Chapter 10
ELSIE
My pulse thrashes in my throat as Michael’s eyes take me in. My gaze zigzags between the two of them.
“Umm, hi. Again,” I tell her nervously while he straps her in the car seat.
“I know you saw her the day you were sneaking around, Sophia,” Michael firmly informs her.
She pulls her mouth back in a grimace. “Okay, fiiiine.” She rolls her eyes, but it’s a lot cuter when she does it. “I didn’t tell you because you would’ve told her to leave, and she looked really sad, Daddy.”
There’s kindness in her eyes as she peeps back at me, and I wonder where she gets it from.
“Don’t ever lie to me again.” He places a hand over her shoulder. “It’s important we are always truthful with each other, baby. You understand?”
“Okay.” She nods, peering down at her lap with a pout. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He cups her face with both hands.
She looks up at him with a beaming smile, and when he grins back, it melts away every harsh line on his face. My heart…it practically jumps at the sight. Emotions swell within me, raw, aching to bleed onto the floor. Seeing them together makes me miss my family.
My parents and I were close. I’m their only child. I often wonder if Dad’s still working in finance and if Mom is still a plastic surgeon. Do they think about me, even after all these years? Are they still looking for me?
The questions haunt me. I think they always will. But a year isn’t too long in the grand scheme of things. I could find them again.
“So, Daddy…” Sophia hits him with a sassy look. “Who is she, and why is she in your car?”
He clears his throat. And I swear the man looks more uncomfortable now than he ever did killing a man.
“This is Elsie. She’s a friend of mine.” His cold, lethal stare pins me to my seat, the corner of his mouth flickering. “A very good friend.”
“Uh…Daddy?” She snaps her head back. “You don’t have any friends. Except me.”
He holds back a laugh. “Well, now I have another.”
“Uh-huh.” She narrows her brown eyes, from him to me, then back to him.
She slowly eyes me again. “If you’re Daddy’s friend, why were you hiding in his special room?”
She inclines her chin, looking inquisitively at me, like she’s a detective.
I run my fingers over my lips, trying to come up with a plausible answer to this entirely good question. “Your daddy and I were playing hide-and-seek, and I really didn’t want him to catch me.”
“That’s silly.” She giggles. “So, did you catch her, Daddy?”
She gazes softly up at him, but his eyes…they’re on mine.
“Of course I did, princess.” His lips twitch. “I always do.”
My stomach somersaults. Because the way he’s looking at me, his gaze hungrily roving down my body, it’s as though he’s not sure whether he wants to kiss me or take out that gun and use it.
He continues to stare intently, seconds trickling by, a whisper of a ghostly touch slinking past my body, like he’s here beside me, those large masculine hands on me.
His wide fingers brush his hair back, and the spell is broken. “Okay, enough questions. Let’s go home.”
He shuts her door and opens his, getting inside and drifting the car back onto the road.
“Daddy, put on that song I like. Pleeease.”
“Okay, princess.”
He presses a few buttons and Sophia immediately begins singing her little heart out. I look to her with a soft smile because I know that song. I know it well. It was a favorite of mine a long time ago.
Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” plays loudly from the stereo.
And before I know it, I sing too, whispering the words, remembering as the girls and I would play that song over and over, never getting sick of it.
“Oh, my God, turn it up. I love this song!” I tell Jade from the back of her SUV.
But Kayla does it instead from the passenger side.
“Me too,” she says, bopping her head to the beat, her dark golden-brown hair swaying against her shoulders.
“Another week until our road trip,” Jade throws in. “Can you guys believe it? We’ll be by ourselves on the open road. I can’t wait!”
“My mom is already freaking.” Kayla half-turns so she can look at me. “She told me she doesn’t want me to go. She’s worried something could happen to us.”
I wave a hand. “We’ll be fine. We have each other.”
“That’s right.” Jade’s eyes meet mine from the rearview mirror, her blue gaze shimmering with excitement. “We’re going to be just fine.”
But we weren’t fine at all. In one week’s time, we’d be taken from the side of the road by three men who worked for the Bianchis.
They found us at the diner as we drove through a town, and they tampered with Jade’s car. After we left, the vehicle stalled on an empty stretch of road, and that was when they ambushed us.
At first, they pretended to help. Until one of them bashed Kayla on the head and shot me in my calf. I can’t forget the look of horror on Jade’s face as they dragged me away, my skin burning from the friction of the rocky gravel beneath me.
