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“My parents devote their lives to enjoyment. My mom still doesn’t think it’s a party without a couple of rows of cocaine. Gianfelice did what he knew we needed.”
Maddie contemplated that, nodding slowly. “At least you got to grow up surrounded by brothers and cousins. It must have been fun?”
“It was noisy,” he grinned. “And rough.” He reached for his shirt, lifting it up a little to reveal his eight pack of an abdomen, pointing to a scar she’d obliquely noticed the other night – but been far too carried away by sensation to comment on. “This I got as an eight year old. Gabe, my brother, pushed me and I fell, landing on a sharp rock.”
She winced.
“Were you badly hurt?” Her fingertips ached to reach across the table and drag over the scar, over his chest, over him.
“It was a deep cut.”
“And was he grounded?” She couldn’t resist teasing.
“We both were. Yaya had told us not to play outside – it was dark and she knew what we were like.”
“She must be a strong woman to have raised so many children. So many boys.”
Something flicked in his expression for a moment. “She had a daughter, as well.”
“Oh. I thought you said ‘brothers’.”
“Mmm. My aunt and grandparents didn’t see eye to eye. She left home at sixteen and was never welcome back.”
“Talk about Shakespearean-level drama,” Maddie said on a small sound of surprise. “Do you speak to her?”
“Unfortunately, my aunt passed away a few years ago.”
“And no one in your family had ever reconnected to her?”
“No.” His expression was tight. There was true regret on his face and she had no way of easing it, because she couldn’t imagine that kind of feud tearing through a family.
“She must have done something terrible, to be exiled from your family like that.”
“She fell in love,” Nico offered, but there was cynicism in his voice, a cynicism she understood, given her latest experience with relationships. “With a man my grandparents didn’t approve of. She married him, and they cut her off.”
Maddie shivered, the brutal coldness of that moving inside of her. Then again, perhaps there was something reassuring about coldness, about the capacity to act in opposition to feeling. Was it insurance against being hurt? A way to inure your heart against whatever life may throw at it? Maddie closed her eyes and imagined that for a moment – imagined being able to be cold and certain, instead of feeling everything so deeply, but it ran contrary to all her usual instincts.
She looked at Nico, an unconscious frown tugging at her lips. Because Nico wasn’t cold either. He had been black and white about what he wanted from her, but in a way that was reassuring, especially after Michael, who’d made deception an art form. But beneath that was a passion and warmth that was burning her in the nicest way possible.
The waiter reappeared and Maddie placed her order in halting Italian.
“Your accent is excellent,” Nico complimented seriously, when they were alone again.
“Thank you.” She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I spend a lot of time eavesdropping in local cafes so it should be.”
His brows lifted. “Writer slash spy?”
“Absolutely. Just waiting to earn my double ‘0’.”
He grinned. “Well, you did a pretty good job of sneaking up on my place the other day.”
“I did not sneak!” Mock indignation coloured her voice. “The place was wide open.” She sipped her sparkling water. “I’m surprised by that, to be honest.”
He was quiet so she elaborated. “I mean, you’re filthy rich, remember?”
At that, he laughed. “What’s your point?”
“That you must be a target for…I don’t know. Kidnapping?”
