Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Valentino
The pasta is nothing special. My grandmother would have wept at the state of this kitchen. But it's warm, plain, and something her stomach might hold after a day of poison, and right now that's all it needs to be.
I balance the plate and the glass of water and walk down the short hall. I stop outside her door and knock with one knuckle.
She opens it. The phone is pressed to her ear, her hair damp, my hoodie swallowing her whole. She holds up one finger to me, and I almost smile at that. Even now, she still runs the room.
"I have to go," she says into the phone. A pause. "I know. I know, Vee. I'll call you tomorrow." Another pause. "Love you too."
She lowers the phone. Her thumb hovers over the screen for a moment before she ends the call, like she doesn't want to let go.
"You can eat in here," I tell her, holding out the plate. "Sit. Drink the water first."
She takes the plate and looks down at it like she's never seen food before. Then she sets it on the bed and lowers herself down beside it.
I set the glass on the nightstand and turn to go.
"Stay."
A request. Something I don't know what to do with. But I stay.
I lean against the wall by the door.
She takes a bite, then another.
"It's good," she says. She sounds surprised, which I choose not to be insulted by.
"It's not. But it's warm."
The corner of her mouth lifts. She eats more.
Then she looks up.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"
The fork stops halfway to her mouth. She's not joking now.
The truth is, I've been looking at her for years.
A black dress at a birthday party. Her laugh cutting across a crowded room before she saw me and looked away. I saw her then and dismissed it as Vittoria's friend, off limits.
I've looked at her in cafés and corridors and across the hood of Elio's stupid car.
"I like looking at you," I say.
She doesn't speak. The fork lowers. Her eyes move over my face, searching for the catch. The part where I take it back.
I don't.
"We've known each other for ten years," she says.
"I know how long it's been."
"Ten years, Valentino. And you never looked at me like this. Not once." She tips her chin up, and there's a brightness in her eyes that has nothing to do with happiness. "So forgive me if I'm a little suspicious of the timing."
I watch her work it out.
She's deciding I'm looking at her because I feel sorry for her.
She's wrong. So wrong it's almost funny.
For most of those ten years, she belonged to another part of my life. Vittoria's friend. Too young at first, then too close to family, then too easy to want and too dangerous to touch.
So I noticed and did nothing with it.
I spent years ignoring it because that was the sensible thing to do.
I can't pretend anymore.
The truth is simple: what I feel for her has nothing to do with what happened in that palazzo.
"I'll look at you however much I want," I tell her. "For as long as I want."
"I don't need your pity," she says. "I've had enough of that to last me. People feel sorry for me and then they leave. So if that's what this is, do me a favor and skip to the end."
I push off the wall.
"I don't pity people."
"Everyone says that."
"I'm not everyone." I hold her gaze. "Pity looks down. I have never looked down at you, bella. Not then. Not now."
Her throat moves. She blinks fast. "I hate lies," she says. Her voice wavers.
"Good." Her eyes snap up to mine. "I hate liars," I tell her. "I've buried a few of them."A breath of a laugh leaves her. Wet and small, but real. "That's dark, Conti."
"You wanted the truth."
"I did."
She picks the fork back up and winds another bite. Her hand is steadier now. "Keep going, then. The not-lying thing. I think I'm enjoying it."
Amanda
"More truth," I say, twirling the fork through pasta I have no intention of eating. "I'm collecting it. Like trading cards. Tell me something else terrible."
He's leaning against the wall, arms crossed. "You should sleep."
"You should sit down. You've been standing guard like a gargoyle."
His mouth almost curves before he kills it, but I saw it. I always see it. It's become a small private game, hunting that almost-smile across his stone face.
I set the plate on the nightstand. He pushes off the wall, crosses to the bed, and sits on the edge of it.
I know he wants me. I saw the way his eyes dropped to my mouth in the car, the way his hand lingered at my back, the way he admitted he'd been noticing me.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is proximity and adrenaline and two people trying to survive the same terrible night. Maybe tomorrow I'll see it differently. Tomorrow can deal with itself.
Right now, I'm tired of second-guessing everything.
I shift closer.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
"You need to stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're about to do something we're both going to regret."
I move closer anyway. My knee brushes his thigh through the blanket.
"White."
My last name sounds wrong this close.
"Amanda," I correct quietly. "When I'm this close, it's Amanda."
I close the last of the distance until I'm a breath from his mouth.
