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And yet, Amadeo sat next to me, looking perfectly at ease in the front parlor of a house that belonged to a stranger. If I weren’t sitting right next to him, I would never have known that his muscles were taut, alert and ready. I found that both comforting and disturbing at the same time. The man was an expert at projecting only those things he wanted others to see. A master of disguise, really.
I’d watched him dress for this meeting, and while I’d been taken with the hard planes of his magnificent body at the time, now I was painfully aware of the holsters that wrapped around his shoulders and concealed the weapons he wielded like an expert. And there were more, a gun in the holster around his ankle and a knife in a sheath inside his jacket.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,perla,” he said, rubbing my knee soothingly.
I tried to smile to reassure him, but the movement was stiff. “I want to do this,” I said, repeating aloud the same thing I’d been telling myself for the last several hours.
I hadn’t the chance to say more when the tall, dark-haired man from the cemetery walked into the front parlor of the house where he was apparently staying while in the country.
The men in black suits closed ranks behind him, following him into the room toward us. Without looking, I could feel Vito and Bruno stand up straighter behind us as Amadeo and I stood up.
“Buongiorno,” Amadeo said as he shook hands with Nathaniel Sinclair, but when the man took my hand, he clasped it in both of his, looking at me with an expression that was caught somewhere between a smile and disbelief.
“You lied to me,” I blurted out. It wasn’t how I’d intended to greet the man who was supposedly my uncle, but my mouth had its own agenda, it seemed.
He smiled apologetically as he released my hand. “You’re quite right, I did. And I do apologize for it.”
He looked at me, silent. If he was hoping that was enough, he was sorely mistaken.
“What I told you was not entirely a lie, my dear; my mother did pass away two months ago, just a few short months after my father’s passing.”
There was the same sad look in his eyes I’d witnessed at the cemetery. He was either a terribly good actor or the sentiment was genuine.
I nodded, accepting his apology and mourning just a little, the grandparents I would never have the opportunity to meet.
“I’m glad we have a chance to meet now, Heidi,” he said as he motioned for Amadeo and I to retake our seats.
As I sat down, I glanced to Amadeo, who nodded encouragingly. I’d never been part of any type of clandestine business transaction before, and that was very much what this felt like.
I licked my lips and turned to address Nathaniel.
“I did come to meet you,” I said, “but I’ve also come to tell you that I have your money—or at least, a portion of it. I found it hidden in the basement of the Regalton Arms—as I’m sure you already know. I’ve been informed that there is more, but I don’t know where it is. Should I come upon it, Iwillreturn it to you.”
His brow furrowed as he looked at me, then his gaze flickered to Amadeo and back again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Amadeo’s expression hadn’t changed, but some of the tautness left his muscles.
Nathaniel shook his head. “That money does not belong to me, Heidi.”
“I was given to believe it does.”
The furrow between his brows deepened. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but to the best of my understanding, when William… when your father left, he took with him only those things which belonged to him, his personal fortune included.”
“The money was his?” It took a great deal of effort to keep my jaw from dropping.
Nathaniel nodded.
But if that were true, then my father hadn’t been a thief. Though, as part of the Sinclair family, perhaps he’d been worse. The thing was, I didn’t care anymore. I’d embraced the shades of gray, and I didn’t think it was possible to turn back now.
“But I’m confused then,” I admitted, because it had been my understanding that he’d come here in pursuit of that money. “If you hadn’t come to retrieve the money, then why are you here? Why did you lie to me in the cemetery? Or approach me at all, for that matter?”
He smiled. “You speak your mind,” he said, nodding approvingly.
I could see Amadeo’s scoff in the movement of his sculpted chest. “Indeed, she does.”
He smiled at Amadeo, looking back and forth between us for a moment before his gaze settled on me once again. “Your mother was very much like that.”
She was? I wished I could recall. But I supposed there were snippets that suggested she’d certainly never had trouble telling my father precisely what she was thinking, particularly when he’d gotten himself in trouble.
