Page 98 of The Man with a Treasure

Some wishes can never come true.

Opening the door, I was a little disappointed when there wasn’t a gun in my face, as it should have been. When I saw Scarlett relaxing on the counter, eating food like the queen I believed her to be, all disappointment faded.

“Angel,” she called out with a bit of a slur. Her stained lips told me why.

Apparently, Sal thought we could skip meat products for her belly and go straight to wine. I couldn’t believe I missed a first of hers.

“Would you like to join my pic-i-nic?” purple teeth gleamed, forcing me to smile.

“Pic-i-nic?” I guess there were two firsts I had missed.

Empty wine bottles explained why the guard left in charge was cooking lasagna instead of doing his job. Sal explained, “I told her about all the picnics she will love back home…”

I had never realized his voice was so comforting.

“…and how we spend much time next to the orchards with Mamma’s cooking…”

Just the mention of his mother’s homecooked meals had me thankful to see Sal and smell a delicious scent wafting from the open oven.

“…Scarlett wanted an example. Seeing how we are hanging on the side of the mountain, with no backyard, I improvised.” He winked at Scarlett. “Who am I to tell her bare feet on the kitchen counter are frowned upon?”

Not me. I tugged on one of her perfect toes. “You can do whatever you want.” I then grabbed Sal into an embrace. Inhaling, I suddenly realized it wasn’t a gun I had wished had greeted me at the front door.

It was my friend.

Forehead to forehead, my arm around his neck, I sighed with relief that he was safe. I whispered, “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have left you so abruptly—”

“Can I taste you like I tasted Sal?”

My ears began to ring…

Tightening the arm that had been holding him, I growled in Italian, “What did she just say?”

Sal’s arms held me. “No. It’s not how it sounds.”

I leaned back. “What happened between you two?”

“You weren’t here. You don’t understand.”

Stunned by my sudden and unexpected jealousy, I released him. “W-What don’t I understand?”

“Are you angry with me again?”

Bewildered. I was epically bewildered as unknown emotions plowed through me, yet still managed to face Scarlett, who was now sitting at the edge of the counter. Her lovely bare, dangling legs only compounded my confusion.

I could barely talk. “No. Never. Not with you.”

Within the last thirty seconds, my body felt like a rocket that desperately needed to explode into the sky with such force that I could be set free. It was beyond my comprehension.

Something Scarlett saw in me had her grand smile fading… being replaced by sad eyes that threatened to bring me crashing down. Yet, she was brave enough to reach out her hand.

Longing for something I hadn’t believed I deserved, I took it and walked toward her as she gently pulled me in. I stood between her thighs, making her match my height for the first time. She wasn’t looking up at me. She was staring into my soul. “Taste,” she whispered.

Her lips… They called to me. I leaned forward—

But clarity suddenly set in. I looked at Sal. “You kissed her?”

I felt like I was caught between two magnets. Equal laws of attraction.