Page 48 of One Filthy Kiss

I park the conversation until the chihuahua has gone home, and Amber is in bed. Then, I grab two glasses and a bottle of wine from the rack, take Meggie’s hand, and go up to the rooftop.

It’s another warm clammy evening. Summer is rapidly approaching, and people will relocate from the Upper East Side to the Hamptons, while everyone else stays behind and simmers their way through July and August.

It has been a few years since I’ve considered spending summer in Sicily, but my recent visit has dislodged a ball of homesickness somewhere deep inside my chest. I can still feel the dry heat on my face. I can smell the lemons and olives and sea. Perhaps Meggie and Amber would be safer there with people like Emiliano looking out for them.

Then I remember my encounter with Bianca, and Enzo’s surprise visit to Meggie, and the homesickness shrinks a little. I’m not sure if a summer spent with my siblings will do any of us any good.

I pop the cork from the wine bottle and pour, handing a glass to Meggie.

She looks comfortable up here, like this is where she belongs, and I don’t know how or when this transition took place. When I first saw her on the film set, something ignited inside me. Attraction, of course. But it was more than that. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her; it was like a magnetic pull, sucking me in.

Irresistible.

There was an innocence to her beauty, a naivety, an unopened rosebud basking in the sunshine. And now… Now, she is no longer innocent, thanks to me. Now her beauty carries the promise of carnal pleasure, of the fierce creature that exists beneath the gentle exterior.

She is both a wolf and a flower.

And she recognizes neither in herself.

“Gio, I’m sorry about what happened earlier.”

I sip my wine. “You have no reason to be sorry.”

“I do.” She slumps back against the couch and stares at the violet sky. “If I hadn’t let her go out with Ric, she would never have seen Orion, and well…” She chews her bottom lip. “Don’t be too hard on Ric. It wasn’t his fault.”

“I trusted him with your safety. Both of you.”

“And we are both safe,” she says softly.

“We need to talk, Meggie.”

She places her untouched glass of wine on the low table and curls her legs beneath her to give me her full attention. “Gio, I know about Elisabetta. I’m so sorry. What happened to her and your parents… You must’ve been heartbroken.”

She covers my hand gently with her own, and for the first time since the accident, I consider letting it go.

Fifteen years ago, I allowed it to consume me. It was the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the morning, and the last thing I thought about before I slept. Investigating who killed my fiancée, and my parents, was easier than dealing with the pain, but now… Now, I have other demands on my time and my energy.

I have Meggie and Amber, and I will not allow anything bad to happen to them.

Perhaps it is in my nature to be obsessive, but if so, then I will use that obsession to protect them. I will use it to keep them safe. I will use it to make sure that they are loved.

“It was hard to come to terms with.” I suck in a deep breath, missing the Sicilian air. “She was so young. So full of life.”

Meggie chews her bottom lip to stop herself from prying further.

“I saw her parents while I was in Sicily.”

“H-her parents?” Faint lines appear between her eyes, and I lean in and kiss them, smoothing them away.

“I have known them my whole life, fiore. It would be wrong of me to avoid them, no matter how painful it might be.”

She nods.

“Elisabetta’s father is a powerful man.” I hold her gaze.

She has no idea what I do or who I really am, and I wonder if she would still be sitting here if she did.

“I showed him a picture of Amber’s father.”