He stepped closer, pressing his lips to her forehead in a gesture meant to soothe, meant to dismiss. His fingers laced through hers. "Don't overthink it. You're going to be a mother. If you keep tormenting yourself with jealousy, how will you raise our child?"
Mia smiled. It was the thinnest, most brittle smile she had ever worn. She looked up at her husband of three years, this man who still did not know she had lost their baby because of his negligence. The words sat in her throat like swallowed glass.
"But wasn't it you," she said quietly, "who told your men, over drinks at the club, that since I'm an orphan with no family, I wouldn't know how to raise a child? And that Vanessa should help me?"
The color drained from Xavier Salvatore's face as though someone had opened a vein. His eyes went wide.
"Are you spying on me?" The accusation came fast, reflexive, before he caught himself. "That's a misunderstanding. I was drunk out of my mind that night. I didn't know what I was saying. I didn't mean it like that."
Mia opened her mouth to respond, but before a single word could leave her lips, Xavier's phone cut through the silence. The screen lit up in his breast pocket. Vanessa's name glowed against the dark fabric.
Xavier hesitated. Mia looked at the phone, then at him.
"Answer it."
He pressed the phone to his ear. The moment the call connected, a child's voice burst through the speaker, bright and oblivious and devastating.
"Daddy! I miss you so much! When are you coming to play with me and Mommy? When are you both coming back?"
Xavier's face turned to ash. His gaze cut to Mia, who stood perfectly still, having heard every syllable.
He swallowed hard and answered the boy with forced calm. "Mark. You should call me uncle."
"Why?" The child sounded genuinely confused. "Mommy told me I could call you Dad."
Xavier's throat worked. He answered quickly, his voice stripped of everything except the need to end the conversation.
"Your mother is here with me. We'll come back soon."
He hung up. The phone disappeared into his pocket.
"Mia."
She looked at her husband. She was too tired for more explanations. Too tired for more lies dressed in silk.
Her eyes were dead. Flat and dark as the obsidian floor beneath their feet.
She nodded once. "You can do whatever you feel like."