35. Andrea
CHAPTER 35
Andrea
EIGHT DAYS LATER
Hold Back The River - James Bay
I t’s been twelve days since I last saw Savio. The distance between us is a physical pain. Like a persistent wound that won’t heal.
I know he can’t contact me without causing suspicion to fall on us. So, even though I understand the reason for his absence, I hate the necessity of it.
Yesterday, I was reckless and went into Santa Cecilia, hoping to see him. Not only was he not there, but someone in his flock told me he wouldn’t be returning.
Did that mean he quit?
I tried to google how a priest went about defrocking, but to be honest, I came up with a lot of priest porn.
Apparently, I’m not the only weirdo who gets off on the idea of fucking a man in a clerical collar.
Despite my concern and the unease that’s simmering inside me at his lack of contact, my lips twitch at the thought as I rest my coffee cup on the table I’d set outside on the tiny balcony.
Leaning over the filigree balustrade, I stare at the street. My sense of smell is more powerful than ever, and the desire to write London Burning ’s nonexistent. My headache has turned pervasive in that it never goes away, and yesterday, I almost overdosed on ibuprofen.
It’s either time to return home and visit the hospital or start learning how to be a perfume manufacturer. Hell, this super sniffer has to be good for something.
Every day, I received pissed-off messages from my folks because I screen their calls.
If they knew where I was staying, they’d be on the next flight over to bring me home. The funny thing is, if they believed Diana existed, she’d probably tell them where I was—despite her promises to the contrary.
I feel their concern and appreciate it, but what am I supposed to do… Leave Savio behind?
I can’t.
Even Diana’s worried. We’re never in each other’s pocket, but barely three hours ever pass without a message from her checking in with me.
Accepting that this is the price of being loved, I peer over the distance, exasperation fading and shifting into awe of the sights I behold.
Ahead of me, there’s the Vatican and a part of Rome, the neighborhoods Borgo and Prati, which I probably wouldn’t have visited if it weren’t for my accommodation being here and having to use the metro.
Deeper in the distance are the more well-known parts of the city—the Spanish steps, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and my favorite, the Forum.
Every day, I’ve taken to walking around the place, absorbing it, enjoying the marvels that are these beautiful pieces of history that still play such a massive role in today’s world. They’re timeless, endlessly existing, and I find comfort in that, drawing relief from them as I deal with the reality of life—no one lives forever.
But these edifices will.
Bells ring all around me from churches in the vicinity, the noise of a siren from a nearby ambulance pierces the chatter of the crowd down below, and for a moment, I’m lost to it all.
Then I realize my buzzer has sounded, and I jerk to attention.
Unromantic though it was, we exchanged telephone numbers before we left for Remo’s and I gave him the address where I was staying, but I hadn’t tried to call him, nor had he tried to call me.
No one else knows my address apart from the agency, so hoping it’s him, I push the intercom. “ Buongiorno ?”
A flood of Italian sounds, but it isn’t Savio. Heart sinking, I recognize that it’s a cleaner once she mentions the agency’s name. I let the woman in and hover by the door so I’m there when she knocks.
She shows me the message from the agency so I know to trust her, beams at me when I speak to her in Italian and tell her I’ll leave her to it before grabbing my computer and cell phone so I can stare at the screen in a coffee shop.
As I slip my bag over my shoulder, I wave to the lady, let her know I’ll be back in an hour, and head out.
When I make it to the top step of the landing, I freeze.
Lips trembling, I whisper, “Savio?”
He smiles at me, and my relief is so intense that my knees give out. Before I fall, he’s there to catch me.
Of course, he is.
With the memory of his outrage back in the hospital at the forefront of my mind, I don’t let him dawdle on a silly, little thing like keeping me from falling down the stairs. No, I throw my arms around his neck, not giving him a choice about whether or not he’ll ‘accept’ a hug from me.
He doesn’t need a choice though.
If anything, he embraces me more ferociously than my hold on him.
Only when he whispers, “Are you okay?” do I realize he’s keeping this clandestine.
But then, I suppose we have to be.
Our entanglement has a name—conspiracy. I don’t intend on living the rest of my life in a jail cell. Nor do I intend for Savio to return to one either.
So I’ll be vigilant until we leave the country and can be open about our feelings once more.
“I’m fine now that you’re here. I wasn’t sure…”
“I was pissed at the hospital. Did you have to stab me?” he complains, making me laugh as he rubs his stomach.
“You looked innocent, didn’t you? It became self-defense and not a vendetta.”
He huffs. “Perhaps.”
“Thought you liked pain,” I half-tease, watching his lips twitch and knowing I’m forgiven. My hands clutch at him as I ask, “How long have you been here?”
“I waited outside until someone opened your door.” Then his lips press against my cheek. “You didn’t notice.”
I pull back to frown. “Notice what?” My gaze drifts over his face and down to his throat. What I don’t see has me sighing with relief. “You quit?” I surmised as much when I went to Santa Cecilia, but it’s a relief to know for certain.
“Yes.”
Each brush of his gaze on my face comes with a sensation of warmth. I feel his eyes dance over my scars, my cheeks, my chin. My throat.
“I missed you.”
With no hesitation, I whisper, “I missed you too.” When his smile grows stronger with my admission, I ask, “How’s your stomach?”
“Fine. Someone’s aim was perfect or I’d still be in the hospital.”
His arched brow has me wrinkling my nose. “I researched it once.”
“Never practiced it though.”
“Beginner’s luck?” I quip.
“No more stabbings, hmm?”
“Agreed.” My lips twitch at his very masculine pout, and I press my fingers to them. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replies as instantly as I told him I missed him.
“Really?” I warble.
“You already knew that,” he chides, rubbing a finger over my damp cheek.
I’m crying?