"I'm dying to do this," I whisper against his lips. "So unless you're going to tell me you don't want me, I'm going to—"
His hand closes around the back of my neck.
He kisses me. His mouth crushes mine, his fingers fist in my hair, and he hauls me half into his lap like he's done deciding to be good. I make a sound I'd be embarrassed about on any other day. He swallows it. His stubble scrapes my chin, his other hand splays wide across my back.
This is not pity. Pity doesn't kiss like it's starving.
I grip his shirt in both fists, terrified that if I let go he'll remember every reason this is a mistake.
He pulls back just far enough to drag in a breath. His forehead drops to mine, his eyes still closed.
"This is a problem," he says, rough and low.
"I know." I'm smiling. I can't stop. "Best one I've had in years."
He pulls back enough to look at me, and the look does something violent to my insides. His eyes move over my face, dark and hungry.
"You just made the biggest fucking mistake of your life," he says. His voice is low enough to make my skin tighten. The hand in my hair grips harder, not enough to hurt, just enough to make sure I'm listening.
"Letting you kiss me?" My lips are still buzzing from the first one. "Bold of you to assume that ranks. I once microwaved foil in a borrowed apartment. That was a mistake. This is a public service."
"I mean it." His thumb moves along the side of my throat. "Letting me taste you. You don't know what you've done. Men like me, we don't take a thing like this and give it back. We hold on. We ruin it just by holding on."
Some sensible little voice in the back of my skull is waving a red flag, reminding me this is a man who has done terrible things.
The flag is correct. The flag is also being completely ignored, because I'm tired of being sensible at exactly the moment I want something.
Tired of talking myself out of things before they've even had the chance to disappoint me.
"Then ruin it," I say.
His jaw clenches.
"You don't mean that."
"I'd do it again." The words come out steadier than I feel. It's a small miracle. My heart is slamming against my ribs like it's trying to break free. "If you told me right now that kissing you would get me killed by morning, I'd still do it. I'd be the one closing the distance.”
His face changes. The hunger drains out of it. Something tighter takes its place.
He doesn't like that I said it.
He doesn't like that I might mean it.
"Don't say that to me," he says quietly. "Don't ever say that to me again."
"Why?"
His forehead settles against mine. "Because I'll believe you." His hand slides into my hair. "And then I'll stop being careful with you. You're the one person I can't afford to stop being careful with."
I smile.
"That sounded suspiciously like a speech."
His mouth brushes mine.
"Don't get used to it."
Then he kisses me again.
I feel the moment he wants more. The shift in the kiss. The pressure of it. My lips part and his hand tightens at my hip.
He's falling over me. The weight of him presses me into the mattress, his thigh pushing between mine, and I let out a soft, helpless sound.
His hand finds the bare skin at my hip where the hoodie has ridden up. He's shaking. The tremor in his hand undoes me more than the kiss.
I grip the front of his shirt tightly, not daring to let go.
I've spent my whole life letting go of things before they could leave first.
I'm tired of it.
He breaks away long enough to breathe. His mouth drags across my cheek, my temple. "This doesn't fix anything," he says.
"I know."
"Tomorrow is still a mess."
"I know."
"Tomorrow there's still a man in Sicily who wants both of us dead."
I smile against his jaw.
"I know."
His thumb traces my pulse. "Then tell me the rest."
I pull back enough to look at him. "The rest of what?"
"What you said."
I know exactly which part he means. "I'd do it again, Valentino."
His thumb stops moving. "Even if it got you killed."
"Even then."
His jaw tightens. "You don't get to die, Amanda. Do you understand me? You don't get to die. Not for this. Not for me."
I nod.
His hand cups the side of my face.
"Good."
His mouth finds mine again.
Later, when he lifts his head, his hand is still at the back of my neck.
He looks at me again.
His weight is on one forearm, right next to my shoulder. His other hand has come back to my jaw. His thumb rests on my lower lip.
"This is not happening today."
I blink, shock and a hint of rejection filling me. "What?"
"Not like this. Not with a drug still in your blood."
"Valentino—"
"Listen to me." His thumb presses gently.
"I'll kiss you. I am kissing you. But I'm not doing anything else.
But not because I don't want to." His eyes close again, briefly.
When he opens them, they're almost in pain.
"It's because I want to. Too much. And you deserve better than a safe house and whatever's still running through your system. "
I stare up at him. "You're going to be impossible, aren't you?"
One side of his mouth moves. Not a smile. Something close. "Probably."
"Kiss me again, then."
He does. Thoroughly.