Page 40 of A Love Most Fatal
I press my lips together in a tight line. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
“And until you do?”
“Until I do, I think you should stay here. You’ll be safe in this house. It’s not forever, just for a while. Not even the whole summer. You’ll be able to sleep easy and leave the mafia far behind you by the time you have to go back to work in the fall.”
I watch Nate’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
It’s a crazy offer, I know that, but I’m desperate. I won’t have anyone else killed because of my one-night lapse in judgment. As soon as we figure out who is targeting us, hopefully Nate will be persuadable about moving back to Connecticut where I can be sure that he is free to live his happy little life of pickleball and kickboxing classes.
He’ll marry a nice local girl, a baker or someone who owns a bookstore, and they can have as many tall, bookish kids as they want and we will keep tabs on him, but he will be safe, and this will all be a wild memory that I will pay him handsomely not to share.
“Okay,” he finally says.
I know he’ll have more questions tomorrow, but I think that this was more than enough after the day we had. I stand and offer my hand for him to shake.
He stares at it warily, before standing himself. He sort of towers over me when I’m not in my heels, and I lift my gaze to meet his. Slowly, he raises his palm to meet mine, and when I take it, it’s so warm wrapped around my hand. My index finger falls at the base of his wrist and beneath his skin I can feel his thrumming heart.
“Alright, then. The summer.” I give his hand one definitive shake and then step back, ready to make my hasty exit and bury myself in my bed.
I’m almost out of the door when he says my name.
“Hm?”
“What about my class for the rest of the week? Can I leave?”
I chew on my bottom lip thinking about this.
“You’re not a prisoner here,” I say. “If you want to go, I’ll send you with Leo, but I wouldn’t advise it. I can’t guarantee that someone won’t come for you again. They obviously think you’re a way to get to me, making you valuable.”
He bobs his head. “And vulnerable.”
“Yes,” I agree. “That too.”
With as much of a smile as I can muster, I bid him goodnight and stride down the hall until I finally sink into bed behind the safety of my closed door.
When I come downstairsin the morning, my mom is in the kitchen (expected) in total stitches laughing at something Nate’s just said (unexpected, unsettling, and frankly unfair that he’s won her over so immediately). She’s cradling the ugly little dog in her arms and scratching its neck while obviously enamored by a story Nate just told.
He notices me first, standing in the doorway like a specter, and stands up straighter before holding his mug up in greeting—it’s my favorite green mug, surely poured by my traitorous mother.
“Morning,” he says.
“Vanessa, baby,” Mom says. “You didn’t mention that he has a dog.”
I look at the creature, who looks back, apathetic to me, secure in its knowledge that he’s aligned himself with the most powerful woman in the house.
I try not to sneer at the dog, which is more gremlin than canine.
“Yes, well.” I pour my coffee into a just-fine mug and pretend it makes no difference to the quality of my morning.
“You’ve got a beautiful garden, Mrs. Morelli,” Nate says.
Mom practically purrs. That garden is her pride and joy in the summer months, sometimes I think she likes it more than her daughters.
Not more than her grandchildren, though.
“My dad has a garden. It’s smaller than yours, but I helped with it growing up. You can’t find better tomatoes than from a garden.”
I’d swear someone was feeding him lines, Mom basically says this every night we eat food that comes from the garden or greenhouse.