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“She must have loved you so much,” Lily whispered.
“I wish she’d loved me less,” he blurted.
“Oh, baby.” Her voice was fogged up. “Don’t say that.”
“All these years…” His voice was blocked by a hot, aching lump in his throat. “It never made sense, that a woman like her would…aw, shit. She was special, you know? Having me messed up her life, but she never complained. Her own mother gave her no end of hell. Grandma Pina, raving super-bitch. Rosa and Tony didn’t speak to Pina for thirty years because of that. But Mamma was beautiful. Smart. Not a doormat. She was the opposite of a doormat. Kind of like you.”
The sound she made was half laugh, half sob. “Thank you.”
He pushed on. “She was tough, you know? I couldn’t understand why she took it. The way Rudy talked down to her, the way he hit her. And being intimate with him, oh Christ.” He blew out a breath, as if he were trying to expel toxic gas. “Now I get it. And I can’t take it.”
“Bruno,” she whispered. “Sweetie. It’s not—”
“It makes me want to vomit,” he burst out. “I’d rather it was that she was stupid about men, or she had self-esteem issues. Or that she was lonely, or that any man was better than being alone. But doing it for me? Oh, Jesus. That’s a gift I don’t want. That’s a curse, not a gift.”
Lily grabbed his hands. Her eyes blazed. “I’d do it,” she said. “If I were her, and you were my son? Hell, yes. I’d do it for you.”
“Don’t even say it. She shouldn’t have had to do that. No one should ever have to. Someone should have helped her. Saved her.”
Lily lifted his trembling, knotted fists, and dropped a gentle kiss onto each of them, in turn. “And you think it should have been you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“You were a child!” she raged on. “Up against an organized crime syndicate! Get real! Give yourself a break!”
Laughter shook him again. “I’m twenty years older now, and guess what, babe? I’m not doing a whole lot better than when I was twelve! It’s fucking déjà vu. In the past thirty-six hours, you’ve been clubbed, shot at and thrown off a cliff. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.”
“You saved me, you moron!” she yelled. “You’re being deliberately stupid and dense about this! My God, you ask a lot of yourself!”
He touched his forehead to hers. “I can’t help it,” he blurted. “I love you.”
She went very still. He realized, with a stab of pure, white-hot panic, that he meant it. He really did. Body, soul, blood, bones, teeth and guts, he meant it. He loved Lily Parr. Period.
Oh, shit. And he had to run off his mouth about it.
He tightened his fingers around her cold ones. Fear gripped him, deep and hard. What a loser. His timing. It sucked. “Don’t say anything,” he begged. “I know it’s too soon. Things are too crazy.”
She tilted her head up, kissed him. Little, flower-like kisses, blooming against the corner of his mouth. But she evaded his returning kiss, drawing back, swaying away. Not ready for it.
“I won’t hold you to it,” she whispered.
That didn’t sound promising, but what the hell, he’d taken the plunge. “You don’t have to hold me to it. It is what it is.”
She slid her arms around his neck. He kissed the corners of her eyes. Sure enough. Wet. Hot. Salt. He kissed the tears away, making it a ritual. Each tear he licked away was a magic spell, holding her to him.
“Can I say something…? Without making you mad?” she asked.
He went right on guard. “I don’t make dumb promises like that.”
“Then I’ll have to risk it.” She kissed his jaw. “The way you felt scared, because you couldn’t protect your mother? And me?”
“It sucks. Literally. Like a vortex underneath my guts. So?”
“That was the way she felt about you,” Lily said.
Bruno shut that out. He just had no place to put it. He shook his head, not sure what he was negating. Subject closed.
Lily waited, but wisely concluded that she wasn’t going to get a coherent response from him. She padded into the bathroom, leaving him alone, with his thoughts, and the moon. He leaned his forehead against the hot glass, watching his breath fog it up. The white patch of steam, swelling and retreating. The bathroom door clicked open. Light spilled out into the dark room. Lily came up behind him, stroking his back. Perfumed steam wafted along with her.
