Chapter Eight #2
Nate straightens off the mirrored wall at my question.
He's sweating as well, having done weights while I was on the treadmill.
He's ditched his shirt a while back, and he's dressed only in his sweatpants.
It's one of the few times I see him bare-chested, and honestly, it's hard to look his direction when he's like this.
He's always beautiful, but he's even more beautiful like this, and—
Gulp.
When he's this close, it's so much harder to concentrate.
“You're doing all of this...because it's my idea of the perfect bride.”
Riiiight.
“And you want to be that for me.”
He slowly leans forward, one hand bracing on the rail of the treadmill, and my heart races as he gently nips my lip.
“Don't you?”
I do. Of course I do. But—
“What about you?” I ask. “Don't you want to be my perfect husband?”
“I already am.”
Oh, this man's confidence...
It's honestly at a whole different level.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because of this.”
I don't have the chance to ask him what he means, with Nate neatly executing some kind of athletic maneuver that has him on the treadmill, facing me—
“Nate?” I really have a bad feeling about this all of a sudden. I feel like he's about to do something cra—aaaah!
The belt jolts forward, and I stumble with a gasp, his arm going around my waist before I could grab the rail. I'm running towards him, he's running backwards, and yet he still manages to grab a fistful of my hair and then we're kissing!
On the treadmill!
When he hits the Pause button, I know in my mind only a few seconds have passed, but they were honestly the craziest seconds of my life, and so all I can do is gape at him while my heart pounds against my chest and my lips continue to tingle.
“You can ask me whatever you want once we're married,” Nate says lazily. “But for now...”
The treadmill's running again, and he's kissing me again, and—
“Junebug?”
I come back into my body all at once.
The restaurant. The candle. Elliot across the table. The chicken, mostly untouched.
And I want to die because I can't believe how shameless I am, to remember that of all things about my soon-to-be-ex-husband while I'm on a date with another man.
“I'm s-so sorry, but will you excuse me?” I'm already stumbling to my feet, unable to meet Elliot's gaze, my napkin slipping off my lap and onto the chair behind me. “I just...I just need to go to the ladies'.”
I'm walking before he can stand up to be polite about it. Past the bar. Past the host stand. The bathroom's down a hallway behind a velvet curtain at the back, and I'm almost to the curtain when—
Rollo.
I know I'm not mistaken. It's him in a dark suit, seated in a corner table, drinking coffee. I know I can't be wrong...just like I know I'd never have spotted him if he didn't want to be spotted.
He rises to his feet when he sees me walking toward him, pulls out the chair across from his, and waits.
I sit.
He sits.
“Why are you here?” I whisper.
“Signore's orders, Mrs. Ses—”
“Don't call me that,” I hiss under my breath.
“My apologies, signora.” His tone is respectful, but why do I have a feeling that he doesn't really mean it? And come to think of it, he looks like someone who came from the same world as Nicolo did, and so isn't it kinda fishy—
Hmm.
I look at him suspiciously. “I'm not supposed to see you now, am I?”
“No, signora.”
Knew it!
“But you let me see you...because you wanted me to see you. Didn't you?”
He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't deny anything either, so I'll take that as a yes. But even so. There's still something I don't understand—
“What exactly are his orders?”
“He asked me to watch over you.”
The words catch me off guard, and I'm just blurting out the first thing that comes to my mind.
“Is he still in danger?”
Because I still remember what he told me three days ago, and who knows if his father has another enemy who wants him dead, and—
“Would you care if it were so, signora?”
“I—I—” Why is this man so good at catching me unawares? “No,” I finally manage to say. “I d-don't care. At all.”
I say it as insistently as I can, but why do I feel like I'm not fooling anyone?
“Signore asked me to report back to him,” Rollo says after a moment. “He wants me to make sure Mr. Wheeler doesn't do anything...improper.”
Oh, that's rich. That's so, so rich coming from the man who was in bed with another woman on our wedding night and then disappeared on me after eighteen years.
“I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're wasting your time. Elliot isn't the type to do something improper.”
Unlike your boss.
I don't actually say this out loud, but the way Rollo's eyes suddenly twinkle makes me think he's heard it nonetheless.
Oops.
I clear my throat and shift in my chair, smoothing the silk over my knee—and that's when I catch it. Rollo's eyes are no longer twinkling. They've dropped, just for a moment, to the green silk at my hip, and his forehead has done a very small thing that's almost, but not quite, a frown.
I freeze.
I don't move.
I don't move because Rollo is too polite to comment on a lady's dress and we both know it, but a man like Rollo doesn't have to comment. A man like Rollo just has to look, and the look is the comment, and the comment is—
Oh, no.
It's a pretty dress.
That's why I'm wearing it. Because it's pretty. Because the occasion called for something pretty, and it's the only pretty thing I own, and that has nothing, nothing, to do with who paid for it eighteen years ago, and Rollo doesn't know that, Rollo can't know that, Rollo—
Rollo has lifted his eyes back to my face. He's waiting. Politely.
I make myself stop smoothing the silk over my knee.
I clear my throat again. “So, anyway, that's that, and—”
“It's not the only thing I was asked to report, signora.”
“Oh?”
“He also asked that I watch very closely and tell him if I believe in two things.”
I have a feeling I should just let this one go, but because anything that has to do with Nicolo Sestini is designed to make me silly and foolish—
“What two things?” I hear myself ask.
“He wants me to determine if Mr. Wheeler is capable of taking care of you—”
I guess?
“And making you happy.”
“Yes.” I don't even hesitate. “He is.”
I just find myself lying through my teeth.
Rollo doesn't move.
“Are you certain about that, Mrs. Sesti—”
I cut him off with a shake of my head. “Will you please stop calling me that?”
“It's the truth, ma'am.”
“Not for me.”
“But it is for him, signora.”
Rollo's voice turns grave as he says this.
“And that's why I am asking you now. Because I do not want to risk making a mistake. Do you really mean it, signora, when you say you believe you'll be happy with him again?”