wanted Christmas Eve waiting for the kids to fall asleep so we could sneak the presents under the tree.

I wanted Christmas mornings sitting bleary-eyed with our coffees like lifelines in our hands while the kids went at the beautiful packages I spent endless hours—and suffered relentless backaches—wrapping like savages.

I wanted him to kiss at midnight on New Year's.

I wanted birthdays and anniversaries and Valentines and freaking Groundhog's Day.

I wanted all his days.

I wanted him to have all of mine.

I wanted this love I felt inside that I kept beating back down with a stick to be able to overflow.

I wanted that happily-ever-after I had never believed was real, or, at least, not real for me.

I wanted that.

And I wanted that with him.

I don't know why I let my mind mull over those thoughts when they only ever left me with a fist-sized hole in my chest, and swollen eyes I needed to ice because I didn't want Luca to ask me why I had been crying. Because he would ask. Because he was observant. Because he was the kind of man to want to know what was wrong. Not because he feared the consequences of not asking, but because he genuinely cared.

The bastard.

Why did he have to go and be so lovable?

Who gave some mafia underboss the right to be so perfect?

"Why so angry?" Tina, Luca's housekeeper asked, making me realize I had been rather aggressively slicing up a cucumber for my salad. "Things with Mr. Grassi not so good?"

"No, they're absolutely perfect. And that is the problem."

"I see no problem," she said, shaking her head at me, waving her hand, and I could just picture her doing the same thing to any one of her four teenage children. "You kids. You overthink it all. Always going going going," she said, tapping her temple.

"I have a lot to think about."

"Like what? What do you have so important to think about?"

"I live in California," I reminded her.

"Yes, and there are no apartments in New Jersey. Not a single one."

"My job is there too."

"Oh, yes, I know... there are no jobs in New Jersey either. No one here works," she quipped, putting another bag in the garbage pail.