Sweetest Sorrow (Forbidden Book 2) by J.M. Darhower Page B

smart? Fixing up a car in your condition?"
    "Don't." She pointed at him. "I swear to God, I will suffocate you in your sleep if you pull that delicate pregnant woman bullshit on me one more time. I'm fully capable of doing stuff."
    Matty shoved up from the ground, wiping his dirty hands on his pants, but it did little to clean them. Stepping over to her, she reached up, cupping her chin, smearing dirt along her jawline. "I know you're capable. I'm just saying…"
    "You're saying blah blah blah sexist Barsanti shit, but I'm not going to listen to it. My father treated me like a fragile ice sculpture my entire life. Everyone acted like I was breakable, but I'm not. I'm not going to break. I don't need coddled. Don't coddle me."
    "I promise not to coddle you," Matty said, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. "Unfortunately, I think this air conditioner is fucked… unless you want to give fixing it a try?"
    She scowled at him. Smartass . "I could've told you that. You need, like, a serious repairman."
    "It probably needs an entirely new system. We'll have to make do. Maybe get some fans. Make it tolerable until I figure it out."
    Tolerable seemed to be the name of the game. Genna glanced back at the house, studying the dirty outside. "How long are we going to be here?"
    "Until we have somewhere else to go."
    "And if we never have anywhere else to go?"
    "Then we stay right here."
    "So we've got an open invitation? The place is ours for as long as we want it?"
    "Something like that." He eyed her. "Why?"
    "I was just thinking, you know... maybe we should fix it up, too."
    "The house?"
    "If we're going to be living in it for who the hell knows how long, we should at least make it livable... a step up from tolerable."
    He gazed at her, smiling. "Two months pregnant and you're already nesting."
    "I'm what?"
    "Nesting," he said. "Like how a mother bird builds a nest to lay her eggs in… when a woman's having a baby, she gets the instinct to make sure a place is all together for the baby to come home."
    "Are you...?" She gaped at him. "Did you seriously just compare me to a bird?"
    He laughed. "It's a real thing mothers do."
    "How do you know?"
    He leaned toward her for another kiss. "Because I know everything."
    Groaning, Genna shoved away from him as she rolled her eyes. "I'll probably learn to tolerate this house of horrors before I tolerate that ego of yours."
    "You love me."
    "I do," she said. "But that doesn't mean I like you."
    "Oh, but you do. You like everything about me. That Galante stubbornness just won't let you admit it." Smirking, he stepped past her. "I'm going to go take a shower now."
    "I hope you freeze your balls off."
    He laughed as he opened the back door. "Love you, too, Princess. Don't you ever forget it."
    She watched him as he strolled into the house, trailing dirt with him. After he was gone, she turned back to the car, nodding to herself as she admired it.
    Yep, totally fucking fixing it .

Chapter Five
    T he hospital inevitably evicted Dante from the ICU.
    He was put into another room, on another floor, in another ward. A private deluxe suite, they'd called it. It was the size of a fucking closet. His medicine decreased and the catheter was removed as they called in a physical therapist and let him move around on his own.
    But still, he didn't speak.
    He had nothing to say.
    The doctors seldom showed their faces, the psychiatrist wrote him off, and the nurses? Well, leaving the ICU also meant leaving Nurse Russo.
    His nurse on the general medical ward resisted looking at him, much less engaging in conversation. He preferred it that way. He was grateful. It gave him time to stew without interruption.
    But still, he had to admit he missed Nurse Russo.
    He kept replaying the moment she'd kicked his father out of the room, the look of determination on her face when she demanded he leave. Worked, too, because he hadn't returned as far as Dante knew. He'd had no more visitors. He was sure his father would be