Page 59 of Contempt

A boy with a leather jacket.

A girl with a trust fund.

Two people who were young, dumb, and loved each other enough to do anything as long as they were doing it together. She didn’t know if they were still those people, or if the time and distance between them had changed them into someone else.

He looked the same, sure.

And he didn’t look the same, too.

“You know,” Renzo said, breaking the silence between them, “the first thing I did when I started making money was put Diego in a private school for Rose.”

“I bet she appreciated that.”

Renzo nodded. “Do you want to know the second thing?”

“Sure.”

“I tried to hire a private investigator to find you.”

Lucia’s heart clenched. “Oh.”

“Yeah, but that didn’t work because, at the time, I didn’t realize how much control The League had over my life. Instead of getting any information from the investigator, I got a warning from The League. Five years—that was the deal. I owed them five years of my life, my time, and my skills, and during that time … well, they decided how I got to spend it. And you were not one of the things they allowed me to have, you know? I mean, they told me some things here and there. Mostly to fuck with me, I think, and keep me in line.”

Her brow dipped. “Things like what?”

“Do you remember a guy named Derek?”

It took her a second, and then another before she connected the name to a memory. “A friend in college was going to a concert with a new guy she was dating, but he had friend that wanted to come along, too.”

“Derek,” Renzo said.

Lucia shook her head, and gave him a look. “I went because my friend begged me—it was a blind date.”

“They thought I might want to know.”

Why was her throat so tight?

“That seems cruel,” she whispered.

“Did you have fun with Derek?” he asked.

“I barely spoke to him. It was the first and last date I have been on in almost five years.”

Not that men didn’t try. They did—far too often. No one seemed to understand when Lucia said she wasn’t interested that it meant exactly that. She didn’t want to date, and she didn’t want to try. It wasn’t a matter of getting back on the horse and trying again—love couldn’t be like that. Not when her love with Renzo had been … so fucking amazing.

And entirely insane.

“But that bothered you, huh?” Lucia asked. “The thought of me with someone else.”

Renzo’s gaze flashed with something dark. “More than you will ever know.”

“Yet, you never called. Never answered my letters back.”

“What are you talking about?”

She ignored him, saying, “You never cared, clearly.”

“Lucia.”