Perfect Strangers

He pretends to be outraged. “Did you think I’d be a total asshole and ask who the father was?”

“No. But…I wasn’t sure…”

All his laughter and teasing vanish. He says urgently, “You weren’t sure about what?”

Avoiding his eyes, I pick at the top button on his shirt. “Well, to be totally honest…” I glance up to find him staring down at me in blistering intensity. My voice drops. “I wasn’t sure how a baby would fit into your lifestyle.”

He slowly exhales a breath, then pulls me closer, cupping a hand around the back of my head and tucking it into his shoulder. “In case you hadn’t noticed, sweetheart, I’ve been here with you every day.”

I frown. “Um…and?”

“I haven’t been working.”

He says it as if there’s some deeper meaning to his words. If there is, I’m not grasping it. “Yes,” I say carefully, “having you here has been nice.”

He throws his head back and laughs, startling me. “What’s so funny?”

“You are.” Still chuckling, he takes my face into his hands. “All those big words you know, and ‘nice’ is what you come up with nine times out of ten.”

I grouse, “Nice is a nice word.” When he grins, I smack him on the shoulder. “Quit it!”

“I have.” He kisses me gently, rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks.

“Have what?”

“Quit.”

“Quit what?” When he just stands there smiling at me with tender eyes, I gasp in understanding. “You quit?”

“God, you’re slow. Are you sure you have a college degree?”

Gazing at him in disbelief, I say, “My grandmother used to tell me I was so clueless I’d starve with a loaf of bread under my arm.”

He makes a face. “She sounds like a charming woman.”

“Sicilians don’t fuck around. Back to this quitting thing.”

He kisses me again, this time a little deeper. “Hmm?”

“When did it happen?”

“As soon as I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. After that, my line of work didn’t make sense anymore. If I was going to be responsible for taking care of you, I couldn’t be flying around the world killing bad guys who sometimes tried to kill me back.”

I think of his bruised face and split lip when he returned that night from Germany with the leather bag and shiver. “So you can just walk away? I mean, with no consequences?”

His face darkens. For a moment, he simply gazes at me in silence.

I say quickly, “Just tell me if me or the baby will be in danger.”

“No,” he says instantly, shaking his head. “But remember I told you I’d break rules to make you mine? Well, I broke them. All of them. And there’s a price to be paid for everything in life. Someday that marker will be called in, and I can’t refuse it.”

Holy shit that sounds bad.

He stands waiting for me to grill him with questions, and I know he’ll answer them if I do. But I’ve gotten very good at handling ambiguities. I’m an expert now at navigating the dark, dangerous waters of life, and I know that whenever this “marker” of his is called in, I’ll handle it.

We’ll handle it together.

Adopting a lighter tone, I say, “Well, I hope you’re not expecting me to support you, Romeo. You’re still going to have to pull your weight around here, contract killer or not.”

Slowly, his face breaks into a smile. “And here I thought you were a feminist.”

“What does me being a feminist have to do with you not being a slacker?”

“I thought feminism was all about equality.”

“And?”

“And what if I wanted to stay home and take care of the baby while youworked?”

This man is so good at saying things that make me stare at him with my mouth open. Seriously, it’s a Jedi-level skill.

He laughs and gives me a hard squeeze. “I’m going to find a calendar so we can figure out when James, Jr. is coming.” He turns and heads back toward the house, leaving me shouting after him, “What if the baby is a girl, you chauvinist?”

As he disappears through the open French doors, I hear his chuckle. “Then we’ll name her Jamie.”

Laughing weakly, I sit in one of the cushioned wrought iron chairs that surround the square wooden table where we love to eat supper in the evenings. The olive trees are alive with birdsong. The sun is warm on my head. I toy with the plastic pregnancy test stick, smiling like a crazy person and shaking my head at how the universe conspired to bring me here, to this moment.

To drag me through the sewer and test my mettle before rewarding me with such beautiful gifts.

When James returns, holding a wall calendar, I scoff. “What happened to your super spy phone?”