Chapter 11 Tell Me Everything
TELL ME EVERYTHING
CALISTA
We eat spezzatino di manzo, made the Sicilian way.
It’s a simple beef stew, and my favorite meal, and this one tastes just like the one my mother used to make.
He serves the stew in big bowls, with thick slices of ciabatta.
“You made this?” I ask.
We’re sitting at the kitchen island. He doesn’t have a dining table.
“No. I ordered it.”
“From a restaurant?”
“We have a chef in the building.”
Right!
“I told them to make it the Sicilian way,” he adds. “Do you like it?”
He sounds hesitant, and I smile at that. “Best I’ve had since my mama’s.”
He looks pleased.
As I eat, I can feel him watching me. Not like before—this isn’t about surveillance, after all; I’m sitting right next to him.
It’s as if he’s keeping me grounded.
Or maybe holding himself back?
My migraine has been relegated deep inside. I can feel a slight throb, but I know now that it won’t turn into a full-blown attack.
After we’re done eating, he asks if I’d like coffee.
“An espresso.”
He doesn’t let me help clean up. He asks me to stay put.
He rinses the dishes efficiently, and stacks them in the dishwasher.
He makes me a single espresso and a double for him.
Most people say coffee keeps them up. Not me. Coffee is how you end a meal. It’s the Italian way.
We have coffee in the living room, where there’s a couch and a coffee table. And that’s pretty much it. No television. No paintings on the walls, but then with these windows, you don’t need anything; the city is living art.
“Who are you?” I blurt out.
He smiles at me. “Lucian Maddox.”
I frown. The name seems familiar.
“What do you do?”
He shrugs. “I work for Maddox Media.”
It clicks. Gideon Maddox, CEO. Adrian Maddox, finance whiz. And…Lucian?
He adds, as if reading my mind. “I run a sports company.”
“And protect damsels in distress in your free time?” I muse.
“Only one,” he replies huskily, his eyes on me like he’s memorizing my face, each slope, each curve…me.
I take a deep breath. He’s saved me twice now. He needs to know my truth.
“Do you know what it’s like to build a life that’s not yours and try to live inside it anyway?”
He doesn’t respond. Anyway, it’s a rhetorical question. “My parents were murdered by my uncle.”
He sits still, his focus entirely on me. I’ve never had such an avid audience. I’ve never told anyone my story, either. Though I have a suspicion he already knows, like he knows what makeup I use and what prescription pills I take.
“My grandfather…well…he was the Mafia.”
He doesn’t show any emotion, and it confirms my suspicions that my identity is not news to him.
I set the small espresso cup on the coffee table. I settle back on the sofa, my feet on top of soft leather.
“I was the only girl in a family of men who thought love was control.”
My feet are cold, and I pull the cashmere pants over them.
Lucian rises and leaves. He comes back with a cashmere blanket. He puts it on my legs and tucks my feet in like I’m a child.
“Go on,” he urges.
“Why do I feel that you already know what I’m about to tell you?”
“Tell me anyway.”
So, I do. I tell him how Luigi arranged my engagement to Remo without asking me.
“I said no. Luigi hit me.”
Lucian’s jaw tightens, but he says nothing. I keep going.
“Beat me up. Remo watched. My grandfather…that’s when he knew I needed to get away. I moved to New York. I was eighteen. Changed my name. Got a degree. Took over the shelter.”
I play with the fringe of the heather gray blanket he put over me. It matches my clothes, which he bought. It’s how he lives, I think, black and white, and all the shades in between.
“Giuseppe…my grandfather, recently died. Remo is consolidating. He wants me dead so that the man I marry, or my children, can never claim his throne.” I groan. “Like I’d want it. I ran away from it.”
I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “Anyway…that’s all.”
Silence falls. Stretches. It’s good. Healing.
No one has ever taken care of me like this—physically, emotionally.
He fed me, bathed me, and saved me. He has no reason to do any of this, except maybe he was hired to do it, which makes no sense since he’s a corporate type.
But he doesn’t move like a suit. He seems more like someone from my old world.
“What do you want to do?” he asks, like no matter what I demand, it will be mine.
It’s intoxicating, this permission he’s giving me.
“I want to stop running,” I whisper.
He extends his hand and touches mine, light and tentative, like he’s asking for permission, like he doesn’t know how to because he’s used to simply taking what he wants.
I turn my hand.
We touch palm to palm.
Our fingers interlace. It’s intimate. Sensual.
“Then stop running.”
“What if I fall?”
I can’t believe I’m saying what I am saying. I can’t believe I’m trusting this man I don’t know.
“I won’t let you,” he insists.
Then things move fast. He grabs my hand and hauls me to him.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he whispers.
He slams his mouth against mine. Our first kiss. It’s not soft, not tentative.
It’s heat and hunger and a kind of ache I didn’t know I was holding in my chest until now.
I respond with abandon.
It’s wrong. It’s not smart. It’s going to end up hurting me in ways that won’t be easy to heal from.
I don’t care. I feel alive. I want to feel alive.
When we pull apart, he keeps me close, on his lap. I like it.
“You didn’t tell me anything about yourself,” I murmur.
He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. His eyes flicker, shadowed. “I know.”
I want to ask him to explain himself, but I don’t. I want peace. I want quiet. I want Lucian.
If I insist and he tells me, a part of me knows that whatever he’s hiding, when revealed, is going to break this fragile connection between us.