Page 58 of Entangled

Cara played with the tablecloth as Gian got one of the mini tubs of ice cream from the freezer, and then spoons from the drawer. He pulled a chair out from the table, and set it opposite to Cara, so the two were facing one another.

“Wine would probably be better for this conversation,” Gian said with a smirk, “but since you can’t drink, neither will I, and the ice cream will have to do.”

“It’s that bad for you that you need wine?”

“Whiskey, preferably. Even beer wouldn’t be enough.” Gian shook the ice cream container. “And today, it’s ice cream only.”

“So, why her?”

Gian handed Cara a spoon, and used his own to pull through the top of the ice cream. He stared at the rolled-up treat on the tip of the spoon, considering whether or not he wanted a bite before he spoke. His mouth worked first.

“I met Elena Canali shortly after her twenty-second birthday, at a restaurant, actually. We married when she was twenty-three. Just a random pass by, she was at one table alone, and I was at another with a date, of sorts. I recognized her, but only because we had previous run-ins with her father. Gabriel is a boss of another organization—one not entirely like ours, less controlled, but still Italian-based. Not that it matters.”

“Then get to what does,” Cara urged.

Gian sucked the ice cream off his spoon, then waved it at Cara. “I’m picking out important details. Think, stuff I overlooked, or should have paid more attention to. Things like a boss’s daughter being alone, without any sort of watcher or protection.”

Cara frowned. “All right.”

“She was exceptionally beautiful, and it’s one of the first things someone notices about her, even from afar. I was not an exception to that rule. She kept looking over at me, ignoring the fact I was with a woman at my table, and I caught her staring a few times. It made me curious.”

Cara took a bite of the ice cream, too. “She is beautiful, but cold, too. Even in your wedding pictures, I could see it. It’s strange.”

“It’s not strange if you know her,” Gian murmured. “Back to my story, though. I let my date go early; my mother had set it up, and back then, I didn’t mind playing into Celeste’s meddling from time to time, but nothing was coming from that.”

Gian shrugged. “Anyway, she left, and I asked for the bill. The waiter hadn’t even brought it over before Elena approached me. By the time he did get there, we were already five minutes into a conversation about who was going to run for mayor that year in the city, as the Ford family seemed like loose cannons, which teams had the best shot at the Stanley Cup, and some movie she wanted to see that was coming out.”

“Oh?”

“I offered to take her to see it,” Gian said dryly. “Call that a first date, I guess.”

Cara took a huge scoop of the ice cream. “And then what happened?”

“I mean, you could say we started dating, but it wasn’t like that really, and it was clouded by all sorts of other shit going on.”

“Like what?”

“Elena’s father was in the midst of a street war with a gang, so I had to be careful about my involvement with her seeming … to their side of things and making it appear like the Guzzi family would get involved. Petty street wars aren’t worth much except a growing body count, and the Guzzi family doesn’t get mixed up in those sorts of things unless it’ll benefit us in some way.”

“Details again?” Cara asked.

Gian laughed. “Sort of. I thought I was the one being careful, taking her out occasionally, or having her stay over at my place, but never hers. She didn’t meet my family or friends, and I didn’t meet hers. It turned out, she was the one being careful. Elena didn’t want her father to know about me, or that she was messing around with me—that’s the best way to describe what it was, anyway.”

“But you liked her?”

“Well enough,” Gian answered, choosing his words carefully. “I liked what she gave me, the pieces of her on the surface, because she never went beyond that. I liked how she was attentive to me, only. Especially when we were together, other people didn’t exist to her. She doted on the stupid male side of a man’s brain that feeds off being the man, you know what I mean?”

Cara shrugged, but said nothing.

“Elena works best when she controls a situation, no matter what that situation might entail. And she does that with men, specifically, because she knows she is beautiful, and she knows that using her sexuality and her sweetness is disarming to men who aren’t looking for her manipulations. They are unprepared for the attack, for the gut-punch or the knife in their back when they turn away. She makes you trust her, because why would she want to hurt you, this person she so clearly adores? And then she strikes.”

“Huh,” Cara said quietly, frowning.

“I know, I jumped ahead a bit in explaining that. It’ll make sense in a second.”

“Go for it.”

Gian took a deep breath, and another bite of ice cream, letting the chocolate and peanut-butter flavors wash over his palate before he spoke again. “We had been doing our thing for a few months or so, when she came up pregnant.”