"Pool cues are taller than me, that's just an unfair advantage," Nora countered with a giggle. Her eyes softened at his question. "You should go and tell her off for worrying you," she suggested impishly. "I'll tidy up - I want to have a swim anyway."

"I could teach you," he suggested with regard to playing pool. Of course, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon without a pool table handy. It looked like it was checkers, for now. He chuckled a little at her suggestion. "And face the wrath of Adriana" No thanks."

"Awww, are you scared of your little woman?" Nora teased him, packing up the playing pieces with a grin. "Did you give Addie all your pants when you decided to make it a real marriage?"

"Make her mad and she might cut off my bedroom privileges," he told her with a wink as he moved to his feet. Whatever it was that had kept Addie, he was sure there was a good explanation.

"I do not want to know about your bedroom privileges!" the teenager exclaimed, her expression twisted in a confusion of laughter and disgust.

"Aren't you a little old to be asking about the birds and the bees?" a familiar voice interrupted - Adriana, leaning in the doorway with a bemused smile on her face.

Matt chuckled again. "I was just telling her what might happen if I made you angry," he explained, without going into too many details. He didn't really want Addie to know that he'd been worried about her - that they'd both been worried.

"Oh, really?" His wife looked intrigued by the idea, pushing out of her lean to come further into the room. "I wonder if you could come up with punishments even more tortuous than I could?"

"That depends on who I'm punishing," he admitted with a teasing wink and a dimpled grin. It was probably a bit much for the teen, but it was Addie he was referring to.

"Okay, I'm out." It was definitely too much for Nora, though she paused before leaving the room to nudge her sister on the way past. Addie snorted with laughter, glancing over her shoulder before turning back to Matt. "I can't leave you two alone for an hour without you divulging sex secrets?" she asked teasingly.

At least, they were laughing. It was a good sign, he thought, given the events of the last few weeks. "No secrets. I was just teasing her," he explained. He looked over to see if Nora was still lingering or if she'd left. "She was worried about you," he confessed quietly.

Addie's smile faded a little guiltily. "I wasn't gone any longer than I said I'd be," she defended herself, though she obviously felt guilty for laying the burden of worrying on both of them. "But everything is done. The deeds are sorted, the businesses have been legally separated. All we need to do now is get things signed over."

"It doesn't matter," he said, with a wave of his hand, dismissing the unspoken and unnecessary apology. It went without saying that they were going to worry about each other. "When do we do that?" he asked, leading the way into the kitchen so he could put a fresh pot of coffee on.

"When your boss decides he wants to make it official, I guess," she said, belatedly removing her jacket as she turned to follow him. They had been indoors for so long, in such a relaxed environment, that it was a little strange to see her dressed up to present herself to the world. Just yesterday, she had been wandering around in rainbow covered pajamas and bare feet; today, she was back in heels and a smart dress, her hair tamed back into an elegant up do. "Any news on your end?"

"Not yet," he told her. "But I'm sure we will soon. Vince doesn't mess around," he added, as he grabbed a can of coffee from the cupboard and started scooping it into the coffeemaker. He didn't seem in any big rush to be getting back to Vegas.

"He's very thorough, isn't he?" she asked thoughtfully, resting a hip against the counter to watch him playing with the coffee pot.

"He doesn't like to take any chances," Matt replied, going to the sink to fill the carafe with water before filling the coffee maker. "Besides, we're on our honeymoon, remember?" he asked, flashing a smile her way.

Addie let out a startlingly loud snort of laughter, automatically raising her hand to cover her mouth and nose even as she blushed at the ridiculous sound she had just made. "Pretty sure honeymooning with your wife's kid sister in tow isn't the honeymoon of your dreams."

"Are you kidding?" he said, flipping the switch to turn the coffeepot on. "This is the longest vacation I've taken in years!" The truth was he couldn't remember the last time he'd taken any time off.

Her smile softened, letting him deflect the comment with ease. "I'm just glad you two get along so well," she said. "I never need to worry about what you might be doing to each other when I'm in a different room."

"Should I teach her how to box?" he teased further, a smirk on his face as he moved closer, arms sliding around her waist. "Did I mention how sexy you look?"

"You might stand a chance of winning against her if you did that," Addie teased him fondly, her cheeks flushing with a pleased blush at his unstudied compliment. "I thought maybe you liked what you were seeing when your jaw hit the countertop this morning."

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" he asked, chuckling in amusement. He wasn't going to apologize for it though; she looked like sex on legs at the moment. Of course, he didn't mind how she looked in her pjs either.

"It was adorable," she assured him, letting her own arms rise to slide up and about his shoulders. "You're lucky Nora didn't notice, though. I might have come home to find that you'd tied her up in a cupboard and gagged her for good measure."

"I'm not that cruel. I'd just send her to her room," he said, though he wasn't sure if he had that kind of authority over her. He wasn't her father, after all. "Where did she learn to play checkers?"

"Danny taught her," Adriana told him. "She, uh, she managed to catch tuberculosis when she was ten, and it was a very long few months of keeping her quiet and calm while the antibiotics did their job. Danny decided he was going to give her an incentive to do something quiet that engaged her mind, and it totally worked."

