Chapter 21
GIANNA
He keeps pushing me away, so why do I want him more and more?
I’ve checked through the peephole so many times today that even Lidia is starting to notice, giving me weird looks over the book she’s reading each time I’m by the door.
Chiara’s been in bed all day, claiming that the stress of the last few days is more than she can take.
Else she would no doubt be quizzing me on my obsession with the peephole already.
The sun is starting to set and Matteo’s still not here.
I’ve tried watching movies, but I keep picturing him and me in the leading roles and can’t keep my head on the plot.
I’ve done and redone my makeup three times just to have something to do with my hands.
And I’ve made sure all the trashcans in the apartment need taking out.
That way I can start emptying them as soon as he gets here.
Maybe get a full evening worth of contact with him out of it.
So we can start collecting those secrets he promised me we’d keep.
I think he was saying he likes me too and would like for us to be more than bodyguard and ward, but I’m not sure. And I need to find out.
I’m silly. I know I am. But it’s not something I can fight.
This need I have to see him, to speak to him, to be near him is a physical need.
An obsessive need. It drives all other needs from my mind.
Even the need to eat and drink. I don’t understand it.
But I know I can’t fight it. Nor do I want to.
I hear voices outside the front door and my heart leaps for joy because I recognize his.
Not as hard as I leap, though. I nearly knock the trash can in my room over in my haste to pick it up.
But I’m done analyzing my weirdness. I just need to see him.
I only wait long enough so I don’t hear any more voices before opening the door.
The hallway seems empty and dark, cold, and uninviting. But then I step outside and close the door behind me, and he steps out of the shadows to my left and it’s like the sun came out in this windowless space, bright enough to take my breath.
“Taking out the trash again?” he asks and I very nearly tell him that no, I’m just here to see him. Somehow, I feel like he already knows that.
“It has to be done,” I say instead, my voice wooden and hoarse, my heart thundering in my chest so loud I’m sure he can hear it. He follows as I walk to the trash chute and my heartbeat just grows wilder and wilder. All day I’ve waited to see him and now I don’t know what to say. This is maddening.
Also maddening is the enticing scent of him—his cologne mixed with that fresh muskiness that’s all him—as he opens the chute so I can empty the trashcan I’m holding. That literally makes me weak in the knees.
“Thank you,” I mutter the first thing that comes to mind, because I need something to cut through this tension between us.
“You’re welcome.”
I don’t know if it’s his eyes, his incredible scent, or his closeness, but it’s taking a lot out of me not to just lean in and kiss him. That would break the tension between us for sure. And create so much more of it.
We’re just standing here, in the small space, me holding a trashcan, him the door, when we should be holding each other.
“If you wanted to go for another carriage ride today, I wouldn’t say no,” he finally says.
And I’m about as happy as I’d be if he asked me to marry him, I’m sure. Maybe happier.
I clear my throat to try and chase away the excitement. One thing I do know about men is that you should never let them know how interested you are in them. My grandmother told me that a long time ago. But going by the bright smile in his eyes, I think I’ve already failed at that.
“Yes, I’d like to go outside,” I say. “I’ve been in all day.”
But instead of a carriage ride, I’d prefer another ride in his fast car. Maybe all the way to the beach. Where we could watch the sunset and he could save me all over again. Save me from a loveless life. A life high up in the clouds of my golden tower. A life devoid of actually living.
I don’t say that. I just think it. But I’m pretty sure he heard it anyway. His smile and sunshine eyes are telling me as much.
“I’ll get ready,” I say and walk past him through the door he’s holding open.
He chuckles as I can’t help brushing against his side as I pass him, even though there was enough room not to.
I’m so glad the hallway is cold and dark and he’s behind me, because I’m sure I’m blushing harder than I ever have.
If this is what being alive and being in love feels like, I want more of it.
Even if my reactions make me want to sink so far beneath the ground I’ll never be found again.
* * *
We’re outside the building in fifteen minutes, the soft warm air caressing my skin and the rivers of people, cars, and bikes all around us somehow removed like we’re in our own little bubble where only the two of us exist. He’s not walking behind me today, but beside me, and I’m sure that’s the reason I feel like we’re the only two people in the world, even though the street is actually very crowded.
I lead us away from the park, down to a small cafe that just opened up, which looks like something out of one of those romantic movies I love watching so much. I’d only seen this place through the windows of a cab so far and I want to go in, get cappuccinos and have a date.
“Not the park today?” he asks just as I’m thinking that, making my face heat up like I’d just swallowed lava. I’m sure my cheeks are as red as that lava too, so I don’t look at him, just keep forging on towards the cafe.
“I thought we could have a coffee first,” I say.
The cafe—A Quiet Place—is just ahead now. I can see the lacy tablecloths on the small round tables, the pink and purple muffins and cookies in the glass display by the counter, and can even already smell the coffee.
“This place?” he scoffs as I stop in front of it. “Should I just wait outside?”
I was just about to open the door. “Why would you wait outside?”
“Because this place is definitely just for girls.”
The idea of our first date has been blossoming in my head all the way here and it’s all crashing down into dust right now. I could tell him he has to come with me because I want to be here. Or I could just go in and ignore his snide remark. I’m sure he’d follow.
“Where would you like us to go?” I say instead.
His whole face lights up. In surprise it looks like. Happy surprise. “No, no. I go where you go, Goldie. Doesn’t matter what I want.”
“It matters to me,” I mutter, wondering why it actually does. But then his face lights up in a whole different way and I feel this light deep in my chest, warming me, caressing me, softening something inside me I didn’t even know was hard.
