7. Enzo #2
“I spent my whole life being good. Being quiet. Being the daughter who does what she’s told and doesn’t make problems.” She’s sitting up straighter now, her voice gaining strength.
“And where did it get me? Crying in a stranger’s lobby with nothing.
No money. No home. No one who cares what happens to me. ”
“So stop being good.”
She looks at me sharply.
“I mean it,” I say. “You want revenge? Take it. Make them suffer.”
“I don’t know how. I don’t have any power. No money. No connections. Nothing that matters.”
She goes quiet. I watch her think about it, watch something shift behind her eyes. She’s looking at me differently now. Calculating.
“You,” she says slowly. “You have all those things. And you hate your family.”
“You can use me.”
The words come out before she can finish the thought. She blinks, startled.
“What?”
“Whatever you need. However you want.” I hold her gaze. “I’m in.”
“I didn’t even ask yet.”
“You were about to. I just saved you the trouble.”
She stares at me. The tears have stopped. Her eyes are bright now, fierce. “But I don’t even know what I’d need you for yet.”
I move before I let myself think about it, leaning in, one hand braced on the back of the couch beside her head, the other on the cushion by her hip, until she’s caged between my arms and there’s nowhere for her to look but at me.
“Don’t you?” I say.
She goes still. I watch it move across her face, the slow understanding of what I’m offering, and then the disbelief that I’d offer it.
“You mean…” Her voice drops. “Us. As a couple.”
“As far as anyone else is concerned, yes.” I don’t move back. “Picture it. Rafael’s wife, gone within the week, on the arm of the brother he’s spent his whole life resenting. My father has a stroke at the dinner table. Yours can’t decide which of us he wants to murder first.”
“And Viviana.” Her breath catches. “She always wanted you. Before you left. She used to go on about how unfair it was you got out before she could get her hands on you.”
“Did she?” I let myself smile. “Then picture her face when she finds out you got there first.”
Something kindles behind her eyes, fierce and bright. “It’s a good plan.”
“It’s a vicious plan. That’s why it’ll work.”
“Why?” she whispers. “You barely know me. Why would you do this?”
“I know you better than you think.”
“From what? A few parties?”
“From watching you.” The words are out before I think better of it, but I don’t take them back. “I’ve been watching you for years, Ana. Since before Rafael. Since before any of this.”
She goes very still.
“What does that mean?”
I should deflect. Keep this simple. Keep it to the deal we just made and nothing more.
But she’s looking at me with those brown eyes, and I’m so tired of pretending.
“It means I noticed you when no one else did. At those functions, you’d stand in the corner and watch everyone like you were trying to understand something no one else could see.
” I hold her gaze. “I wanted to talk to you back then. But I was angry, about to burn my whole life down, and you deserved better than getting caught in that fire.”
“Enzo…”
“And when I watched you walk down that aisle to marry my brother, I wanted to stop it. Wanted to pull you out of there, tell you that you didn’t have to do this. That there had to be another way.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t think you’d let me. Because I told myself it wasn’t my place.” I feel something crack open in my chest, something I’ve kept locked away for a long time. “I’ve regretted it ever since.”
The air between us feels thick. Heavy. She’s looking at me like she’s seeing me for the first time.
“You noticed me,” she says softly. “I thought I was invisible.”
“You were never invisible. Not to me.”
Neither of us says anything. I can hear her breathing, can see the pulse jumping in her throat.
“This arrangement,” I say. “This revenge. It has to look real. People need to believe we’re together.”
“I know.”
“That means being seen together. Photographed. Touching each other like we mean it.”
“I know.”
“You okay with that?”
She doesn’t answer right away. I watch her think about it, watch her weigh what I’m asking against everything she’s been through today.
“Yes,” she says finally. “I’m okay with it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
We’re closer now than we were a moment ago. I don’t remember moving. Maybe she moved. Maybe we both did. But suddenly there’s barely a foot of space between us, and I can feel the heat coming off her skin.
I reach out and touch her face. Just my fingertips against her cheek, light as air. She shivers but doesn’t pull away.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes.”
I trace the line of her jaw. Down to her chin. Her lips part slightly, and I want to kiss her so badly it hurts.
“And this?”
“Yes.”
I slide my hand around to cup the back of her neck. She makes a soft sound, almost a sigh, and her eyes flutter closed.
“Ana. Look at me.”
Her eyes open. Dark now, the pupils blown wide.
I lean in slow, giving her time to change her mind. She doesn’t. She tilts her face up to meet me.
The first touch of her lips is soft. Tentative. Testing.
Then she makes this sound. This quiet, desperate sound, like something breaking free. And something in me snaps.
I pull her closer, one hand on her waist, one still tangled in her hair. She grabs the front of my shirt like she needs an anchor, like she’ll fly apart if she lets go. The kiss deepens, turns hungry. She tastes like salt from her tears and something sweeter underneath.
“Open your mouth,” I murmur against her lips.
She does. My tongue slides against hers and she moans, and I’m losing my grip on every rational thought I’ve ever had.
I pull her into my lap without thinking about it. She gasps but doesn’t stop kissing me, her hands fisting in my shirt, her body pressing against mine. I can feel her everywhere. The heat of her. The weight of her. The way she’s trembling, or maybe I’m trembling, or maybe we both are.
I stand up with her in my arms, her legs wrapping around my waist automatically. She’s light. She fits against me like she was made for this.
I start walking. Toward the hallway. Toward my bedroom.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her lips swollen, her eyes dazed.
“Enzo…”
“Tell me to stop.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. “If you want me to stop, tell me now.”
She doesn’t tell me to stop.
Instead she pulls me back down to her mouth and kisses me harder.
I make it to the bedroom door. Push it open with my shoulder. The bed is right there, waiting.
But something makes me hesitate.
She just found out her husband was cheating on her. She’s been crying for hours. She’s vulnerable and hurting and looking for something to make the pain stop.
Is this what she actually wants? Or is this just a reaction? A way to feel something other than betrayed?
“Ana.” I pull back, breathing hard. “Are you sure about this?”
She looks at me. Really looks. And I see her thinking about it, weighing it the way she weighed the revenge plot earlier.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know if I’m sure about anything right now.”
Her legs are still wrapped around my waist. Her hands are still fisted in my shirt.
“I know I want this,” she says softly. “I know I want you.”
She reaches past me and pushes the bedroom door open wider.