Page 54 of Ruthless Sin
“You both look like you’ve had a morning.”
Sofia nods.
My shoulders adjust a quarter inch.
Cassia looks at the door.
“Tell Nonna Rosa I’m staying late. The intake form needs me until six.”
At the side office door she pauses.
“Mila.”
I turn.
“There’s a violin technician in the city. He used to come to Casa Lucia for the piano. I’m going to bring him out for the violin in the music room. The strings are gone. The bow needs rehair. If she’s going to be played again, she needs the work.”
She looks at me.
“I’m bringing the technician out to have her ready. I have a favor to ask, only if you want to. Dante’s birthday is coming. If you wanted to play for him, it would be the best surprise I could give him. You don’t have to decide now.”
She walks in and closes the door.
Nico is leaning on the driver’s door. He pushes off, opens the back for Sofia, walks around and opens mine.
He doesn’t say anything.
I get in.
The thermos is at my feet. The bread is in my pocket. Sofia’s note.
Nico gets in and puts the SUV in first.
We pull out of the Casa Lucia drive.
Sofia is asleep inside three blocks, cheek against the glass, notebook closed on her lap.
I look at him. The line of his throat in the passing light. The tendon at his throat jumps once and then he locks it down. His profile, which I have been not-looking at for weeks because looking means wanting and wanting is the most dangerous thing I know how to do. I look at it now anyway.
At the light on Magazine, Nico speaks to the windshield, quiet.
“Vs? khorosho?” Everything okay.
My hands close around the thermos.
I lift my right hand off my thigh and put it on his forearm. Just below the watch. His skin is warm and the muscle under my palm is hard and I feel his breath change, one catch, barely, before he goes still.
Neither of us speaks. His throat moves. I take my hand back, my palm going cold the second it lifts from his skin, and I press it flat to my thigh and hold it there. I look at the road. I want his hand back.
His hand white on the gearshift the rest of the way home.
The compound gate closes behind us.
I get out at the front door. Sofia gets out behind me, half-awake, and walks past me into the house.
I follow.
I climb the stairs and close my bedroom door.
