Page 112 of Burning Caine

I continued with the dishes.

“You need to talk about it,” she pressed.

I paused in placing plates in the dishwasher. “No, I don’t.”

“What happened?”

“Sam,” said Nathan, taking the plate from my hands.

My lungs tightened as the words formed in my head, my breath coming in quick spurts. “He lied,” was all I got out before the lump blocked my throat again and the first tears came.

“About what?” Kevin asked. “Something important?”

Cass gaped at him. “You’re kidding me? Important?”

“What? Did he lie about wearing brown shoes and actually wore black, or did he lie about being single and he was actually married? The size of the lie matters.”

“It’s a long and stupid story,” I said.

Cass returned her focus to me. “We don’t have anywhere to be.”

I leaned against the counter to catch my breath, closing my eyes, replaying it. His words in the garden, being introduced as his girlfriend, Dom’s news, Valentina’s kindness. And Antonio’s face when he came into the private gallery. That gorgeous face streaked with tears. Just a pretty face, hiding a lying soul.

“We were working on a claim together. We had a million-dollar policy on a burned painting we had to authenticate. We’d been working on it for weeks and finally proved it was a fake.” I stopped, inhaling deeply when the tears started again. “But, he’d known it was a fake from the first day.”

They were silent, until Kevin asked hesitantly, “That’s it?”

My eyes burst open in shock. “What do you mean, ‘That’s it?’”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like a big deal. He knew it was a fake and helped you prove it.”

“He lied, Kevin! Every time I went to see him—every single time—was one more lie. He manipulated me. Pretended he cared but he was probably laughing at me the whole time, like a pathetic fool who jumped whenever he said, ‘Come here, Sa-mahn-tha.’ Pulling strings like I was a little puppet. I took crap from Matt’s dad over it.” I rubbed my hands over my face roughly, trying to block it all out, but I couldn’t.

“I thought I’d found someone special,” I sobbed, covering my face. “Someone right for me.”

Cass’s arms wrapped around me. As I cried into her shoulder, she whispered, “You love him, don’t you?”

“No. I could never love someone who lies to me.”

“The lie isn’t the problem.” She smoothed my hair, speaking softly. “You’re scared shitless you might be honest to goodness in love with someone.”

“It doesn’t even matter anyway. He’s moving to Naples on Tuesday.”

“Good,” grumbled Nathan.

“That makes even more sense.” She pulled back and lifted my chin so I was looking at her through the tears. “You’re running away from him before he can run away from you.”

I pushed away and turned to Nathan. “I want to go home now.”

He touched my arm but shook his head.

“We talked about this, sweetie.” Cass counted them off on her fingers. “Dad, Mom, Vincenzo, Matt. They all left you.”

“It’s not the same!”

She still had her fingers up and counted her thumb. “Now, Antonio, and yes, it is.”

I buried my face in my hands again, ignoring her when she spoke with Nathan.