Chapter Six
Tristan
I slip into the house, juggling my mail, my to-go bags, and my keys. “Minerva?” I call. “Why is there a delivery crate out front?”
Minerva looks up from her tablet. She’s sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with papers and books and highlighters scattered all around her. “Because I wasn’t sure what else to do with it.”
“Okay, but—” I drop my keys in the bowl by the entryway and gesture behind me. “It’s, like… fucking enormous. Did you order an elephant, or what?”
“Oh, it’s my car.” She lets her head roll back, exposing her throat in a pose that’s surprisingly sensual.
When she groans, my mind goes someplace that it shouldn’t when my assistant’s involved.
And it seems to be going there more and more, especially in my bed at night.
“Dante apparently had my old car hauled off for parts and got me a new one. It got delivered in a shipping crate, so nothing happened to it in transport.”
“Dante bought you a car?” A weird pinch hits low in my chest. Dante swooping in reminds me I’m not the only man looking out for her. Not the first, either. And the thought bothers me more than it should.
“Yeah, he’s, you know. My godfather?” She dips her head. “And he’s a little over the top sometimes.”
“Dante? Over the top?” I arch one eyebrow. “Never.”
“Point taken.” She laughs, and her posture relaxes slightly.
“I brought food.” I hold up the bags. I’m gonna need a moment to process the fact that she’s Dante’s family, more or less, but that can wait. “Want to join me for lunch? Unless you ate already…”
“Oh.” Minerva presses a hand to her core. “No, I completely forgot.” She stands up, then reaches for her mug of tea. “Oops, it’s cold. I wonder how long I was sitting there.”
Of course, she forgot. She gets swallowed by her brain and forgets to tend to her body, and something warm and stupidly protective lights under my ribs.
I glance down at her papers as I follow her into the kitchen. Kepler’s napping on the couch, belly-up and legs contorted in such a way that I have to wonder if the little guy really has bones or if he’s a non-Newtonian fluid.
Lying next to him on the sofa is a folder. One of the papers is loose, sticking out the top, and has a caption that reads, Con List for Luca Bianchi.
Luca. She’s said that name before.
Which means I fucking hate him.
“Did you check the mail, by the way?” Minerva asks. “Your ring should be here.”
“My ring? For the door?” I stop prying into her personal business and beeline it to the kitchen. “I already have one. Did you order another?”
“No, I got you an Aura. I ordered one for you, remember? If I’m going to be an assistant, I’m going to be the best.”
“Okay, but how does a ring help me?” I set the bag of food on the table and dump the mail beside it. Sure enough, there’s a package in the mix.
Minerva scoops it up and tears it open. “It’s a fitness ring. Here, take this, and give me your phone.”
I take the ring and pass my phone over to her without question.
She already knows my passcode, and she starts tapping away on the screen while I stare at the plain metal band lying in my palm.
It doesn’t look like much, but when I turn it around a few times, I can see the little…
nodes or whatever on the inside of the band.
“Put it on,” she urges.
“Right.” This time, I don’t follow her orders. Which finger, exactly, am I supposed to use?
“Index,” she says, like she’s reading my mind. Her cheeks are pink.
“Well, I don’t have beautiful women buying me rings every day, so I wasn’t sure what this was all about,” I joke. Ugh, that sounded sleazy as hell. I’m so fucking bad at this. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable living here.
“Technically, you bought it.” Minerva’s whole face is red now. “Put it on your index finger, and we’ll get started.”
I slip the ring on. “There you go. Do you mind if I start eating?”
“Oh.” Minerva goes rigid. “Sorry, I just got caught up in it. I’m excited to see how this works.”
“It’s okay. If you want to keep doing what you’re doing, I don’t mind, but I’m starving.” My stomach drops. I hate that I can’t always see the landmines before I step on them. I hate even more that she thinks she needs to shrink because of something I said.
“No, it’s fine. It was thoughtful of you to bring me food.” She pokes my phone back toward me. “I should eat it while it’s hot.”
I don’t understand what just happened. Ten seconds ago, she was buzzing with excitement, and now she looks like I kicked her ferret.
Minerva hasn’t told me much about her family, and my grip on the details is hazy at best, but I know that her family did a real number on her before they kicked her out.
She was literally living inside a rust bucket in Dante’s parking lot.