I continue to sing, my eyes closed, the memories of the past assaulting me in waves of sadness. I forget where I am, the music practically bathing me, tingles running down my arms.
Music. That’s another thing I’ve missed.
Tears burn within my eyes, and I fight not to cry.
It’s a simple thing: the melody, the words, the way both come together to form something beautiful.
But when you’ve been without it for so long and hear it again, especially a song you know, a song that gave you the last truly happy day you had, it’s something special entirely.
My God, it literally aches through my soul.
My voice grows, and I can hear nothing else, that song still in my head even after all these years.
But out of nowhere, the music stops, and when my eyes pop open, there’s a set of narrowed eyes staring back at me through the mirror. His eyes. And I realize we’re back at the house, in the garage.
“You sing pretty.” She grins, undoing the straps and jumping out.
“Thank you,” I whisper, seeing him get out at the same time as us.
“You should sing with Daddy.” Her face brightens as she wanders her attention to both of us, sandwiching herself between us. “He sings nice too.”
I dare to look left, finding his intense gaze searing into me.
Sophia grabs both our hands, and together, we walk side by side, like we’re somehow this one big happy family.
But we’re not, and this little girl has no idea. And that’s not fair at all.
“Are you staying for dinner?” she asks, excitement overflowing from the twinkle in her eyes.
I blink.
What do I tell her?
“Um…”
“She’s actually going to be staying with us for a while,” Michael answers.
She hits us both with a curious glance, darting from him to me. “Why? Is she your girlfriend or something?”
“Maybe?” His lips tremble with a smile.
“Oh my God!” Her mouth flies open, and she squeals, practically bouncing with excitement. “Wait until I tell Jackie.”
“Why would your friend care?” He tilts his face curiously.
“Well, yesterday, she told me her mom said you’ll never get married because you’re unavailable.” She pauses, batting her long lashes at him. “What does that even mean?”
“Never mind that.” He shakes his head slowly. “Why is your friend’s mom talking to her about me?”
“She was talking to Susie’s mom, and Susie and Jackie overheard.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I tighten my lips, choking on a laugh from his uncomfortable expression.
His fingers lift to his face, and he runs them across the scar on his cheek, and I’m back to wondering how he got it. He catches me ogling from the corner of his eye and immediately drops his hand, his jaw hardening.
I instantly feel sorry I was staring. It doesn’t bother me, the scar of his.
I haven’t even thought about it. I mean, not that it matters what I think.
We aren’t a couple. He’s nothing more than an inconvenience.
My thoughts shouldn’t matter to him anyway, but I suddenly feel like they do.
That the scar somehow bothers him, and that people looking at it bothers him too.
My heart squeezes, and I find myself feeling sorry for him, which is a stupid thought given who he is and what he’s making me do. But I can’t help this growing need to touch that mark on his face, to run my fingers down the bumps and swells. To show him I don’t find it repulsive, but beautiful.
“So, how did you and Daddy meet? Are you getting married?”
Her eyes shimmer as they stare up, and I can’t help but smile wide. She’s just so sweet.
“Oh my God! Wait until I tell Uncle Gio!” Her excitement grows. “He bet me five dollars you’d never get a girlfriend. Like ever.”
“Five?” Michael jerks back. “You should’ve bet him one hundred. Always aim big.”
“Oh, Daddy,” she giggles. “I’m a kid. I don’t need one hundred dollars.”
We both look at one another, smiling, and there’s this feeling of joy somewhere inside me, like this is real, like this is mine. But it isn’t. It’s his. I’m only visiting.
“Do Grandpa and Grandma know? Ooh, if you get married, can I be the flower girl? And can you get one of those carriages like Cinderella had?” She goes on and on, her widened gaze darting between us.
“Sure,” he promises. “When we get married, we’ll get a carriage, and you can ride with us.”
“Yay!” She drops my hand and hugs her father’s thighs with all her might, her lashes fluttering as she presses her eyes closed.
As I watch them, I can’t help the smile on my face.
And when he lowers his eyes to me, my heart suddenly stills, the smile melting away, replaced with the rapid beating of my pulse.
That intense look…I don’t know how to explain it.
It’s as though he’s telling me things I never asked him, like he sees me somehow.
It’s stupid and it makes no sense, but it’s what he does every time he gazes at me this way.
Long seconds drift, and all we do is stare, caught in the moment of unspeakable feelings.
“Come on, Daddy,” Sophia says. “I’m hungry.”
In a blink, he flings his eyes away, turning the doorknob and letting a dashing Sophia inside.