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She snaps the notepad shut.
“Put your clothes back on.”
When we reenter the room, Salvatore and the tailor are talking like old friends. Except, there are now two distinct sweat stains darkening the tailor’s underarms, his smile stretched a little too wide at the corners.
Tatiana informs Salvatore it will take a little over a week to produce. I watch, empty, as he cuts her a generous check for the deposit. Farewells and niceties are exchanged as we leave, as if they are all fine friends. As if Salvatore didn’t try to drop that woman right in front of us all.
We step back into the street again, into the bustle of everyday life. The world continues on around us, oblivious. Salvatore has pushed his hair back and fixed his jacket. I am the only one who can’t move on, hyper-focused on the drive of his arm. The powerful roll of his shoulder. The buck of the woman’s body. The way his hair was tossed by the sheer force of the strikes. A part of me finds that raw power undeniably attractive. Seeing it in action, though, I want to stick my fingers down my throat and purge that part of me all over the sidewalk.
“What the hell was that?” I demand, rounding on him, able to speak freely for the first time in fifteen minutes.
“A business deal.”
“Hey, don’t shrug this off!” I step in front of him, making him stop and look at me. I’m trying desperately to make sense of him again. Just like I’ve been doing, shuffling the pieces around, trying to figure out where they fit, what image they’re supposed to make. So much for that glimpse of clarity I thought I’d had last night. “You could have killed that woman.”
“Only if she was trying to swindle us. Since she wasn’t, she was safe. And if she had, I would have killed her for it anyway. All roads lead to Rome.” He walks past me, as if that blasé attitude settles the matter.
I glare at his back and hurt. Maybe my optimism is a helpless thing. Maybe I am like one of those lunatics who buys lions and tigers, who coddle them when they purr and show their belly, living in the pretty delusion that the beast can be tamed. But a wild thing will always be wild, and one day, it will fulfill its nature. It can’t help it.
“You were so determined not to hurt me last night,” I call out. He stops, forced to turn around and face me again. “And now it’s like you don’t care.”
“Making sure you aren’t hurt is exactly what this trip was about, Contessa.”
A siren screams past, echoing the frustration in my head.
“Is that all that’s real to you? Physical protection? That little stunt you just pulled; you think that doesn’t hurt? Why doesn’t that matter to you?”
“Because I have priorities—”
“You really can’t even say that you’re sorry, can you?”
I am puffed up like an angry little bird, but my attitude is nothing compared to Salvatore’s dark glare.
“I won’t apologize for keeping you safe. I’m not sorry. Do you want me to lie to you and pretend that I am? Will that appease you?”
I swallow.
Maybe this is asking a lot of him. For me, empathy comes a little too easily. I take on everyone’s pain like it’s my own, will pick up any old cross and carry it. Maybe I shouldn’t expect Salvatore to be able to do the same, even when it’s my pain. I just don’t see how he can protect me so meticulously with one hand, while still hurting me with the other.
“Of course not,” I say. “But I don’t understand why I’m the only one who has to change to make this work,” I mutter. It doesn’t feel fair. I feel like I’ve given in to him over and over, tried to meet him halfway, played by all his little rules. But that never goes both ways.
For a long moment, Salvatore doesn’t answer. Finally, he shakes his head.
“…I can afford a lot of things, Contessa, but even I can’t afford that.” He reaches out, puts his arm around my shoulders, and shields me from the street as he makes me walk along with him again.
We march back toward the parking garage together. I still feel him, in every single step.
That’s not quite the fun little anecdote it was earlier. Salvatore opens the car door for me, as if he’s a fucking gentleman. I glare at him, the juxtaposition makes me want to tear my hair out, but there’s no heat in his eyes. No anger. He’s simply resolved, as if there was no other way it could have happened.
I brush past him, trying to hold onto the anger that’s rapidly slipping out of my clutches.
In the back of the car, my thoughts snake into circles, devouring themselves. All those pretty feelings from this morning seem bleaker now, my softness for him like an affliction I carry with me.
Another cross.
The city begins to drift past the window again.
He finally speaks up into the silence.
