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“No, I don’t,” I say, wondering why it never occurred to me to ask.
Because you were too preoccupied with the bomb that had just gone off in your life.
“He called me. Told me he was going to tell you everything. About the money. About me.”
“And you were okay with him telling me about you?”
“Fuck no. But I knew once he’d made up his mind there was no way to change it. He was determined to make things right with you. He said if he was to have a future with you then you needed to know the truth.”
“A future with me?” I whisper. “He told you that?”
“He did. He was adamant that was the end goal for him. He asked me to the cabin to talk to you. To tell you what happened with your father, as if he could somehow broker some kind of peace between us.” For the first time since sitting down, Nico’s expression softens. “My brother is an idealist. He wanted everything wrapped up in a bow. For him to be with you, he needed you and I to be right with each other.”
I don’t know what to say.
Is there really an existence where things would be okay between Nico and me?
“Massimo will want to talk to you someday soon.” He stands and puts his sunglasses back on. “I suggest you listen.”
He turns to leave, but when I speak, he stops.
“I’m sorry for what my father did to Bella,” I say.
His jaw tightens. “I wouldn’t be standing here if I thought otherwise.”
Then, walking away, Nico disappears out of view and back into oblivion.
46
BIANCA
Day thirty-three of my new life, and it’s been raining. At lunchtime, having finished my classes, I find myself walking across the rain-soaked campus to my car when a man steps out in front of me.
I look up, straight into a pair of obsidian black eyes, and my heart squeezes to a stop.
“Massimo.”
He’s wearing a winter coat over his impeccable suit. His hair is a little longer than normal, but it looks good. Too good.
“What are you doing here?” I barely get the words around the cold lump in my throat.
A cold wind blows across the quad and tangles in his hair, and I itch to reach up and touch it. Instead, I tighten my arms around my waist.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, and I can see the quiet agony on his face. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. He looks just as handsome as I remember, but in the flesh, he is devastating, and my body aches for him.
All I can do is stare and absorb every inch of his handsome face with a longing in my chest. Those heavily lashed eyes. The high cheekbones that seem too perfect. The dark hair softening the sharp lines of his jaw.
But those lips, the ones I’ve spent hours kissing, seem so distant to me now. So untouchable it hurts.
“Clearly. Nice tan by the way. Where were you vacationing, somewhere tropical, or just far enough away from New York City to forget about me?”
“I wasn’t on vacation, Bianca.”
“No, what was it then?” I can’t keep the sharp edge out of my voice because damn, where has he been? I didn’t expect him to keep trying to call me forever. But I didn’t expect him to give up so easily and flee the country either.
“Can we go somewhere to talk?” he asks.
I want to tell him to go to hell. But my heart is tired of being hurt and wants to hear what he has to say.
So I nod and follow him to his car. Dante isn’t with him, so he climbs into the driver’s seat while I climb in the passenger side.
Inside, it smells like him, which only hurts more.
“It’s good to see you,” he says.
I nod. But I can’t look at him, because if I do, I know I’ll cry. “It’s good to see you too. How is your shoulder?”
“Healing.”
“Are you still in pain?”
“Not from that.”
It’s weird that things are so cold and stilted between us when once they burned so hot and wild. But the air is thick with unspoken feelings, and it feels like it’s going to snap any minute, and I won’t be able to contain my hurt any longer.
Yet, somehow I manage to speak with absolute calmness. “You hurt me.”
“I know. And if I could go back and change it I would.”
“I know we weren’t friends, but I always thought that night when you kissed me… I thought it meant something.”
“It did. More than you could ever know.”
“Yet it didn’t stop you from turning my life upside down for your own benefit.”
I finally look at him, and his expression is pained. “I couldn’t let it stop me from doing what I needed to do. But that doesn’t mean that night wasn’t something special to me.” He’s quiet for a moment, then adds, “You know the things I have to do because of who I am. The choices I have to make. Sometimes those choices are ones I don’t want to make and taking your money was one of them. The intention wasn’t to hurt you. I paid Harrison a lot of money for a new life. In return, he was instructed to put your money elsewhere for a period of two weeks. Then he was supposed to return it and vanish. But then you showed up, and I realized he had double-crossed me. None of this was designed to hurt you.”
