The Devil's Wife

Chapter 19

Kitty Marcellino:

I stared at Nathaniel's text, a smile creeping onto my face. Sam cleared his throat from across the table, bringing my attention back to him.

"So. . ." He leaned forward with a mischievous grin on his face. "I wanted to talk about Nate's birthday coming up—"

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Nathaniel's birthday is coming up?"

"Yeah. . . 2 months from now." Sam shot me a pointed look. "You know people would think it's weird that you don't know your own husband's birthday."

I shot him a sheepish smile, feeling a tiny bit guilty that I actually didn't know much about Nathaniel. "I know, I know. I'll save the date on my calendar."

Sam just chuckled at my response, leaning back in his chair as he shook his head in exasperation. "Christ."

"What does Nathaniel usually do for his birthday?" I asked, trying to picture Nathaniel's apathetic face.

"His birthday is always a weekend thing at my hotel. First night's at my club—which by the way, gets so fucking crazy, if I do say so myself. Next night we take the yacht to a private island." His face beamed with pride as he seemed to reminisce in his head.

I watched him blankly for a moment and he snapped out of his reverie, clearing his throat awkwardly. "But since you two are married now, I'll leave his birthdays to you now."

He looked bummed at the idea of not being able to organize Nathaniel's birthday this year and I fought the urge to laugh at his wounded puppy dog look.

I waved him off, setting my phone onto the table. "You can plan it, Sam. Keep doing whatever it is you do every year."

His eyes lit up like a kid who had just seen his Christmas presents under the tree. "You'd let me do it?"

"Of course. I'm not even going to be in the country anyway. . ." Sam's brows sprung up and I gave him a slight shrug. "I leave for Milan in a few days. I'll still be there in 2 months."

A small frown tugged at his mouth. "I thought Nathaniel freed up a few months of your schedule?"

"Oh, he did." The corner of my mouth quirked. "I just had a new one made up. It starts right after what was supposed to be our original wedding date."

Sam picked up his phone and started tapping away at the screen. "How long are you gonna be there?"

"4 months."

Alessandro Matteo asked me last year to model his next collection for his new spring launch and rehearsals started in a week. Paige had booked me for other jobs while I was there too, so I doubted I was even going to make it back.

"So you'll be back in 4 months, right?" He asked with a small frown. "Maybe I can plan something else for when you—"

"Don't worry about me." I cut him off with a wry smile. "I'll be going to Japan afterwards for 3 weeks and then China for another 2. . . And then I'll be coming back."

He let out a low whistle as he glanced up at me from his phone. "So you're not gonna make the weekend? Not even just for one night? If you don't, I have a feeling this year Nathaniel will want to cancel the whole thing and when I don't—because I won't—he'll probably be a brooding menace the whole weekend."

"I'll try, I guess." I offered lamely. "I mean we really should try to keep up appearances once in a while."

Sam tilted his head, going silent for a minute as he shot me a weird look.

My brow arched at his expression. "What?"

"What?" He stared at me innocently, trying to hide an embarrassed smile. "I didn't do anything."