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I nodded. “For Ricardo,” I said.
She scoffed. “For fucking Ricardo. You went to prison forRicardo. Youleft me,”she accused.
“I did,” I agreed, not wanting to contradict her. Besides, she was right. I had left. I had gone away not for Ricardo, but for Enzo, but I knew that Allegra wouldn’t understand that.
She was still trembling when she tucked herself back under my arm. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice shaking. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It doesn’t?” I asked, trying to look down at her, but she hid her face in my neck.
“No,” she muttered, her breath hot against my skin. I would have been aroused if I wasn’t in terrible pain.
The drugs were working well and everything felt fuzzy around the edges, and suddenly it didn’t seem so important to not tell her how I felt. Suddenly it didn’t seem important to keep up the act, like I’d left and I didn’t care. “I regret leaving you every day of my life,stellina,” I said.
Allegra stiffened under my arm. “It doesn’t matter,” she said again, but I thought that it mattered to her quite a bit from the way she started crying all over again.
Allegra eventually fell asleep, and the drugs made my eyes drift closed. I dreamed of her, sneaking in my window, something mischievous in her brown eyes. I dreamed of her angry and crying when we argued, hitting at my chest until I kissed her and nipped at her lower lip. I dreamed of Allegra in all the ways I’d known her, and all the ways I wouldn’t ever know her. I dreamed of her swollen with my baby, walking toward me in a white dress at a church.
When I woke up and she was still under my arm, sleeping fitfully, I looked down at her. “Fuck,” I said out loud, but she slept right through it. I was in love with Allegra Rossi, just as I had been years ago, and I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do about it.
15
ALLEGRA
Two days passed and most of the time, Rocco slept. I watched over him like a hawk, making sure his chest tube was clear, making sure he was breathing. It was dirty work, cleaning him up, and the third day, he woke up early and in a lot of pain. “Allegra,” he gasped.
I woke up instantly. I’d given up sleeping in the guest room because I couldn’t stand not being in the same room with him. I couldn’t stand not knowing if he was breathing. When he’d gasped and stopped breathing, starting to turn blue, everything that had happened between us had flashed before my eyes. Maybe I wasn’t as over Rocco Moretti as I thought.
But that didn’t matter right now. What mattered right now was getting him better and getting back to my father. Getting back to Matteo. I knew he’d been looking for me, probably had all his men out searching the area. He wouldn’t have suspected Rocco straight off, but he’d find his way to him. I’d have to talk my father out of killing him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Hurts,” he grunted. “Can’t breathe.”
“Croaker told me that would happen,” I said quickly. “He says the chest tube makes it hard when it’s painful. You have to take the pills.”
I put two in his hand and he shook his head. “Don’t like the pills,” he managed, gasping.
“I know, Rocco, but you have to,” I said softly, pressing his hand to his face.
Finally, he took them with a sip of water I had on the bedside table. He gasped and struggled to breathe for fifteen minutes, until the pills started to work and he could breathe more deeply again. I felt like there was a vice around my heart with every gasp. Rocco struggled to sit up and I helped him. He grunted, seemed frustrated. “I hate this,” he complained.
“I know,” I said. “But you have to get better.”
“It’s taking too long,” he complained. “Ricardo will send someone else.”
“What else can we do, Rocco? You can barely move.”
“I know,” he grumbled. He didn’t seem to have any suggestions, so I got up and began cleaning, dumping out the old pizza boxes into the trash.
“I’m so tired of pizza,” I complained.
“Order something else,” he suggested, and so for lunch, I ordered Chinese. Rocco ate with chopsticks and with gusto, which was good, because he’d barely been eating. I stared at him. “Learned inside,” he said with his mouth full.
I blinked at him. “You learned to eat with chopsticks inprison?”
He grinned. “I did. Had a Korean cellie for a while.”
I shook my head. “You’re a really different person than you were.”
