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Then, a second later, she blinks. As if catching herself. I swear that I can almost see her running through all the options in her head to check if that answer will somehow betray who she really is. Apparently satisfied that it won’t, she sets down her glass while that composed mask returns to her face.
“Yes,” she repeats, holding my gaze. “All the time.”
I can’t say anything else without revealing too much. And neither can she. So for a while, we just sit there, looking at each other from across the flickering candles on the wooden table.
All around us, other people are eating and drinking, their soft murmur drifting through the air along with the intoxicating scents of food.
Isabella breaks eye contact first. Picking up her fork and knife, she begins cutting into her salmon. I do the same.
As we eat, we go back to talking about more normal things. Our various classes at Blackwater. Failed hobbies we have tried when we were younger. Childhood memories.
And when our meal at last comes to an end, I know for a fact that those two sentences we spoke right before we started eating were the only true things either of us said during the entire evening.
Two honest sentences between us.
That was all we managed.
But that gaping abyss inside me somehow still shrank a little.
Because at least I now know that I’m not alone in feeling that way.
17
ISABELLA
It’s strange to spend an entire evening talking to someone when you know that every word out of his mouth is a lie. Well, almost every word.
Do you ever wish that you could just break everything so that you can finally stop it from spinning out of control and then just rearrange all those pieces to what you actually want them to be?
I hadn’t seen that coming. At all.
The raw honesty in those words, and in his tone when he said them, took me so off guard that I didn’t even think my response through before I answered. I might have replied differently if I had taken a moment to consider before I spoke, but I don’t think that answer ruined my carefully crafted persona either. Isabella Johnson would probably feel like that too sometimes.
But I have to admit, I am rattled. By this situation. And most of all by him.
Sitting in the passenger seat of the fancy Range Rover, I glance over at the incredibly dangerous man next to me. Rico is keeping his eyes on the road as he drives us back to Blackwater. There is a neutral expression on his face, which bothers me more than I want to admit. Because I desperately want to know if he feels just as strangely off-kilter as I feel after this seemingly innocent dinner.
I didn’t expect him to see through me like that. To feel the exact same things that I feel. As if the world just keeps on spinning, pushing you farther and farther down a road that you haven’t even chosen, and all you want to do is to shatter everything just so that it will stop for one fucking second and give you a chance to take a breath.
A small voice at the back of my skull whispers that I did actually expect him to feel that. I block it out. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I fool Rico as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.
“Thank you,” I say, adding a touch of shyness to my voice, as Rico parks the car right outside my apartment building. “For dinner.”
Turning off the ignition, he twists towards me and gives me one of those smiles that I almost believe might be genuine. “Thanks for saying yes.” His seatbelt clicks as he unbuckles it. “Come on, I’ll walk you up.”
I almost laugh. Walk me to my door. As if he is some kind of nineteenth-century gentleman and not a ruthless mafia heir who has spent the past two weeks tormenting the living hell out of me.
Ducking my head, I hide my amusement while I unbuckle my own seatbelt.
Warm night air washes over me as I step out of the car. From a house a little farther down, loud music thumps out of the open windows, echoing down the otherwise deserted street. I glance up at the building before me. Light pools out into the night from most windows. Not from mine. Only a dark empty apartment awaits me on the other side of them.
A jolt shoots through me as Rico places his palm on the small of my back, guiding me towards the door. I almost stumble as I take the first step.
He does it so casually. So effortlessly. As if that intimate touch is the most natural thing in the world.
And as I walk up the short path with him next to me like that, feeling his steady warm hand against the small of my back, I let myself imagine, just for a moment, that it’s real. That I’m a real person who went on a date with a real guy who is now walking me up to my apartment. No hidden motives. No lies. Nothing. Just a real life.
Pain spreads through my heart, fracturing it like brittle glass.
