Chapter 6 #2
The door opens, and a group walks in. The boys loud and laughing. The girls talking and preening. They wear designer clothes and expensive watches and possess the easy confidence of people who’ve never had to worry about money.
And in the middle of them, tall and broad and impossible to ignore, is Cristiano.
Leather jacket unzipped, curls ruffled by the evening wind.
One of the girls in his group is glued to his side, her hand resting possessively on his arm, her smile flirtatious as she leans up to murmur something in his ear.
He doesn’t react to her. Doesn’t smile back. Just keeps walking with that lazy, predatory grace, like a lion who can’t be bothered to notice the gazelles circling him.
Katrina and Priya are deep in a discussion about our English exam, and I think they ask me a question, but I’m too busy watching him move through the restaurant.
That quiet command. The way the crowd seems to part for him without him even trying.
He doesn’t look at me, but he chooses a booth directly in my line of sight and slides in, draping his arm across the back of the seat like he owns the place.
I glare at him, while he’s blissfully unaware of me.
This is the third time in two weeks. People like him and his friends don’t belong in a cheap place like Giodorno’s, and yet here they are again. It’s driving me insane.
Katrina notices the sour expression on my face and glances over. “Again? They must be tired of all their caviar and champagne.”
Priya rolls her eyes and smiles. “Please. Like anyone could get tired of caviar and champagne.”
“Like we know what it even tastes like.”
“I would like to know,” Priya says with a grin, and glances at me. “Is it true what they say about the Montonis? Cristiano’s dad is some kind of crime lord?”
It’s a question I get asked occasionally, and I give her the answer Mom told me is safe. “Mr. Montoni owns casinos and hotels. That’s all I know.”
Lately, I’ve been hearing all kinds of rumors about the Montonis, some that make me sick to my stomach.
Like Mr. Montoni killed his wife. She died in a car accident last year, and I helped Mom pass out sandwiches at the wake.
Adora sobbed through it, but Cristiano was dry-eyed the entire time. So was Mr. Montoni.
Whatever the Montonis are up to, I don’t want to know.
I shift in the booth so I’m angled away from him. “Who cares about Cristiano and his friends? What were you saying about the exam?”
But my hands are clenched under the table, and I can barely focus on our conversation for the rest of the meal.
Forty-five minutes later, we get up from our booth and head for the door.
One of Cristiano’s friends, a big guy with a loud laugh, stumbles backward and crashes into me. My bag goes flying, the contents scattering across the floor.
Two of the girls giggle.
“Shit, sorry,” the guy says vaguely, and continues toward the door.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll get it myself,” I mutter, kneeling down to collect my belongings. I scoop up my phone, my wallet, and a tampon that rolled under a table. My face burns with humiliation, feeling everyone staring at me and nobody helping.
And then there’s a hand in front of me, holding out my lip balm.
I look up.
Cristiano is crouched before me, so close I can smell him, leather and soap and spicy warmth that makes my stomach flip.
This close, I can see the gold flecks in his amber eyes.
The way his jaw is sharper than it was four years ago, shadowed with stubble that makes him look older, dangerous, and unfairly attractive.
“Sorry about that,” he says quietly. “Tony should have helped you.”
His voice is deeper and richer than I remember. The kind of voice that would sound heavenly murmuring in the dark, and I hate myself for noticing.
“It’s fine,” I manage.
“Are you hurt?”
The question catches me off guard. There’s no mockery in it. No hidden agenda I can detect. Just…concern. Like he actually cares whether his friend gave me bruises.
“I’m fine.”
He nods slowly, his eyes still on mine. For a moment, neither of us moves. The restaurant noise fades to a distant hum. It’s just us, crouched on this grimy floor, four years of silence stretching between us.
He hands me the lip balm, and our fingers brush. Heat shoots up my arm. I jerk my hand back, clutching the lip balm like it can protect me from my own feelings.
Intensity flickers in his eyes, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it.
“Take care, Mina,” he says softly.
Then he rises in one fluid motion and walks to his friends without a backward glance, as if the moment meant nothing to him.
I stay kneeling on the floor, my heart pounding, feeling like I’ve just been run over by a train. What the hell was that?
I gather the rest of my things with shaking hands. Katrina and Priya are by the cashier, oblivious to the earthquake that just rocked through me.
Cristiano walked away like it was nothing. Like I’m nothing. Like he didn’t just turn my whole body to static with a split-second touch. Maybe I am nothing to him now, and these four years of silence have been exactly what they seem. Indifference. Moving on.
But if that’s true, why is he always around?