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A warm glint entered his eyes. “Whenever you played hooky from school?”

“That wasn’t hooky. I was feeling unwell.”

He cast me a dubious look, letting me know I was full of shit. I’d totally been playing hooky.

“Tommy called me an enabler.” A small laugh gusted past his mouth.

Sandro never cared for school. He didn’t go to college, and he didn’t finish high school senior year because it was around that time he found out Wilma wasn’t his mother. He had “bad-boy rebelling against authority” down pat and it only fueled my obsession with him.

I didn’t get a phone until I turned fourteen, so texting each other didn’t start until then. Sandro usually slept during the day and I feigned illnesses to get out of school early to hang out with him. I had a suspicion he’d bribed the school nurse. He usually picked me up on a street corner to take me back to his apartment. Sometimes Tommy would be there with his then girlfriend and we’d watch a movie, sometimes, it was just Sandro and me.

In my mind, I pretended to be Sandro’s girlfriend. Sigh, even when he was with me, there were times he was on the phone with some girl. When girls my age had delusions of their teen idols or rock stars, mine had always been Sandro. But despite my obsession with him, I never made a move to kiss him. I knew I was too young. Sandro wouldn’t cross that line. And I wouldn’t risk making a move of my own until I was of legal age because I didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship before there was a real chance between us.

See? Delusional. But I told myself I was playing the long game.

My escapades lasted for an entire school year. Not that I cut classes all the time, maybe once a month, and not even for an entire day. Except that one time when Sandro and I had planned to watch a special edition trilogy. I skipped classes at noon. I had just set a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table when the buzzer to his apartment went off and we thought it was the pizza we ordered.

It was, but beside the pizza delivery guy, was Dad. When he saw me standing behind Sandro, wearing my school uniform, I wanted to sink into the floor.

I’d never seen Dad so angry.

He didn’t say anything; he just punched Sandro across the face. Then all hell broke loose.

“You’re remembering that day?” Sandro broke through my thoughts.

I nodded, my cheeks heating as if experiencing the humiliation all over again. “I was so embarrassed.”

“If Cesar hadn’t known the man I am, he would have killed me.”

“I think Dad was pissed because you were a bad influence regarding school, not that he thought you were a sexual predator.”

Sandro nodded briefly, thoughtfully. He took a bite of the croissant, chewed, and chased it with coffee. “It was more than that. He said our friendship was getting inappropriate. He convinced me about it then.”

Prior to that scene, Mom had found out I was skipping classes. Either a nurse had come clean or Renz ratted me out. She had warned me it had to stop, but she kept it from Dad until he found out. He and Mom had a big fight that lasted for days. Again, my suspicion was Renz, because Nico and Matteo wereaway at college. Dad confiscated my phone and grounded me for the summer. I was so mad at everyone; I told them I wanted to die.

Yes, I was that dramatic.

“The next time I saw you was on my fifteenth birthday, but you disappeared to Russia afterward.”

“You thought your old man finally got rid of me.”

“Yes. I hounded Dad and made him swear on his life that he had nothing to do with it.”

“Poor Cesar.” He reached across the table and laced our fingers. “Now he might be planning my funeral for real.”

“Don’t say that.” I let out an exhale that reached the bottom of my feet. “Despite what happened these past few days, I still want to believe we’re going to get out of this unscathed.”

“We will,” he said. “I told you, baby, I want our marriage to work. I’m not letting you go.”

This whole scenario was making much more sense. “So this whole croissant-and-sunflower thing…”

“You might not see your family for a while, but the least I can do is ease the wait for you. Give you a reminder that there’s something good waiting at the end of this.”

“Are you going to be a part of what’s waiting for me at the end?”

This time he clasped my other hand, holding them in his, and despite the tiredness around his eyes, the fierceness in them glittered. “Yes,” he said succinctly. “I meant what I said, Bianca. I love coming home to you.”

“Flowers. Food.” I gave an impish grin. “Sounds a lot like courtship.”