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“Which moment?”
“When our eyes met.”
Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that. Was he trying to say we met in heaven? That was…heavy, and so romantic. He was laying the Italian charm on thick again. I needed to invest in an evil-eye amulet to keep him from consuming me. My heart knew not falling for him was going to be a challenge.
He wasn’t the kind of man a woman met every day. He was absurdly rich, powerful, good-looking, and had a successful run as one of the most famous racers in the world. Not to mention the Fausti family sent him gifts—a family that was considered ruthless royalty in Italy.
He wasn’t in a league—he was the league.
The tepid heat coming from him was making my guard feel relaxed, and I had to turn the conversation before I truly let it down. “You’re just talking sweet to me because you’re dodging the question.”
“Nothing sweet about me, Aphrodite. I speak the truth, whether it cuts or not.”
“Good. I’d rather a sharp knife of truth than a dull one of lies. Cuts to the quick faster. All that unnecessary pain—what’s the point?”
“Is that what happened to you?” He glanced at me before he turned his eyes back to the road. “A lot of unnecessary pain?”
“And suffering.” I twirled the strap of my bag around my fingers, tightening it some. “We’re not talking about me, though. We’re supposed to be talking about you.”
“You’re being driven by a world-famous racer.” He chuckled at that. It was kind of self-depreciating, but in a Big way. “Enjoy the ride, Aphrodite.”
Outside of the city limits, he hit the gas, and the wind whipped so hard I thought it was going to rip my bun out. But the weather felt like him—warm—and it felt good to be traveling away from the city and along Route 613.
About ten minutes in, Big slowed up some. I raised my brows at him.
“Animals cross.”
I grinned as I looked away from him and at the canyons in the distance. It was dark—almost pitch black—but it was almost like I could make out their forms from some sort of night magic. Or maybe it was just my memory filling in the blanks.
Around twenty minutes away from Vegas, Big pulled off the interstate and parked in a viewing area.
“Wow.” The word just slipped from my lips. “This makes you feel like you’re on another planet instead of being in Vegas.” I lifted my hand and twirled it around, like I could stir the pot of stars above me. There were so many of them, and they seemed almost liquid, like they were sparking from the bottom of a huge pot above. Floating in a sea of soup somewhere. The gigantic ring on my left finger seemed to fit with them, in terms of how bright. “I forget sometimes that Red Rock Canyon exists right outside of all the fake lights.”
“My mom used to say this was the real Paradiso.”
My eyes slowly left the stars and fell on him. He was looking at me.
“Why?” I whispered. “Because you don’t need to buy a ticket to get in?”
He studied me for a second, like he didn’t expect me to say that, and nodded. “The arrangement with Abree was just that. An arrangement. Rocco is married to her sister, Rosaria, and he thought we’d be a good match. His brother, Dario, had something with her for a while, and when that fell through, he introduced us.” He looked forward.
“You can’t just leave me hanging like that, Big.”
“Mr. Big.”
I grinned at his profile. “Mr. Big.”
“Better.” He squeezed the steering wheel, the tendons in his arms straining, making his veins seem more pronounced. Even his forearms were beautiful. “Eleni Bigatti’s death put life into perspective.”
His mom.
“That’s why you didn’t go forward with the arrangement?”
He nodded, turned his head up, his eyes reflecting the stars.
I took a deep breath and sighed it out. That was a vague answer to what seemed like a more complicated issue, but it wasn’t my place to pry. I was already starting to relax around him. I didn’t need to start feeling sorry for him and start telling him my sappy life story. I only needed to know what I was up against when it came to the Italian beauty—a memory that had trapped him? Or a memory that breezed in and out whenever something triggered it?
It wasn’t because I cared if it trapped him, either. Okay. Maybe I cared a little. But I wanted to stay out of that particular trap myself, refusing to get pulled into some kind of relationship issue with another woman.