“No one’s said that to me in a very long time,” he says quietly, hoarsely.
It’s definitely a moment we’re sharing. The kind that feels like a tsunami is pulling the ground from beneath my feet right before tons of water come crashing down.
I have no idea how to respond. But I want to bask in this light of gratitude and connection for as long as I live.
But he snaps the moment short by opening the cafe door and ushering me inside.
“I’m serious, we can go somewhere else,” I say.
“Why?” he asks. “This is where you want to be. And that’s good enough for me.”
He’s definitely pulling away from me in some way now, the light of his gaze not so bright anymore, even as he says exactly the right thing and does exactly what I want.
I’ve never been this attuned to another person. Not even my sisters. And maybe it’s all in my head, maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see. But I don’t think so. Mainly because I’ve never felt anything even remotely as strong as what I feel when I’m near him. So how could I possibly imagine it?
I sit at one of the spindly tables, clutching my purse in my lap, while he orders for us at the counter. A cappuccino for me, an espresso for himself. I’m still debating whether I should offer to pay as he sets the drinks down and takes a seat across from me.
By the time I mutter, “How much was it?” he’s already finished his espresso.
The sharp glint in his eyes is like sunlight hitting a knife blade. “I can afford to buy you a coffee.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t,” I say, finding some steel of my own. It’s infuriating the way he talks down to me. As infuriating as being near him is intoxicating. It’s worse than drinking half a bottle of vodka in one sitting. “I just thought… since I invited you here and all.”
“Oh,” he says and leans back, his palms resting on his muscular upper thighs, and grins. “No, that’s OK. I want to treat you.”
Now why did I feel that like a punch of light deep in my core?
“Thank you.”
Then I take a sip my cappuccino, hoping I’m not blushing too hard, refusing to look at my reflection to check as I look through the window.
Even though everything is rushing by, the way it always does in the city, it all looks to be moving in slow motion—the people, the cars, the trucks, even the branches of the trees.
“Do you come here often?” he asks, a totally benign conversation starter that still pummels at me with all the force that’s not evident anywhere else in the world.
“I would, but I don’t get out much,” I say. “As you noticed.”
He grins again. A smile does things to his face that are hard to describe.
It takes nothing away from the air of dark danger around him, just frames everything in a beautiful package that’s hard to avert your eyes from.
I can’t believe every other woman in here isn’t staring at him and drooling.
Some of them kind of are. I want them to stop with a primal surge of jealousy I don’t remember ever feeling before.
“Oh, you get out plenty… I met you in a nightclub, we took a carriage ride and went swimming. And all inside a few days. That’s more excitement than I usually see in a week.”
I look at him, getting the full force of his darkly bright gaze. “Somehow, I doubt that very much. I’m sure you’ve had a very exciting life before you were forced to become my bodyguard. This job must be very boring for you.”
That sharp glint crosses his eyes again, but this time he keeps grinning through it. “It has its moments. Like right now.”
I know I’m blushing so hard right now. I just hope he’s mistaking it for the golden hour sunlight streaming in through the window. I can’t actually take my eyes off his face, but I take another sip of coffee anyway.
“But coffee this late in the day? How will you go to sleep?” he asks, grinning at me.
“I never go to sleep early. Which is a good thing, since you’re taking me out tonight,” I say, setting the cup down clumsily because my hand is shaking.
I’ve never been this forward with anyone, especially not a guy.
I’m not even allowed to be. My dad would very likely slap me across the face and kill him for what I just said.
I don’t think that fact is in any way lost on Matteo. A bunch of things flash across his bright eyes. Shadows mostly. Some of them covering his whole face. And I’m thinking I could be quite happy just watching those shadows play on his face for the rest of my life.
“You know what, Goldie, I wouldn’t mind doing that either,” he finally says, grinning in a way that leaves his eyes completely untouched, just full of that sharp light that’s exactly like the sun breaking through thick dark clouds after a storm.
“But we’re not allowed to go much beyond the general vicinity of the apartment. ”
“You had instructions?” I ask.
“Strict ones. The park and no more than ten blocks,” he says. “And be back in two hours or less.”
I feel about ten years old right now. A little girl playing pretend. Acting out a fantasy of being on a date, of falling in love, of having the whole day and night to myself with him, when that reality will never be mine.
“It’s for your own protection,” he adds.
“I’ve been so protected my whole life I can hardly breathe anymore.”
And I’m not lying. I am suffocating in my high tower, locked away from the world.
Freedom. That’s the actual fantasy. The unattainable fantasy.
“But I wouldn’t mind taking you out,” he says. “If I could.”
I feel his words more than hear them. And that can’t just be a fantasy. No way. I finish my coffee and stand up.
“Come on then, there’s plenty of fun things to do in a ten-block radius, not to mention the park.”
I don’t wait for him to reply, I just walk out into the dying golden sunlight. Fantasy it might be. But it’s all I got. And I’m making the best of it.
He follows, stands in front of me like a wall separating me and the world I long to enjoy firsthand. I’m sure he’ll tell me to behave now, that I must do as I’m told, that he’s taking me back home.
“Show me,” he says instead.
“What?” I stammer, so surprised his words were nothing that I expected them to be.
“Whatever you want.” He smiles and I believe it’s exactly what he wants too.
“I will,” I say, smiling widely too. “Follow me.”
And he does.
Maybe this isn’t all just a fantasy after all.
Maybe it’s the first day of my real life. The life I always wanted, but never thought I’d have.