Until You Come Back To Me, Book 5 by Mallory Monroe Read Free Book Online Page A

after showering with Gemma, Sal was once again in his
bathrobe.   But the anguish was gone.   Now he was sitting at the window in their
kitchen nook, eating a wonderful dinner prepared by Gemma, and ready to take on
the world again.   He looked at
Gemma.   She sat there looking simply
sumptuous in one of his white dress shirts.   Her hair had fallen across her face into a bang, making her look about
twelve.   She ate absently as she read
over what was obviously an important text message on her cell phone.   And Sal wondered, for what had to be the
millionth time, what did he ever do to deserve a woman like this.   But he didn’t wonder long.   He just thanked Jesus for having her in his
life and continued to eat his meal and look out across the spruce trees and
Black-eyed Susans that surrounded their beautiful
home.
    Then
he looked at Gemma again.   She was still
reading her text.   “Work related?” he
asked her.
    “Yup,”
she said and then sat her phone aside, placed one of her bare legs in the chair
beneath her butt, and turned her attention to Sal.   His hair too had pooled around his forehead,
making him look years younger.   But she
could still see some of that stress around his eyes.   “You’re back early,” she said.
    “A
day early,” he responded.   “Eat your
food.”
    “I am
eating my food.”
    “You’re
playing around with your food the way you always do.   Eat.   I
don’t want no skinny-ass wife.”
    Gemma
smiled.   She was never skinny, but she
was slender.   “Then you should have never
married me.”
    Sal
gave her that serious look she knew not to play around with.   “Eat,” he said.
    She
ate.
    After
several bites, she looked at him again.   There was always an elephant in the room whenever Sal returned from one
of his business trips in that kind of anguished state, and now was no
exception.   But Gemma would be stunned if
Sal told her about it.   But that never
stopped her from asking.   “How did it
go?”
    Sal
could have played coy and asked how did what go, but he never did.   “Okay,” he responded.
    “Just
okay?   You were gone for two weeks, Sal.”
    Sal continued
to eat his meal, but did not continue that line of conversation.
    It
was a bone of contention in their marriage, something they never saw eye-to-eye
on, and Gemma knew trying to get him to tell her about his dealings and
associations and what exactly went on whenever he went on his business trips
would be an exercise in futility.   But
that didn’t mean it didn’t bother her.
    Sal
looked at her.   He knew it too.   “It was a rough trip,” he admitted.   “But I’m okay.   There’s nothing to worry about.   No blowback, nothing.”
    Gemma
looked at him.   She knew a “rough trip”
meant that he had been in harm’s way, and that reality disturbed her
mightily.   But that was the lifestyle he
lived and she knew it when she signed up to be his wife.   He wasn’t going to make any apologies for it,
and she wasn’t going to ask him to.   “Okay,” she said.
    “What
about you?” he asked.   “How have things
been going for you?”
    “Okay,”
she said and smiled.
    “Very
funny,” Sal replied.
    “Things
have been going pretty good actually.   Guess who paid me a visit?”
    Sal
looked at her.   “Who?”
    “THE
Ted Coggan.”
    Sal
waited for more.   “Never heard of him,”
he finally said.
    “He’s
huge.   A world-renowned attorney.”
    “Yeah?   What did he want with you?”
    “He
chose me to work with him as lead counsel on one of his cases.   He’ll be sitting second chair, Ted Coggan
will be sitting second to me, if you can believe it.”
    Sal
was doubtful at best.   “He want you to be
lead counsel over him?   And he’s this
world-renowned attorney?”
    Gemma
smiled.   “That’s right.   Why do you say it like that?”
    “Because
I love you.   Because I’m not bullshitting
you.”
    Gemma
considered him.   Sometimes Sal could be
so honest