Matt's expression changed, looking momentarily alarmed, though Nora's illness had been quite a few years ago. "Tuberculosis?" he echoed. "I didn't think people got that anymore." He didn't bother to ask if she was okay, as she seemed perfectly fine, but he knew that was nothing to sneeze at.

"She's thirteen. She's overdue for the birds and the bees talk, don't you think?" he said, helping her to her feet and reaching around to re-zip her dress. "By the way, you look hot," he added, whispered close to her ear.

"She's had the talk," she assured him, biting her lip as he whispered into her ear. "God, Matt, your voice does things to me when you do that."

"Remind me to whisper sweet nothings in your ear later then," he told her, taking a teensy nibble of her earlobe before pulling away.

"You're so bad for my composure," she complained, but it wasn't really a complaint and he knew it. The sound of running footsteps from the stairs to the back door caught her attention, followed by a faint patter of feet on patio stones before a loud splash. Adriana snorted. "I guess she's swimming this afternoon, then."

"That's what she said," he told her, an mischievous smirk on his face as he'd known this all along. "What about you, Mrs. Alessi" How would you like to spend your afternoon?" he asked, reluctantly moving to pour them each a cup of coffee.

"Well, I don't have any plans," she said, flushing just a little with pleasure as he addressed her by their shared surname again. "Why, were you considering something nefarious, Mr. Alessi?"

"I don't know. How do you feel about leaving Nora alone in the pool?" he asked. Yes, she was thirteen, but accidents could still happen. He fixed her coffee the way she liked it before handing her a cup. He wasn't going to make any more suggestions until he had her answer.

"I think she's sensible, and she's probably taken her laptop out there with her, so she won't be in the pool too long," Addie predicted, curling her hands around the cup he handed her. "In fact ....she's probably setting up some kind of selfie shoot for herself so she can Photoshop herself in Greece or somewhere. Apparently we're on a European vacation, did you know that?"

"Are we?" he said, turning to face her as he took a sip of his coffee. "Where would you like to be?" he asked curiously. "You know, it's not out of the question. No one would know us there."

"We are," she chuckled, perching herself on one of the bar stools comfortably. "We started off in England, then we moved down through France and Spain, through Austria, did Italy, and now we're in Greece. She's reading up on all the tourist spots, too, so don't be surprised if we really do end up doing trips to those countries." She grinned at him. "I'd love to go to Europe sometime. Maybe not doing all the countries in two months, like Nora's doing mentally though."

"Any particular place in Europe?" he asked, taking a lean against the counter while he sipped his coffee. Maybe when all this was over, he'd take her on a proper honeymoon. Or maybe they'd bring Nora along and make it a family vacation.

"You know, I've never really thought about it properly," she said. "Probably France, or Italy. Somewhere with more to do than just sit by a pool. I want the history and the architecture, you know?"

"There's not much point in going to Europe if you're not going to explore the culture," he agreed. "Have you ever been?" he asked further. There were still so many things they didn't know about each other.

"One weekend in London when I was eight," she told him laughingly. "I got a really up close and personal view of the inside of a Ritz suite. I had more fun on the plane, to be honest. What about you?"

"Italy when I was twelve," he told her. "My parents were more into vineyards than anything else, though, so I'm afraid I didn't get much out of it but a fondness for wine."

"I guess it would be an adventure for both of us, huh?" she said with a smile. It would be a while before either of them would feel comfortable to leave Nora anywhere for more than a few hours, but it was a sweet little dream.

"When this is all over," he said, making an unspoken promise with those words. Whether they brought Nora along or not was something they didn't need to decide now. They had the rest of their lives ahead of them, after all - at least, he hoped so.

"With luck, it won't be long now," she agreed, sipping her coffee. "I guess I should show you her Instagram, huh' She's been taking covert pictures of us for her holiday album on there."

"Is that a good idea?" he asked, wondering just who might be looking at those pictures. They couldn't risk the wrong people tracking them down yet again. Their lives depended on secrecy. That's what lying low was all about.

"She's good at disguising who we actually are," Adriana promised him. "She shows me the pictures before she posts them - makes sure I can't clarify the images with my software before they go up."

"So, what do I have my face replaced with Mickey Mouse or something?" he asked. He wasn't particularly knowledgeable about such things as social media and Photoshopping.

"She's pretty good at it, actually," the proud big sister told him. "She removes a certain number of pixels from identifying features, which means they can't be reconstructed. There's no way to positively identify a face without those pixels."

"But why bother then?" he asked, not quite understanding the point. If you couldn't post photos of people's faces, what was the point of posting them at all"

"It passes the time?" she suggested with a gentle smile. "She doesn't want to tell her friends she's been under house arrest for three or four months when we finally get back to normal. She doesn't want them to worry, or to ask her uncomfortable questions. And she's enjoying her little project. If there was harm to it, we'd find something else for her to focus on."

Matt nodded, a frown on his face. "It has to be hard on her to be away from her friends," he said. Especially with only two boring adults for company.

"They're in contact. There's just so little she can tell them about what's really going on." Adriana sighed, looking out through the window to where her sister was now wrapped up in various towels and blankets, entirely focused on her laptop.