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“Guilt is a weird excuse to not pursue her if that’s what you want to do.”
“It’s complicated,” I insisted.
“Because you’d have to tell her that the bullets were meant for you. Definitively.”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
“Alright. That’s enough of my unsolicited advice,” he said, shrugging. “I will call Aurelio. Don’t worry too much bout August. Aurelio will keep me updated. And I, in turn, will keep you in the loop.”
“Thanks, Luca,” I said, standing, and clamping a hand on his shoulder before making my way out.
Maybe I should have been worrying about my brother as I drove myself home. Getting into fuck-knew what over a woman he barely even knew.
But then again, who the fuck was I to judge?
Since who I was thinking and even obsessing over on the way home was a woman that I barely knew.
One that I knew I needed to take a little break from if I was going to be able to keep my damn hands to myself.
CHAPTER TEN
Savannah
There was no accounting for the crushing sort of disappointment I felt the next day when I was in the middle of brewing the fifth pot of the day—which was a big deal because it was only after nine in the morning, and that was usually how much we went through all day—and a black SUV pulled into the lot with a name to a security company on the side.
No Nino.
Just a handsome man who sat with me and my mom during a lull and discussed the cameras that were going to be installed.
Apparently, Nino had found time to stop by this man’s office to talk about The Brunch Bar, what had happened, and how much security he was paying for.
Which, it seemed, was the best they had to offer.
When I’d tried to object, on the grounds of money, even if I didn’t say that, the man had given me a kind, indulgent kind of smile, and assured me that he was instructed to give me the ‘best of the best.’
Me.
Not us.
Me.
I wasn’t sure if he’d just said that because he was speaking to me, or if that was what Nino had said. I found it mattered way more than it should have, too. That it was personal. About me. About, maybe, his feelings for me.
“Are you okay, my lovely?” my mother asked when I moved into the kitchen toward the end of the day for us, and plopped down on a chair, watching her put batter into muffin tins. She wouldn’t bake them until morning, but she seemed to be trying to get more prep work done in the lulls of the afternoons these days. Likely because she couldn’t count on as much of my help as usual.
A stab of guilt—useless, but undeniable—seared through me, knowing I was barely going at a third of my full capacity, but also knowing it would do neither of us any good if I overdid it, hurt myself worse, and would guarantee a longer recovery time.
“Yeah. I guess I’m just not used to it being so busy,” I told her, fiddling with a failed puff pastry my mother had attempted.Temperamental things, puff pastriesas she would say. “It’s good, but tiring.”
“And you’re sure this has nothing to do with the fact that this is the first day in several days that you have not seen a certain someone?” she asked, shooting a look over her shoulder at me.
Moms.
They knew everything, it seemed.
“Okay, my sweet girl,” she said, wiping her hands on a rag, then going toward her kettle, and pouring us some tea.
She brought them over with a plate of soft double chocolate chunk cookies that weren’t on our menu, so I figured it was a treat she’d prepared for me. They were the ‘pick-me-up’ treat she always made for me when I was feeling low.