“You didn’t come—I was scared.”
He shrugs. “I had to protect us. You aren’t the only protector here. Plus, I had things to do.”
I straighten his clerical-collar-free neckline. “Like quitting?”
“That, as well as some issues I had with the Church. Not that they were unhappy to finally get rid of me. But, a final sermon, a farewell to the parishioners, it was the least I could do.” A smile tugs on his lips. “You’ll never guess what I found waiting for me on my doorstep when I arrived home.”
“What?”
“‘You’ve been a part of my life for so long while being totally unaware of who I am. (Either that or you’re just rude.) I’m beyond ready for you to know me as well as I know you.’”
A pleased gasp escapes me. “My letter! You finally received one.”
“Two, actually. I just wish I could read them all.”
“They’re probably drivel,” I say sheepishly. “The ramblings of a woman who was very sick and didn’t know it.”
“They were for me,” is his fierce retort. “My gift from you?—”
“Hardly!” I counter, but my cheeks burn with heat at his defense of me.
“I have to tell you something.”
“What?”
His jaw tenses. “I went to see Paolo Lorenzo before I defrocked. The clerical collar has a powerful effect on people.” He tugs at where it once would have lain and the lack of weight there seems to be reflected in his eyes.
I can only hope it makes him breathe easier.
“Did you kill him?” I whisper hesitantly, unsure what I want his answer to be.
He shakes his head. “He was in the hospital.”
“Hospital?”
“Complications due to alcohol poisoning. He spent the week after… drunker than was healthy.” Sighing, he runs a hand over my hair. “I put the fear of God into him the best I could. Told him that he survived only to right the wrongs he made.”
“Do you think that’s enough?” I ask, wondering why Lorenzo didn’t talk about the sudden disappearance of his wife and niece.
Perhaps that was what triggered this stint in the hospital?
“No. I’d like to think so, but even though he’s had a scare—I told him that he was drinking so heavily that night out of guilt—I know how temptation works.
“I warned one of the police officers who visited me in the hospital about him too. With no evidence, there’s nothing they can do. I wanted to talk to Junia, Lorenzo’s wife, and their niece before I left. I was hoping to give them Esposito’s card, but I couldn’t get in touch with them.”
I pat his chest. “I have a feeling all will be well with that family.”
“What have you done?” he demands instantly.
“Nothing.”
He sighs. “We don’t have long, but when this is all over and we have a lifetime of quiet nights ahead of us, you’re going to tell me what you’ve been up to before we fall asleep.”
The tone is so reminiscent of the faintly scolding, faintly exasperated, faintly proud one my dad uses when I find myself in these situations that joy settles in my heart. That’s nothing to the promise of thousands of nights of falling asleep in his arms.
“You won’t hear me complaining,” I tell him huskily. “Now, what’s the next step?”
“I have a few more hoops to jump through before things are finalized on this end.” Hesitantly, he continues, “I’m going to meet you in the States. While I work things out here, I want you to go to the hospital. I need you to go for a checkup. Your letters…”
I study his expression—spy the worry in his eyes, the deepening anxiety at my silence. I see no regret in his heart. This isn’t a rejection. Nor is it a goodbye.
My cheeks puff out as I recall what I admitted to him in my final letters. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He gapes at me. “I thought you’d argue.”
“I think I need to go too,” I admit sheepishly.
Concern has him hauling me tighter into him like he can protect me with his body. I wish that were true.
“What is it?” he demands. “What’s wrong?”
“My nose is being weird. I just don’t think it’s normal.” I shrug. “Plus, I’m still weak, and my headache won’t abate no matter how much medication I take. Then there’s how quickly I tire. I don’t think there’s anything wrong, per se, but?—”
“—a hospital is the best place for you.” He dips his chin. “That seals it. I want you on a plane within the next few hours.”
“Hours?!” My mouth drops open. “No way! I want to spend some time with you before we have to part!”
He shakes his head. “I’m not endangering you, Andrea. I’m sharing information about Corelli’s grunts with the police. They’re not going to be happy about that. If they have eyes on me, then they have eyes on you?—”
“My name is on the witness statement.”
“Yes, and you’re leaving the country. You should be fine. But if you’re seen with me, then who knows what might happen? Plus, they could piece the situation together. That’s the last thing we need. I’m even going to talk to my parents about moving for their own safety.” He runs his thumb along my cheek. “For us, for our future, you should fly out today. Let us do this the right way.”
My eyes narrow at him because there’s something he isn’t saying… “Why?”
He shrugs and sighs, but his gaze stays on my cheek and the finger he pressed there. “I want to give you time to contemplate what you’re taking on.”
I stiffen in his arms. “Are you being serious?”
“Deadly.”
“You can’t think that I’d be the one to back away from this.”
“I’m broken,” he mutters as he presses a kiss to my temple, his words vibrating through his kiss. “I’ll always have night terrors, and I might hurt you in my sleep. I won’t ever let you moan when we’re together that way, and the lashing? I won’t be able to stop that. Not immediately. I’m a lot to take on.”
I pull away, not going far but separating us so I can grab his hand and rest it on my stomach.
“What if I’m pregnant?”
“Then we don’t have a choice.”
“ Good. I don’t want a choice. This isn’t about choice. There’s no free will in this situation,” I growl. “And if God is in his right mind, then I will be pregnant so we have no say in this.
“You and I are made for each other. Just because you’re a little nuts, well, that doesn’t scare me.”
“I’m a killer,” he breathes, tugging me back into his arms.
His erection tells me he likes what I said though.
“So am I. I condoned what you did,” I counter with a shrug. “And I’ll condone it again. So long as I think it’s right.”
“Only God can help me now...?”
My lips curve. “I’d say he’s been helping us for quite a while.”