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Mine can’t help but be a question.
“More than anything.”
We hear footsteps outside. Crap. Here comes the guilt. I wipe my eyes quickly, and we return to our original positions. I wonder if my lips are red from the kissing or if I’ve got a dorky smile on my face from the absolute atom bomb we just detonated in here. If I were smiling, it would fade the second I see Rosa. It’s like somebody’s died, her eyes red, her expression bleak.
Instinctively, I stand and rush over to her. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to go.”
“Why?” Leo asks, voice grim.
He’s thinking the same thing I am. Rosa knows, but when she takes my hand, I know it’s not that. She’s pissed at her dad, though.
“Youknowwhy,” she snaps. “We’re leaving. Dad, call the car, please. We’re going right now. Maybe I can forgive you.Maybe, but I never will if you don’t let me leave or at least give methat. Okay?” She screams,“Okay?”
* * *
Rosa breaks down in the back of the car, sobbing into my chest. I embrace her, hating that I didn’t get to say goodbye to Leo. After all we shared, I wanted to kiss him and ask if it was real a few more times. I wanted maybe to inch even close to the L word. All bad. All wrong. All betrayals.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Everything has turned to crap.” She sobs. “It’s not fair. Why does life have to be like this?”
“I don’t understand.”
She leans away from me, her eyes raw, red pits of pure agony. I know this isn’t about me and Leo. She wouldn’t be looking at me for support if that was the case, but I’ve got to remind myself that this isn’t about us.
“M-Mom,” she whimpers.
“What about her?”
“Dad never loved her. It was an arranged marriage as part of some Family business to link their families. Mom’s parents wanted Leo because he was the firstborn, the oldest, and the up-and-coming leader, but they were never in love. They only stayed together because it helped the m-m-mafia.”
She trembles and clutches onto me, pain pouring out of her. All I can do is hold on as though this is some twisted natural disaster, offering her whatever comfort I can and—oh, this is wrong—trynotto be happy. Leo never had a deep love. He’s experiencing this for the first time, too, this insane, beautiful,wrongadventure we’re on together.
“It gets worse,” Rosa goes on. “Mom and Dario, they were together. When Dario was nineteen, they fell inlove. That’s how I know all this. Dario told me. He was drunk. Maybe he wouldn’t have otherwise, but he told me everything and was crying, Emma. Crying, but not because he felt guilty or because of what he was telling me about my mom. No, I could tell he was crying because he was reliving the love andmissingher.”
All I can do is rub her back and offer her soft murmurs. I can’t think of anything useful to say to make her feel better about this. My mind won’t stop ticking over about the implications for us, me and Leo. I’m done questioning if the events between us are real. Theyfeelreal, more vivid than anything else I’ve ever lived, any affection I could’ve imagined before.
“It doesn’t have to change things between you and your dad,” I murmur.
She leans away again and roughly paws at her cheeks. She stares out the window for a long time, the city drifting by. “He lied to me for years. All this time, I thought he felt the same about Mom, all the moments we shared. Just now, we were talking about the poem. He would’ve let me write it,helpedme, and pretended to feel the same way I did about it.”
“He probably did it for you to cherish her memory together.”
Rosa frowns. For a terrifying second, I think she’s guessed about her dad and me. I’ve got no reason to believe this, but there’s resentment in her eyes.
“He still lied.”
She folds her arms, stubbornly facing the window, leaving me to turn this over in my mind.
CHAPTERTWENTY
Leo
“Why did you have to tell her?” I slam my hand on the table. “Goddammit, Dario. Why?”
He sits on the dining chair, his head drooped, and his hands clasped around the empty whiskey glass. He looks so similar to the day he told me about the affair, quietly broken. He explained that he and my wife were in love, and he was sorry. We came to an arrangement. They could be together, but we’d never let Rosa see or let her know. Angelica and I hadn’t touched each other for a year when he told me, completely unrelated to him.
