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Could you see a feeling? I think it’s possible. Because all I could see were the colors and shadows of heartbreak, greed, and betrayal. My father had hidden these here. He’d taken them and hidden them, knowing all the while that someone would come for them, forhim.
He’d cost me a life with him and my mum. He’d cost me my hearing. He’d used this treasure to buy the empty seats at my graduation, and the foster families who’d tossed me on from one to the next—a partially deaf foster child with trauma issues was no prize.
Amadeo crouched down next to me, tilting my chin up to look at him once again. But there were no tears in my eyes this time. My eyes were dry, empty, like the rest of me. Hollowed out. Gutted.
“It wasn’t what you were hoping for, was it,perla?” There was no mockery in his expression. His pale eyes were still sympathetic.
“It’s just a little overwhelming, that’s all.”
He didn’t fight me when I turned away from him and looked down at the box.
“I imagine it’s heavy,” I said, staring at the diamonds that seemed to be winking back at me sardonically. “You should probably get some of your men to help lift it.”
Then I stood up, and I left the small room, the room that had been a special secret between me and my father. But it wasn’t a secret any longer, and it certainly wasn’t special.
Amadeo followed me out and grabbed hold of my wrist before I reached the stairs.
“As soon as it’s safe, all that is yours, Heidi,” he said, like he thought I was mourning the loss of a fortune I hadn’t even known existed.
“I don’t want it,” I said, then I pulled my wrist free and left the sullied secret behind.
Chapter Sixteen
Heidi
I’d learned to put things into boxes. ‘Compartmentalizing’, they called it. The loss of a patient at work; that went into one box. The jeers and snickers from my co-workers; that went into another box. The terror since I’d walked into Elio’s apartment; it had another box too. The lid kept trying to pop open, but for the most part, I’d managed to keep it shut tight.
But now, no matter how hard I tried to cram and shove, it felt like there wasn’t a box big enough for what I’d found today.
“It doesn’t mean he wasn’t the man you knew, Heidi,” Amadeo said as he poured two glasses of Scotch from the mini-bar in his room.
I was grateful this time when he’d ushered me right up the stairs to his room. I didn’t want to see the big, bald man. Or the older man who looked a great deal like Amadeo. Or even the vibrant blonde who’d tried to offer me an escape.
Amadeo handed me one of the glasses, and I swallowed back the Scotch in one gulp.
“He was a thief who cared more about money than he cared about being here with me,” I said through the burn, still grappling with the box. “That’s who my father was.”
He watched me while he sipped on his own drink. “Do you really think it’s that black and white?”
I shrugged, hoping the movement looked more natural than it felt. “What else am I to think?”
“That if he hadn’t loved you, you wouldn’t be missing him so much now.”
“Perhaps. But love is more than a feeling; it’s a priority system. Those things you cherish most, you protect at all cost.”
He nodded, conceding. “But he’s not here, Heidi; you can’t ask him why he did what he did. All you can do is trust he was more than the contents of that box.”
Thatbox. It seemed life was just a series of boxes, some of which fit neatly into storage, others which were really bombs, threatening to blow the entire storage facility to bits.
I wondered which kind Amadeo was. A bomb, for certain, I would have said twenty-four hours ago. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
“I think we should have sex,” I said quite matter-of-factly as I set down my glass. It was a rational move, even if there were a few irrational aspects to it.
He scoffed even as a fire ignited in his amber eyes. “That’s quite a leap from the ‘fuck off’ sign you’ve had pasted on your forehead.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to be intimate,” I said, for there was a vast difference between sex and intimacy. “There’s no sense in denying the physical attraction here. And sex is a great escape, is it not? It floods the body with endorphins; it consumes the brain’s concentration.” I hesitated, reluctant to bare my motivations, even if they were quite obvious. “And I would very much like my mind to be consumed at the moment.”
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth like he was hiding a smile, then he shook his head. “I don’t ‘make love’, Heidi. I don’t do vanilla sex. I fuck. Hard and dirty. I somehow doubt that shit has ever crossed your prim and proper mind.”
