Chapter Four Guinevere #2
I knew without having to study it closer that it was a selfie of us at Piazzale Michelangelo after we had jogged to the top to catch the sunset over Florence.
The sky was a brilliant smear of tangerine and fuchsia, the light turning the red roofs of the city into shimmering fire.
But that wasn’t why I’d kept the photograph, printing it at a local shop so I could tuck it into the vanity in my bedroom.
It was the look on the face of the man I’d thought I’d known.
His dark, overlong hair was pushed back from his sweaty forehead, the ends curling like swirls of ink at his neck.
One deeply tanned arm was wrapped around my side, hauling me up into his torso so that I was his height, my mouth pressed to the five-o’clock shadow along his strong jaw.
My eyes were squeezed shut as I kissed him, but there was something like a smile in the expression anyway, an exuberance in the way my arms were thrown around his neck.
But it was his smile that took my breath away.
Relaxed and wide, a full-lipped, eye-crinkling expression of pure joy.
He looked young in it, much younger than his thirty-four years, and more carefree than I’d ever seen him. Just a man without a care in the world, embracing his woman like he’d never tire of it for as long as they both lived.
“Do not forget to pack this,” Raffa said, delight and happiness ruffling the edges of his serious tone.
I blinked at him, unamused, as I brushed past him on the way to the bedroom at the back of the apartment. “I just liked the way Florence looks caught on fire behind us.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, following me into the bedroom to lean against the doorjamb. He crossed his arms, one hand holding his gun, the other the photograph.
What a fitting contrast.
“I think it is the way we look on fire with happiness, but you can lie to yourself if it will make you feel better,” he allowed with faux magnanimity.
I ignored him in favor of dragging my suitcase out of the closet.
“It is still warm in Toscana,” he told me as he unnervingly watched me pack. “But it will grow colder by the end of the month.”
I nodded, pulling out the bin of summer clothes tucked away at the back. It was hard to think about how long I might be stuck in another country. Even harder to admit an elemental part of me was absolutely euphoric about the idea of going back.
“You don’t need to supervise me,” I said after another disquieting moment of his scrutiny. “I’m capable of packing.”
He made a noise in his throat that was halfway between laughter and a grunt of acknowledgment before he pushed off the wall to explore the rest of my space. I pretended I didn’t hate that even more than him watching me.
In his absence, I quickly shucked my bloody, torn clothes and stuffed them in the garbage bin because there was no way I would wear them again.
I took an oversized, faded U of M tee and a soft pair of leggings from my drawer.
My feet were cold, cut up and bruised from running for my life, so I swaddled them in thick socks and then stuffed them into my Uggs.
The outfit was decidedly different from the silks and designer garments Raffa had bought for me, but I felt safe and comfortable in the familiar garb.
When he returned a few minutes later, I was almost done. He paused a moment in the doorway, obviously staring at me, his gaze a heated press against my skin. I startled when he passed me a secured plastic bag filled with my medicine from the fridge.
“You will teach me to help you with this,” he told me, crouching beside me in his spotless designer suit, strong thighs splayed distractingly. “It must be uncomfortable to dose yourself.”
It was, but it also wasn’t the end of the world, and I absolutely did not want Raffa’s man-killing hands gently tending to me. It wasn’t something my heart could survive.
I knew because I had started to fall in love with him the first time he’d taken care of me when I arrived at his palazzo in Florence.
“You should pack this,” he said, his gaze having snagged on the red fabric I’d left in the summer bin.
I watched as he pulled it from the tangle of clothes and carefully folded it, stroking down the silky fabric. When he looked up at me, his pale eyes were warm with memories.
“I never got to see you in a field of poppies, wearing this dress,” he murmured. “Pack it.”
“Poppy season is over,” I reminded him, taking the dress he’d bought me from Maria Lucia’s store and stuffing it back into the bin.
I stood to go to the bathroom to grab my toiletries, and when I returned, Raffa was sitting on my bed, looking at the framed photo of my family I kept on my nightstand.
It had been taken at one of my father’s work events, so we were all done up in finery, though nothing so fine as what Raffa was used to.
I was seventeen in the photo, a fresh high school graduate wearing an almost childishly demure white dress that covered me from throat to wrists to ankles, while Gemma was in a scandalously low-cut orange dress that brought out her curves and summer tan.
My dad had his arm around me, a proud smile on his face, and my mom was holding Gemma around the waist, laughing at something she’d said.
It was a good photo, one of the last ones we had as a family because Gemma had always been traveling and then moved away when I was twenty.
“You look different here,” Raffa said, his thumb sweeping over my image. “Young and soft, even more a cerbiatta than the girl I found on the road in Tuscany.”
“I was,” I agreed. “Young and foolish. I guess I still am.”
He flinched just slightly at the comment. “Your father looks very Italian, but your mother is fair.”
“Her parents were Albanian,” I told him as I bent to zip up my suitcase. “Are you ready?”
He was frowning down at the photo, but nodded, standing with it still in his hand. “Yes, go to the door and give your case to Tony. He will take it down for you. Then come back.”
