Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 44860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
I love you, I love you, I love you.
The words continued to linger as he carried her to the bath, and they were still there, glowing and insistent, as he settled behind her in the warm water and his hands moved into her hair. He kneaded her scalp with that impossible thoroughness, and Chelsea's toes curled underwater, and the I love you sat in her throat like something sweet she was saving.
He insisted on bathing and dressing her. It was, he had told her with a straight face on the third morning, his new favorite hobby.
I like seeing you working hard not to blush, not to squirm, and failing anyway.
She hadn't had any answer for him then, could only turn even more pink under his gleaming gaze. But now she knew why his care undid her so completely. It was because of those three words.
I. Love. You.
And because she loved him—-
"Do you believe Plato was real?"
Olivio, who was in the act of taking a sip of his coffee, lowered his cup and gazed at her instead. "Why are you asking me this?"
She fluttered her lashes at him, and just as she hoped, the silly act had her gorgeous husband shaking his head.
"Humor me, please?"
They were having breakfast on their bedroom balcony, and the morning had decided to cooperate. A breeze carried the faint green smell of the terrace garden that Chelsea had discovered on her second day here and had immediately fallen in love with, mostly because someone, she suspected one of the housekeeping staff, had planted a row of herbs between the ornamental grasses, and the scent of rosemary and basil drifting up to the balcony at this hour made the penthouse feel less like a showpiece and more like a place where someone actually lived.
Chelsea had set the table herself this morning, the way she did every morning now, over the initial bafflement of staff who could not understand why Mrs. Cannizzaro wanted to do things that people were being paid to do for her. But she liked it. She liked choosing which mugs to use (hers was white with a chip on the handle that she'd grown attached to; his was black and immaculate and twice the size of hers, because apparently even his coffee consumption operated at a different scale). She liked arranging the fruit and the pastries on the blue ceramic plate she'd found in the back of a cabinet, the one that didn't match anything else in the kitchen and was probably there by accident, which was exactly why she loved it. She had briefly considered arranging the strawberries into a heart shape and then had given herself a very firm talking-to about maintaining some semblance of dignity.
She liked that when Olivio came to the table each morning, he never commented on any of this. He simply sat down and drank from whatever mug she'd chosen for him and ate what she'd arranged and let her fuss, and the not-commenting was its own kind of tenderness, though Chelsea doubted he would ever describe it that way.
Since she was by now familiar with her schedule, she knew she had about thirty minutes to make her case.
"Very well. I do, yes."
"But do you know there are only seven documents we have that prove his existence?"
"Interesting."
"What about Julius Caesar?"
"I believe he existed." A pause, and the corner of his mouth did something that wasn't quite a smile. "But you're going to tell me the proof of his existence is based on a similarly small number."
"Ten, to be exact." She said it quickly, the way she always did when she was building toward something and was afraid she'd lose her nerve if she slowed down. "And both men were born hundreds of years B.C."
Her husband leaned back against his seat, and the way he was looking at her now had Chelsea biting back a smile.
"Go on."
Olivio crossed his arms against his chest, and Chelsea lost the battle as a sheepish smile formed over her lips. "You already know where I'm heading with this, right?"
"Perhaps."
She shook her head, saying ruefully, "There's no perhaps about it. I know you know where I'm going with this, and I guess...I'm surprised you've let me get this far?"
So am I, Olivio thought.
Ever since Aivan and Sienah had sorted out their marriage troubles, and only by God's grace, as his sister-in-law would always gently emphasize, even his father and Selena had enjoyed a resurgence of their faith. It was why his father had mellowed of late, and Aivan was no longer reserved in showing his love for his wife.
Despite all the noticeable changes, however, Olivio had always distanced himself from his family's attempts to speak to him about their beliefs. It simply wasn't for him, he had always thought.
But for some reason, when it was his wife talking about it...