Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
BIANCA
I don’t get a good look at the person who took the photo. Whoever it is has the sense to take off running before the big, muscular man they’re stalking can spring to his feet. By the time Giovanni and I are both standing, the photographer has become a blur in the dark.
Giovanni still looks like he’s going to take off after them.
Terror floods me, and I grab his arm, my fingers digging into his muscle. “No.”
He turns toward me, his blood obviously up. “Someone followed us. They took a photo of us, and they’re going to—”
“Whatever nonsense they’re going to do, you’re going to let them. It’ll be a whole hell of a lot worse if you catch up with them and smash their face in.”
Some of the fight goes out of him. “So we’re supposed to go back to the farm like nothing happened?”
I reach up and adjust the brim of his hat. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
He studies me for a moment, his gaze serious. “Are we going to talk about—”
But I’m already shaking my head, my heart hammering in the cage of my chest, my lips tingling. “Not here.”
He nods tightly, picks up the box and the discarded candy apple. We start down the hill together, the atmosphere completely different from when we climbed it. Now, the tension roiling between us is a lot less fun.
There’s a trash bin next to the gates, and Giovanni throws Sir Gala-Head into his final resting place. He’s about to ditch the crown, too, but I stop him.
“Keep it.”
Once we’re sitting in the parked car, the crown stowed in the back, he turns toward me. “We’re wearing matching sweatshirts, and it’s going to look like we were kissing—”
“We were kissing,” I say quietly.
His eyes lock with mine, his gaze intense and angry, and I’m tempted to kiss him again. To distract both of us with something good.
I can still feel the insistent press of his lips against mine. The feeling of his thick stubble beneath my fingers as I cupped his jaw and brought him closer. The wild aching need between my legs—a part of my body I’ve ignored for months that has been reawakened by him.
I want to finish what we started.
I also know it would be a very bad idea.
He swears. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
I shouldn’t be disappointed. He’s absolutely right.
“We both did it,” I point out. “The good news is that you’ve gone up from a two out of ten to a seven.”
It was an eleven out of ten. No, a hundred out of ten. No man has ever kissed me like Giovanni Cafiero just did, and now I have to go back to the farmhouse and sleep in the room next to his without giving in to the urge to crawl into his bed in the middle of the night like his ex-girlfriend did.
He gives me a fierce, disbelieving look. “A seven?”
“Your performance improved. Take the compliment.”
“You know it was more than a seven,” he insists, his eyes locked on mine. A shiver of need travels down my spine, lighting up my body, but I ignore it and hold his gaze.
“A seven is generous,” I insist.
Laughing mirthlessly, he takes off the “Smut Slut” hat and runs a hand through his thick hair. My gaze follows the motion, shameless in its admiration of him. “Thank you for your great generosity, Bianca.”
He’s quiet for a moment, the hat cradled in his lap, before he says, “You don’t get it.
People are going to think you’re my girlfriend.
They’ll say I came to Apple Ridge because of you.
They’ll probably dig it all up. How my family used to come here.
The fight between our nonnas. Miles’s accident. It’s a good story.”
My lips part. But I white-knuckle the wheel to center myself. “You’re catastrophizing. We don’t know who took that photo. It could have been some kid trying to prank us.”
He nods in acknowledgement. “But I don’t think it was.”
“Let’s go home. There’s no point speculating.”
“I’ll leave Apple Ridge.” He reaches for his car door. “I’ll go with my grandmother. I don’t want to pull you and your family any deeper into this mess. Honestly, I don’t.”
I reach over and grip his wrist. “What do you think you’re doing?” I hiss. “Are you going to hitch back to Maine?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says miserably, slumping back into the seat. “I didn’t want to make more of a mess of everything, but that’s exactly what I’ve done. Some of these people are vicious.”
“I’m not afraid of anyone.”
He actually smiles for half a second. “I believe that, but I don’t—”
“Come home, Giovanni. Come home and get some sleep. We’ll deal with it in the morning.”
“Okay.”
After I start driving, I turn the radio on and find a station playing a song by an Asheville band. The bass player was one of my last patients in the emergency room. In fact, I got fired because I warned him that the doctor on call had poor vision and absolutely should not stitch up his face.
I tell Giovanni the story on the ride, trying to distract him. He responds politely, but I can tell he’s stuck in his own mind—the thoughts cyclical and squeezing.
Finally, I pass beneath the Evergreens & Apples sign, and some of my unease slips away.
It’s illogical, for sure, but it feels like nothing truly bad can happen on the farm.
It saved us when we were children, and in my mind, it’s still that safe place no real harm can touch.
Even though harm has certainly visited the people who live here.
My brother’s truck is gone when we pull up to the house.
“The nonnas will be in bed,” I tell Giovanni as I park the car. “It’s past nine thirty.”
He nods but doesn’t move after he unfastens his belt.
“What are you so afraid of?” I ask, my tone harsher than I intended.
He looks like I slapped him. “I’m not afraid of anything. I don’t want people coming here, looking into your business. I don’t want them bothering you—”
I turn in my seat and touch his arm, and his gaze snaps to mine.
“I don’t care,” I say. “Let them think what they want to think.”
And that’s when it clicks.
“Wait, this is good, actually,” I continue. “If everyone thinks we’re dating, my nonna will stop trying to set me up with any man with a pulse. Yours will back off too.”
“Sure, but I won’t lie to her.”
I nod, feeling a gush of fondness for him. Half the time he acts like he’s so easygoing he doesn’t care about anything, but he has deep feelings. Deep wounds, too. It makes the caregiver in me want to soothe them.
“Okay, so we’ll tell the nonnas the truth. But your ex will leave you alone, and if any women try launching themselves at you or sending you dirty photos, I’ll defend my territory. If they think we’re together, let them. Maybe you can even start recording videos again.”
“Where, in your kitchen?” he asks with a dry laugh. “My nonna would keel over. Yours too. I’d be responsible for a joint heart attack.”
“Let me handle it. I’ll talk them around.”
I can tell he needs purpose. He’s haunted by the same unfulfilled need as my twin brother. No wonder they’re still close. They’re two lost souls, traveling parallel paths.
“No offense, Bianca, but if I couldn’t talk my nonna around, I doubt you could.”
“I get off on being underestimated.”
For a second, heat flashes through his eyes, and an answering wave floods my body, but then he shakes his head. “I don’t like this.”
“It would be good for everyone,” I insist. “You need something real to do.”
His eyes are dark and hard as he surveys me under the slight glow of the car’s interior light. “Did you invite someone to follow us tonight?”
I gasp in outrage. “Of course not. How can you even ask that?”
“You haven’t answered the question,” he says, his jaw rigid.
“I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. I could have taken a selfie, if that’s what I was planning.”
From the look on his face, he doesn’t like my answer.
He pulls back. “If my nonna wants to stick to our schedule, I will. And if you want me to play along with whatever bullshit story they come up with, fine. But you don’t get to decide what I need, Bianca. You barely fucking know me.”
With that, he climbs out of the car, using his long legs to quickly make it to and through the front door.
We don’t lock the house at night. We’ve never had to here in Apple Ridge, but maybe that’s something else that will change. A slight feeling of misgiving quakes through me at the thought.
Maybe Giovanni’s right and I’m being foolish. Selfish, even. But there’s one thing he’s wrong about: I know him better than he thinks. I can tell he needs to reclaim what he built.
I’ve been a nurse long enough to anticipate people’s needs even when they’re never spoken out loud or acknowledged—and I see his, clear as day.
As I watch him, I lift my fingers to my lips, tracing them. I can’t tell whether I’m trying to erase the feeling of his lips or hoping to seal it in.