Page 64 of Privilege

Despite playing with his food, Diego hadn’t put any spaghetti in his mouth in a few minutes. Most of his plate was empty, too. He’d loved it, which just made Lucia smile.

All good Italians loved their food when it was pasta, and some kind of sauce. It didn’t matter what walk of life they came from, that would never change.

“Yeah,” Diego said.

Renzo nodded. “All right, go strip down in the bathroom. Looks like you need a bath. I’ll come back in a few and run the water for you.”

“Okay!”

Diego pushed the chair out from the table, and dropped down to the floor. He gave Lucia a wide, toothy smile, saying, “Thanks, it was good.”

“Next time, I’ll make you something new.”

“Promise?”

Renzo cleared his throat, but Lucia didn’t know why or for what. She just ignored him.

“Absolutely, pinky promise,” Lucia told Diego.

“Awesome.”

Soon, the boy’s footsteps echoed down the hallway toward the front of the apartment as he headed for the bathroom. Renzo leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest, and eyed Lucia in that silent, contemplative way of his that usually had her feeling all kinds of things she didn’t understand.

This time was no exception.

“What?” she asked.

Renzo shrugged one shoulder. “You’re just going to keep coming back, huh?”

She blinked.

He didn’t move a muscle.

Didn’t he know?

“There’s no place I would rather be, Ren.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly, “I guess not.”

Then, from the bathroom, Diego shouted out, “I’m ready, Ren!”

Renzo gave her a look, leaned over the table to press a fast kiss to Lucia’s temple, and drifted out of the room without a look back. She supposed their conversation about his mother was done … for now, anyway.

She couldn’t say she was disappointed. She bet that woman already took up far too much time in Renzo’s head to fuck with his emotions. He didn’t deserve that, either. None of it.

• • •

Lucia wiped the wetness from the bathroom floor with the towel Renzo had left on the edge of the tub probably after drying off Diego. She hadn’t gone in with the boy when he took his bath—instead, she opted to stay in the kitchen and clean up the mess. She cooked, sure, and while the rules in her family were usually those who didn’t cook needed to clean … well, she figured Ren probably had enough shit to do. He didn’t need to be cleaning up her mess of pots and dishes.

Besides, she needed something to do while she waited. Lucia wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet.

Dropping the wet towel over the edge of an off-white laundry hamper, she turned to find Renzo standing in the bathroom doorway. The sight of him there struck her hard in the chest. Like for the moment, she couldn’t even breathe. She didn’t know why—maybe it was the way his dark eyes traveled over her so unashamed and curious. Like he enjoyed what he was seeing, and he wanted far more of it. Or maybe it was the fact she didn’t know how long he had been standing there watching her to begin with.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

Renzo’s mouth quirked at the corners—a hint of a smirk, maybe. Goddamn him for looking so good even when he wasn’t doing anything at all. There was just something about his face. All those hard lines, and soul-searching eyes. Dark like sin, and looking right at her. Haunted, she thought. Sometimes, when he didn’t know she was looking at him, Lucia thought he looked oh, so haunted.

Life had made him that way.