I may not know what I said wrong, but I have a good idea of where her trauma’s coming from.
After a prolonged awkward silence, I ask, “Want to take this out to the balcony?”
Minerva responds with a mute nod and sweeps her unopened box off the table. At the sound of the balcony door opening, Kepler comes running.
“Is he allowed out? Are you worried about him escaping?”
Minerva shakes her head. “He’s good.”
My condo has a decent view of the Vegas skyline, but we’re far enough out that the air’s a lot more breathable than it is in the center of the city.
We take our meals to the two Adirondack chairs I have set up out there.
Kepler climbs up into a miniature hammock rigged to a plant stand; clearly, this is not his first foray onto the balcony.
Minerva is still holding herself stiffly, even when she opens the box I passed her.
“Oh!” she exclaims. “You got me orecchiette!”
“They said it was the most popular item on the menu. It’s got pesto, mushrooms, and sausage. Pretty sure you like all those things, from what I’ve seen?”
“You got me pasta,” she says, staring into the container.
“Do you not like it?” Damn, I’m pretty sure she’s ordered pasta of some kind almost any time we’ve gone out. “We can trade if you want.”
“No.” She wraps her arms protectively around the box.
“I mean, yes. I love pasta. And I’ve always liked orecchiette.
The name means ‘little ears.’ When I was a kid, my nonna…
” She stops short. I can tell she’s recalibrating, shutting down whatever train of thought she was about to embark on.
“Thank you, this looks delicious. I was surprised because some people think women should avoid certain foods.”
“People like your parents?” I ask. The way she holds it—like no one’s handed her something she actually wanted in a long time—kills me. My jaw ticks. I want to ask who made her think she should eat around her body instead of for it.
She flinches. “What did you get?”
“My meal is assistant-approved,” I joke. “Stuffed swordfish and a side salad. Delicious and nutritious. High in protein, low on carbs.”
“Good choice.” She digs into her pasta and emits a breathy groan. “Iff if homemade pefto.”
I chuckle at the look on her face.
Minerva immediately covers her mouth with one hand. She chews a few times, swallows, and shakes her head. “That pesto is maybe the best I’ve ever tasted.”
“No wonder the dish is so popular.” I want to ask if her nonna made pesto, too, but the subject of her family is a landmine I’m not prepared to navigate.
I don’t want to upset her again like I did earlier.
Better to shift to a different topic for now.
“So, what was with all the papers in there? Don’t tell me you’re working on some super-intense exercise regimen for me. ”
“That was a personal project, actually.”
“Yeah?” That’s surprising, if only because she hasn’t told me much about her interests and hobbies up until now. “And you’re doing it on paper?”
“I think better on paper. When I’m doing research, anyway. It makes me slow down and think.”
“And what are you working on?”
She pulls her knees in, making herself even more petite than she already is. “It’s nothing important.”
“Tell me anyway.”
I want her to talk to me. I want the version of her that forgets she’s supposed to be small.
She wrinkles her nose. “Are you sure?”
“We’re eating. I like talking to you. The only thing I have to report from my day is my gym session with the guys. Unless you want me to tell you riveting tales about how I picked things up and put them down again, it’s all you.”
Minerva smiles, but she stays quiet for so long that I think she decided not to speak at all. At last, she says, “Okay. So, this one time in school, I prototyped a microfluidic device for real-time blood analysis.”
“Oh.” I have no idea what the fuck half of that means, but it sounds interesting. “Okay, so… what kinds of things can that kind of testing tell you?”
God, she’s beautiful like this. Not because of her face—though, yes—but because she’s not bracing for impact. She’s just… alive.
She nibbles a piece of pasta. “Well, so, blood isn’t just one thing.
Let me think about how to simplify this a little.
Um, so, blood carries a lot of things with it when it travels through your body.
Oxygen, minerals, things like iron and plaque…
and it moves quickly throughout your body, right, so a good blood test can reveal when something is wrong with, for example, your liver or your kidneys. ”
“Sure,” I say, because I’m with her so far. “I have regular bloodwork done. We get a bonus for it from the team, actually. But your blood test would be better?”
“So much better.” Minerva launches into an explanation, talking so fast that I can barely follow. I’ve never seen her so animated, and while I really am doing my best to follow her explanation, I find myself mostly appreciating her enthusiasm.