I flip him off.
He blows me a kiss.
And then he’s gone.
I stand there, freshly blasted by that compliment, heart trying to start shit with my better judgment. Again. My better judgment has already walked into traffic.
I get in my car. Drive back to my beige apartment. Walk inside.
The teal blanket is on the couch. Saul’s blanket.
The tie and the pen are in my bedroom. Dario’s things.
And now, lodged in the same part of my brain as that one time I accidentally moaned during yoga: Enzo. That goddamn smirk. Those hands. That laugh that sounds like sin having a smoke break. He looked at me like I was a problem he wanted to solve with his mouth.
I sink onto the couch. Pull the blanket around me.
I’m not spiraling. I’m orbiting three different gravitational disasters, and every one of them is pulling me in.
Saul.
Dario.
Enzo.
And I don’t want to escape.
I want to crawl inside all three of them like a horny matryoshka doll and never come out.
Chapter Sixteen
STEVIE
I last three whole days of being Beth Taylor, model witness, reasonable citizen, and emotionally neutered ghost-person who definitely isn’t cycling through Dario Marchetti, Saul Bennett, and Enzo in a never-ending loop like a perverted screensaver every waking moment.
And sleeping moments. And moments in between.
And one very memorable situation I’m refusing to unpack, because I have enough on my plate without adding ‘horny for a foursome with a U.S. Marshal and two men who’ve probably committed more felonies than cookies I’ve baked’ to the docket.
Although technically that’s been on the list longer than I want to admit.
Enzo’s warning echoes in my skull like a sexy little concussion.
You’re not safe coming back.
But louder underneath it?
Dario left the door unlocked for you.
Which is basically Italian for ‘I want to raw you in my foyer.’
So on Wednesday, I make cookies.
Amaretti. Italian almond cookies. Delicate, traditional, the kind that require actual technique instead of just throwing ingredients at a bowl and hoping for the best.
I spend two hours on them. Adjusting the almond flour ratio. Getting the egg whites to the right consistency. Watching them crack and spread in the oven like they’re supposed to.
These aren’t stress cookies.
