All Chapters of REBORN TO MARRY MY MAFIA ENEMY: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The Maritime Pilotage Academy of Rotterdam stood at the end of a long brick quay, a low, handsome, weather beaten building with a copper roof gone green and a flag that snapped in the wind off the North Sea, and Mara Lindqvist, stepping down from the taxi with a small bag over her shoulder, felt her heart do something it had not done since she was nineteen.It was a Thursday morning in late June. They had taken the seven o'clock train, and Julian had slept against the window with his better coat folded neatly over his knees while she watched the flat green country slide by and not said a single word. Now she stood on the cobbles in the sunlight, looking up at the great arched doors, and found that she was not afraid at all."It is smaller than I expected," said Julian, beside her, tugging at his cuffs."It is exactly the size it should be.""I meant that as a compliment.""I know you did." She slipped her hand into his. "You are doing wonderfully. You have not said a single noble thin

Arthur Harrington had drafted contracts for three generations of a family that did not usually put things in writing, and in forty six years of practice he had never once been unable to find the first sentence.He was unable now.He sat at the kitchen table of his small house on Carrow Street at six on a Saturday morning in July, in his dressing gown, with a cup of tea going cold at his elbow and a single sheet of cream paper in front of him, and looked at the blank space beneath the word Dear. It was the second Saturday of the month. In four hours he would walk across the river with a chessboard under his arm and a white paper bag from the bakery on Linden Row, and he would say what he had come to say. He had known it since March. And at six in the morning, with the birds just waking in the pear tree, he could not even begin the letter that was meant to be the safer way."You are a coward, Arthur," he said aloud, to the empty kitchen.It was true, and it was not new. He had been a co

Nathaniel Ashford had designed forty seven buildings, and none of them had prepared him for a Tuesday in late August with a six year old, a bakery, and a deadline.He stood in the narrow hallway at ten past seven in the evening, with his coat half off and his satchel of drawings sliding down one arm, and a faint, cold awareness spreading through his stomach like ink. The house was too quiet. There was no small voice announcing the latest news about a snail. In the yellow circle of the kitchen light sat his wife, with a cold cup of tea and her flour dusted hands lying flat on the wood, looking at nothing at all."Adeline?""She is at your sister's," said Adeline, without looking up. "I could not pick her up. Pilar left at four for her cooking course, and the oven did something extraordinary with the rye, and I could not leave it. Your sister was very kind. I felt like a criminal.""I was meant to collect her.""Yes.""I was in the final review for the museum.""I know." She raised her

Julian learned that a year is made of Tuesdays, and that the first six weeks of it are the longest.She left on a Friday at the end of August, on the seven o'clock train, with two suitcases, a rolled chart of the North Sea, and a sextant wrapped in a wool jersey. He carried the sextant to the platform. It seemed important to carry something. Mara stood beside the open door of the carriage in her green coat with her hands shoved deep in the pockets, looking at the clock, and the clock looked back."You have the number," she said."I have both numbers.""And you will not do the noble thing. Where you say, do not worry about me, I will be perfectly fine." She turned to him, and her eyes were bright and fierce. "If you are not fine, you will tell me. Within the hour. I am going to be very stern about it.""I am not fine," said Julian."No?""I am standing on a railway platform holding a sextant and I cannot feel my hands." He tried to smile and could not quite manage it. "I thought I shou

The letter came on a Thursday, in an ordinary envelope, between a gas bill and a flyer for a pizza restaurant, and Sera almost threw it away.She was standing at the kitchen counter in her painting smock, with a smear of cobalt along one forearm and a half eaten slice of toast in her hand, sorting the post with the practiced disinterest of a woman who had a canvas drying upstairs. The envelope was thick and cream colored, and on the flap, embossed in small plain capitals, was a name she knew: HOLLIS GALLERY. She read it twice. Then she put down the toast.She opened it standing up. It was one page. It was written in a firm, slanting, cheerful hand, by a woman called Marguerite Hollis, who ran the most respected small gallery in the northern capital, and who wrote that she had stood in Sera's front hall in September, for ten minutes, in front of a painting.I came to tea with a friend of mine, a very formidable lady who was extremely insistent that I look at your hall, she wrote. You w