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When I realized just how much their lives were going to change for the better…my knees almost went out. I knew Lidia was good people the second I met her. She would be wonderful to the boys.
Big opened the door to a car I’d never seen before. A Bugatti with the top down. I had to ask what the model was. W16 Mistral.
“Another gift from the Fausti family?”
He grinned. “A gift for my wife, for our drives.”
I slid inside, knowing this would be our thing. Rides when the world felt too small so we could get lost in the big sky, or in times of celebration when we just wanted to absorb life and be together.
There was just one thing I wanted to add to our ritual.
“It’s pink.” Big held the cup up, examining the strawberries floating around in the liquid like they were suspect.
“I should warn you now…you’ll get addicted. And if not, more for me.” I took a long drink, hoping it would make it the entire drive. That was why I always got light ice.
He took a drink. “All right.” He took another. “All right. I can see how this could be worth a trip to the slammer.”
A grin I couldn’t dislodge came to my face. He kept drinking it. I wasn’t sure if he would, or if he would have a hard time admitting he liked the taste of it because it was pink. It took Vinny and Sam a while to admit it. We’d busted them in the office with them. Then Vinny said he didn’t give a shit, men enjoyed strawberries too, and that was that.
By the time we got to Red Rock Canyon, I had the radio playing low, and the sun was just starting to set in the sky, the stars flowing out above us after daylight sank into its bed.
We both gazed up for a while before he took my hand. “You’re fucking cold.” He tucked my hand underneath his shirt, and the warmth from his chiseled stomach enveloped my skin.
“Not really,” I whispered. “It’s just from the drink.”
He looked into my eyes. “I can’t promise to always have this much time, Aphrodite, but I always want you close. At the house or at the casino.”
I nodded. “I want that too.”
He pulled an envelope from between the seats and handed it to me. “Open it.”
A picture of Greece. My eyes met his.
“A place we’ve never been together, but somehow we have.”
His comment wouldn’t have made sense if he hadn’t told me I took him home, to the only place he’d ever found peace. But it made complete sense, and my heart skipped to a funny beat.
A part of me had been with him before he even knew it.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his. “What about the Italian Riviera? We’ve never been together, but somehow, we have.”
A part of him had been with me before I even knew it.
It was the reason why I was so angry at the thought of being with him. Because someplace deep inside, I knew who he was to me—the man who’d hold my heart—and it scared me. Even when I’d heard his name, it seemed to awaken something inside of me, a voice that blamed him for my entire life being the way it was.
It was the fear talking.
The fear of getting burned again, because not much of my heart wasn’t damaged.
Tullio Bigatti wasn’t the bane of my existence. He was the heart of it, and I knew he was the reason mine was still intact. I’d saved it for him.
“I love you the sky big,” I whispered.
“That moment in Paradiso big?”
I grinned. “Even bigger.”
He told me he loved me big too and kissed me underneath the stars.
