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His eyes flash and I can practically feel the swift slap of his leather-gloved hand against my ass. A sick part of me wants to shove back against him simply because I know I’ll run up against that sort of punishment eventually. Something wrong inside me wants to push him and push him and push him until he snaps.
But not while he’s so hurt. Not like this.
“Fine,” I say. “But only because I’m worried about you and not because I’m scared you’re going to punish me.” I’m no longer on the verge of sobbing and I pin him with a defiant look. “I am not afraid of you, Elio Titone.”
“Do you think you should be, Deirdre Titone?”
Confusion at his words, intensified by the unexpected addition of Titone to my name, jars me, makes me pause. I feel like there’s a trap inside that question, but I can’t tell what it is. Elio’s face gives nothing away.
“I… I don’t know.”
Silence settles, so thick it blunts the sound of the shower hitting the tile. And us.
We stare at each other, so close that we would touch if either one of us moved even slightly. But we don’t.
“Go,” Elio finally urges me softly.
Shaken by my desire to disobey and a sharp need to stay with him, I rise to my feet and go just like he told me to. But I don’t go far. I’m not about to leave him when he’s as hurt as he is.
After I’ve stripped out of my soaked clothes and dressed in dry ones, I walk back into Elio’s bedroom and I don’t stop until I’ve reached the doorway the leads to the bathroom.
He’s out of the shower now, standing at the sink with a white towel around his hips, running an electric toothbrush along his teeth. He’s got a new pair of gloves on already – at least, there’s one on his left hand. The right hand may as well be gloved with the thick black splint covering up so much of it. The bandaging at his shoulder is gone now. I can see the deep purple mark signifying the place Dr Morelli yanked out the bullet, the place where he was stitched up on my birthday. Yet another scar to add to all the others. But that one he got for me, and the sadness of that fact crushes down on me so hard that for a moment, I can’t breathe.
Elio doesn’t seem to notice me watching him from the doorway. The mirror is so fogged up that neither of our faces are reflected back for him to see.
He’s leaning heavily on his splinted hand at the counter, but otherwise he seems mostly alright, if you can call it that, for the moment. I’m relieved that no matter what happens – even if he were about to pass out right now – I’d be able to get to him in an instant. It’s so darkly ironic that I don’t know whether to smile or to scream, but I can’t help but be grateful, for the very first time, that there are no doors left in here to lock.
Chapter 18
Deirdre
I’m so used to spending time alone in this house that I expect having Elio here all day is going to be awkward, even suffocating, except it isn’t. It’s oddly nice to have him here, even though we aren’t speaking or really doing anything together at the moment. He’s currently dressed in a soft pair of grey sweatpants, shirtless, propped up against a mountain of pillows I insisted on shoving behind him. I’m sitting on his bed, at the foot of it facing him, my laptop balanced on my legs that are crossed at the ankles.
I didn’t start out on his bed. I actually started out in my own room, returning to the homework I’d been working on earlier, when I heard Elio make a hissing sound of pain. I rushed back in to find him breathing heavily, trying to get into a comfortable position. Clucking at him like a mother hen, I hurried and hovered, adjusting cushions, tugging blankets, positioning water within reach until I was satisfied that he was as comfortable as possible.
But when I’d gone back to my room, I hadn’t been able to focus on the words on my screen at all. My mind kept reaching right on out of my head, reaching for Elio, and I found myself leaning back in my chair to stare through the doorway so often that I eventually just gave up.
So here I am. Doing my homework in Elio Titone’s bed.
Luckily, I’m not the only one working. If I had to sit here with Elio staring at me the whole time I’m pretty sure I’d get even less done than I currently am.
But apparently Elio hates lying around doing nothing. About thirty seconds after I got him settled, I heard him call Curse on his phone, asking for some contract or other.
He’s got the contract with him now, held in his gloved left hand while his right hand rests in his lap. I thought Elio would be the one watching me, but it’s actually the opposite. My eyes keep rising from my screen to look at him. He’s so totally absorbed in what he’s doing, his dark eyes keen with competence as they move in smooth, quick lines across the papers. I’ve never really seen this side of him, this utterly cool and controlled tycoon of business. I wonder if he looked like this – so confidently controlled, silent with shark-like purpose – when he signed the papers with my father.
“Whatchya thinking about, Songbird?”
I flinch, surprised that he can tell that I’m looking at him when he’s so focused on reading the papers in front of him. I was watching his eyes the whole time – they didn’t halt for a fucking second.
But they flick up to mine now.
A small smile touches my lips.
“Last time you asked me that, you paid six figures to get an answer.”
He sets down his papers in his lap and regards me coolly.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re one hell of a negotiator?” he asks.