I wanted to question him, but exhaustion was settling deep into my bones, weighing every step, so I just did as I was told.
When I returned, the bathroom light was on, and Raffa was inside, my little first aid kit open on the closed lid of the toilet.
“Vieni,” he ordered, tapping the sink.
I stepped closer automatically, and by the time I hesitated, Raffa had me by the hips, carefully lifting me to sit on the basin.
“I’m fine,” I said, even though my head was throbbing and every inch of my body ached.
“Stai zitta,” he told me.
I hated hearing him speak Italian because it was so damn lovely, even when he was telling me to shut up.
Still, I quieted, sitting calmly as he tilted my head to inspect the bullet graze. The tap ran for a moment, and then a warm cloth was pressed to the wound. I winced, but he shushed me softly as he cleaned up the injury.
“This will hurt,” he warned before dabbing antiseptic onto the long cut, and I sucked in a sharp breath, nearly choking at the pain.
“Good girl,” he praised me. “Almost done.”
I shivered, clenching my teeth against the invasion of pleasure those words made me feel.
“It is not so bad,” he declared after collecting the garbage and throwing it into the little bin beside the toilet. “It will hurt and then itch as it heals, but your hair should cover any scar.”
I nodded because my voice was somewhere near my toes, and I didn’t know what to say anyway.
My body had a mind of its own when it was being tended to by him, and all it wanted to do was curl close and feel safe after this horrible night.
He used a new warm, damp cloth to wash the dried blood from my face, and I had to close my eyes to shield myself from the tenderness in his expression.
The cloth landed with a wet splat in the sink behind me, so I peered through my lids to see him bend slightly at the knee until we were eye level with each other.
Only then did he cup my clean face in his big, rough palms. I noticed how exhausted he looked up close, the lines of strain beside his mouth, the sooty circles beneath his eyes that spoke of a long time without proper sleep.
“I am sorry, Guinevere,” he murmured, thumbs sweeping over my cheekbones. “Sorrier than I have words in English or Italian to say.”
The ache that opened up in my chest like a crater threatened to eat every last inch of my resolve. If I just leaned into his touch, I knew he would wrap me up in his arms and make everything okay.
At least for a moment.
I’d learned better than to think it could last.
“Let me say goodbye,” I whispered through the vise around my throat. “I promised my dad that if I was ever going to leave again I would say goodbye.”
His mouth flatlined, and his hands fell from my face. “No. You do understand that they could be hurt because of this? The less contact you have with them, the better.”
Fear pierced my breastbone, setting fire to my lungs. “I can’t just leave them here, then! What if they send more . . . goons after them because they can’t find me?”
“I will keep someone here to monitor them.” Raffa waved my question out of the air with the back of his hand as if it was of no consequence. “They will be safe. But only if you are not here to put them in danger.”
My head thunked against the mirror behind me, making me wince. I closed my eyes to breathe deeply through the chaos of tangled emotions in my chest. It felt like drowning. Like I would die if I didn’t take Raffa’s offer, even though it felt safe to trust the hand he gave me.
“The last thing on earth I want to do is go back to that place with you,” I admitted, my mind racing as I thought of another alternative.
“I could leave,” I said. “But I could go to London or Paris. Somewhere no one would think to look for me. My French is pretty bad, but they speak English in the city. I have a friend who lives there whom I could stay with.”
“No, Vera, you will not disappear from me, and you will not disappear from there. This is la mafia. There is no escaping to any part of the globe.”
“I could try,” I insisted, but I still didn’t open my eyes, unwilling to see Raffa in front of me, his resolute expression or, even worse, one of pity.
“No, you will be where you belong,” he said intractably, with the authority of an ancient Roman emperor no one would dare to defy. “With me.”
The pressure around one of my wrists as it lay in my lap was cold enough to shock me out of the shivering stasis.
“What the . . . ?” I gasped as I looked down to see the handcuff locked to one of my arms. “Raffa! What the hell is this?”
The grin on his face was pure wolf, sharp canines and red lips. He lifted his own hand between us, rattling the metal linking his cuffed hand to mine. “My insurance policy.”
“You are insane,” I shouted, wrenching my hand back even though there was no way I could break out of the cuffs. “My whole world is being turned upside down because of you. I-I hate you, Raffaele. I freaking hate you.”
“Fine,” he said flippantly. “Hate me in Tuscany.”
“This doesn’t mean anything for us,” I declared, everything in me shutting down like a house before a Category 5 hurricane. Shutters closing, doors locking, battening down every last hatch so that nothing more of him could get in. “We’re still done, Raffaele.”
The silence between us was flat and disquieting, the dense air before the storm hits when the animals are silent and the hairs on the back of your arm rise in alarm.
“I know,” he acknowledged finally, voice rough and deep as if the words cost him. “There is no happily ever after for a man like me. I have always known this. It is my fault that for a moment I considered . . . Well. It is done now.”
“Good,” I said softly as I closed my eyes and turned back to the window, pressing myself to the cold mirror like I secretly yearned to press myself to the untrustworthy stranger I used to know beside me. “I’m glad,” I lied.