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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

ROCCO AND NICO

R occo surveyed the man as they sat around the table eating dinner.

He was nice enough, charming enough. He’d definitely charmed his mother and grandmother, Sofia and Beatrice too.

He glanced over at his father and grandfather.

The particular kind of charm he had wouldn’t work the same way on his father and grandfather, although they seemed to like him as well.

He looked young for an uncle—that is, to be Nico’s uncle.

He had a pleasant, handsome face, light brown hair with hints of gold that fell in playful curls around his cheeks, and warm brown eyes with lashes that were almost too thick and long.

Rocco tried to find a weak feature—chin, mouth, nose—but he couldn’t find one.

He was tall, about the same height as Rocco, and definitely fit.

His manner was kind and open, he wasn’t boorish, didn’t talk about himself unless asked, and seemed sincerely happy not only to see Nico but also to meet all of them and to visit this part of Italy.

So why don’t I like the man?

Maybe because he seems too affable .

Nico hadn’t offered much information about him after that text. Her answers to Rocco’s questions had all been vague, perhaps even evasive. What’s more, he couldn’t escape the feeling that his family welcomed seeing the man more than she did.

He looked over at Nico, who was sitting directly opposite him and next to her uncle.

He looked nothing like Nico. There was no family resemblance.

Rocco stretched out his leg, touching her foot with his. But rather than her looking up at him, her eyes shifted to her uncle before darting back to her plate, and she moved her foot away.

He watched the man place his arm around her.

He stared at the man’s hand on her shoulder and waited for him to remove it.

And then he blinked as he watched the man’s fingers.

Was he stroking her shoulder? That can’t be right , he thought, clenching his fists as his heart began to thud so heavy he felt it ringing in his ears.

Rocco felt an urge surging through his bloodstream to take that hand he had resting on her shoulder and wrench it behind the man’s back.

Sofia nudged him, handing him a basket of crusty bread. He took it and placed a piece on his plate. When Rocco looked back across the table, he was relieved to see the man had removed his arm.

I guess he has to if he wants to eat.

Rocco reminded himself that this man was Nico’s uncle. But that didn’t stop the ringing in his ears.

Is he the reason she doesn’t want to talk about her past? About her family?

He needed to get Nico alone. He needed to talk to her. After dinner , he thought, sighing as he heard his nonno tell yet another story about Rocco karting as a kid.

Now Uncle Mickey jumped in with one about Nico. He sounded proud, but Nico’s head was cast down, her eyes on her plate.

Nico thought about that first dinner with his family at this very table. She hadn’t been able to look Rocco in the eye then either. But how she’d felt then and how she felt now couldn’t be more different.

“Competitive?!” Mickey roared. “I know you’ve seen Nico behind the wheel, but she’s like that with everything. Crafty too. Oh, the stories I could tell you.”

Nico’s heart began to race. Stories? He was speaking to her, not them. He was letting her know. He had stories to tell. Plenty of them

What did he want? Money, to be sure, but what was his plan for getting it? Con or blackmail? The con, if it was big enough, would be more money, but in the long run, maybe blackmail was the smarter move.

She cast a sidelong glance at him as he went on. It was difficult to tell which gleamed brighter, his eyes or his teeth.

“As I always told her and taught her, the mental game is everything. Knowing when and how to make a move. Sizing up your opponent. Recognizing their weakness. My little girl here’s a master at that.

You set up your opponent to lose every bit as much as you set yourself up to win.

What did I always tell you, topolina? Make every easy shot and make every shot easy. ”

Her heart did a swan dive. She even heard it land. Splat.

Swallow. Her mouth was so dry and her throat so tight, she couldn’t.

He might not remember. Those exact words. Look up. And you’ll know.

She did. She could never have imagined she could wish he would glare at her—the way he had in the beginning. But she did. Anything would have been better than the cold look she saw now.

Afterward, she would wonder how she managed to hold the fork in her hand, bring it to her mouth, chew, and swallow the food on her plate.

She must have done these things because no one acted as though anything out of the ordinary had happened.

No one else had felt that seismic shift of the tectonic plates and saw the earth open up, her feet balanced on the edge, toes hanging over.

It wouldn’t take much, and she would fall.

Time enough would do it. And time was inevitable and relentless. It could not. Would not. Be stopped.

She watched Mickey follow the family out onto the porch and Rocco turn down the hallway that led to the bedrooms. She knew it wouldn’t be long now.

She entered his old bedroom, the room she was sleeping in. Suddenly, a hand on her wrist swung her around, the door slammed shut, and she was face-to-face with Rocco.

He took a step toward her. She stumbled backward, and he grabbed her arms, pinning her against the wall.

“Now, I want you to do that to me.”

Nico shook her head. “I don’t— What do you mean? Do what?”

“Put my back up against the wall.”

“What?”

“Just do it!”

“Why?”

“I’ll do it then!”

He swung her and himself around, only stopping when it was his back that was flush with the wall. She stared down at his hands. It was the first time his touch hurt.

“Now bring your lips to rest lightly on mine and say my name.”

She struggled to pull away but his hold was too strong. He pulled her to him. Her lips on his.

“Now say my name,” he murmured.

Nico swallowed. Her throat was tight. “No,” she croaked.

He shook her. “Do it! Damn it! Say. My. Name.”

“Rocco,” she whispered.

His hands softened, opening like the velvet petals of a flower. They no longer gripped her, but they still held her, and she made no attempt to free herself from them.

“Now kiss me,” he whispered. “Kiss me like it’s the last time your lips will touch mine. Kiss me like you want to burn that kiss in my memory, so that even if I wanted to forget, I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried.”

The words were more than sound. She felt them on her flesh, on her lips. She felt them enter her, like it was him entering her.

Nico shook her head but suddenly stopped when she felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She did not want them to break free.

“Do it!”

“No, I won’t. Rocco, let go of me.”

He pulled her to him, parted her lips with his own.

His hot breath blazed through her like a brush fire, scorching every square inch of her flesh.

She told herself to pull away, push him away.

But she held on, as though he were the only thing that would keep her from falling.

She felt herself dissolving in his warm embrace.

That liquification of anything that was solid in her.

And she didn’t care. She would gladly be a puddle at his feet, even if in the end he did nothing more than step in that puddle and walk away.

If only he would not look at her with that cold stare.

“Now,” he growled, his lips still on hers, “bite my lip.”

“No.”

“Do it!”

“I can’t!”

“Okay, then just say the words.”

“What?”

“You know.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. Say it. Make every easy shot, Rocco, and make every shot easy.”