Page 49 of Ruthless Sin
She turns back to the stove. “Eat the bread in the car. Don’t save it. You save everything. Some things are made for eating, not saving.”
She pours coffee into the thermos, seals it, sets it on the counter, and goes back to her pot.
I pick up the thermos and the bread.
I dip my chin at her back. She doesn’t turn around.
Nico is at the SUV. The back door is already open. Sofia is inside, notebook against her chest, hair pulled back, the dress one of Maria’s that fits her now.
He has his hand on the open passenger door. He doesn’t look at me until I’m standing at it.
His jaw is tight. His shoulders fill the doorframe the way they always do, broad and solid, and I am already not-looking by the time his eyes find mine, and then I am looking again.
Then he looks at me.
My stomach drops and pulls at the same time. Want and warning, the two of them arriving together. I get in.
“Buongiorno, Mila,” Sofia says from the back, her voice rough.
She’s holding the notebook with both hands in the rearview. The dress moves against her ribs. She’s breathing fast.
I nod.
Sofia exhales.
Nico closes my door, walks around, and gets in.
Before he starts the engine, he adjusts the rearview to Sofia, then to the road. “New route in. Marco shifted this morning. Same way home.”
Sofia nods.
“He’ll tell me more when there’s more to tell.”
He starts the engine.
We pull out of the compound gate. Magazine. Our usual. Then a left I don’t recognize at the second light. The streetcar tracks bend right where the SUV bends left.
The houses on this street are higher and whiter, the verandahs deeper. A woman with a stroller is on one of them, drinking from a cup that matches the saucer.
Nico’s right hand is on the gearshift. I look at it longer than I should. I want to stop looking. I don’t stop for another full second.
At the next light, he opens the cooler in the console.
“Water.”
He hands me the bottle without turning his head. Our fingers brush at the cap.
My pulse goes loud in my ears. The skin where his finger touched mine stays warm after he’s pulled his hand back, warm enough that I press my palm flat against my thigh to hold it against my skin. I want to keep it. That’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to keep it. I take the bottle.
The word comes out before I can stop it, cracked.
“Spasibo.” Thank you.
Nico’s hand goes white on the gearshift. The tendons stand out across the back of his hand. The leather doesn’t give under his grip.
One full second.
His throat moves.
