Page 97 of Frozen Heart
I stand and head toward the door. “I have to go.”
“That’s it?” he calls after me. “You’ll just continue with the charade?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Adriano! Why won’t you tell her it’s you?”
I stop at the doorway. “Because she wants the other guy. Not me.”
As I’m heading out of Bartholomew’s, a couple of chimes inside my pocket alert me to incoming messages. The first ends up being from my wife’s driver, Theo, telling me they are ontheir way to Serafina Fabbri’s. The second is from an unknown number.
10:59 Unknown:
The warmth you never dared to name
May be too late to understand
What is yours will slip away
Like dust seeping through your hand.
Panic—instant and absolute—explodes in my chest.
***
The sleek black car pulls up to the front of a recently renovated six-story apartment building, and the driver rushes around to open the back passenger door. My wife steps out, two Tupperware containers in her hands. According to the report from my housekeeper, gnocchi Bolognese is in one, and a caprese salad is in the other. Iris prepared both this morning for her mom. She’s bringing her mother a homemade lunch, something she does at least three times a week.
Others might not bother driving an hour across town simply to bring food to their mother. They would just order something and have it delivered. Not Little Iris. She doesn’t view this as a bother at all. My wife simply cares. About her mother. Her friends. Random people she doesn’t even know. I already knew this about her, but somehow, it’s only now become crystal clear. She genuinely cares for everyone around her.
For crying out loud, the woman still volunteers at the homeless shelter. Something that almost sent Brahms into cardiac arrest the first time he needed to organize the security around her.
She even cares for me. Because of who she is. She still leaves containers filled with homemade meals in the fridge for me to find. Lunches. Dinners. Even overnight oats for breakfast. Delicious food for a man she’d probably rather see burn in hell.
Well, I don’t want her to merelycarefor me.
I want from her whathehas. I want her to welcome me into her arms and tremble in mine as she does withhim. I want her screams of pleasure to be for me. Her touches. Her whispered words. Everything! I want everything that is currently his.
My hands land on my temples, and I squeeze. Hating my desperate thoughts. These…feelings. Feelings I can no longer ignore.
I want my wife to love me.
But is she capable of loving Adriano Ruffo? The ruthless, heartless man? That man certainly doesn’t deserve love from her.
I lower the window just enough to have an unobstructed view, so I can watch as Iris enters the building and disappears behind the reinforced glass doors. Theo follows at her side, never leaving his charge unprotected. Two of the blacked-out SUVs with the rest of her security detail have taken positions across the street; the third should be parked at the back, where the fire escape from her mother’s apartment is located.
Yes, I increased her protection team. No, I’m not going overboard. This is a justified response, a reasonable course of action to ensure my wife is safe, especially after another cryptic text arrived as I left Barty’s this morning. I’m not risking that the rhymey asshole’s menacing promises will stay benign. I swear, I’m going to bury the fucker alive when I find him. The bastard really should have stuck with me and his attempts to mess withmy business. But he hasn’t, and for that he will pay. He’ll rue the day he decided to turn his attention to my sweet flower.
“Sir,” Jim says over his shoulder, his hand on the Bluetooth earpiece on his right side. “Team Three is reporting what might be suspicious activity out back. A man in cable company gear has just entered the building, but there’s no sign of his vehicle nearby.”
I’m out of the limo and running toward the front entrance of the building before he even finishes his sentence.
The display above the shiny elevator door tells me the car is on the sixth floor, so I head directly to the stairwell, taking steps two at a time. That damn thing is too slow. I’m aware because I personally checked out the renos after I quietly purchased the place a few months ago. Iris saw the repaired elevator as a happy occasion that allowed her mother to be more mobile in her weakened state, but to me, the building upgrades were simply another way of ensuring Iris’s safety while she was still living here.
I get to the fourth floor in record time and run toward the door midway down the hall. Theo’s stance in front of that door goes from high alert to slight ease to locked-and-loaded again when he sees me charging.
“Mr. Ruffo? Is something—”
A woman’s shrill scream interrupts his question.
