Page 31 of Silver Fox Grump

“I guess the story I should tell you is something fun, rather than try to scare you. When we were fifteen, Rafe, Vito, and I made some money—I won’t say how, that’s less savoury—and we decided to celebrate. Vito was just beginning to embrace our Italian heritage. So he insisted we go to a chain Italian restaurant because we’re teenagers who didn’t realise that is about as similar to Italian food as I am to a gorilla.”

“A silverback gorilla…” He kind of is like that.

A smile ghosts over his face. “Indeed. So Vito says this is educational, and he orders everything on the menu.”

I giggle. “Seriously?”

Sev nods, a nostalgic softness in his eyes as he says, “He was an idiot. This food starts piling up. They wouldn’t give us anything without payment, so he threw notes on the floor like a five-year-old amped up on sugar in charge of a crime syndicate… Which is pretty much what we were, even then.”

I’m entranced. This is Sev as I’ve never seen him.

“Vito hates half of it. His mouth twists every time he eats an olive because they’re so salty and oily. And there are pizzas for miles. Forty, maybe? I forget. And he insists we’re going to all try everything, and we’ll eat the lot.”

“Oh noo… Were you sick?”

Sev gives me a pitying look. “More than once. All of us. I couldn’t even look at Italian food for about two years.”

Then he’s telling me about their first tattoos, and the time Rafe’s got infected and when they eventually dragged him to the doctor the dragon looked like a goat, and it had to be inked over and begun again. And when Sev wore too much aftershave, started a fight when Vito called him on it, and they had to sleep in the corridor for a week because the bottle broke and spilt into the carpet of their joint bedroom.

There are other stories, I know. The ones he alluded to. Dark things that happened to him and his triplet brothers, but he doesn’t tell me those, and my heart is so light.

He’s revealing to me parts of himself I could never have imagined, and from the way he shakes his head, and looks into my eyes, I’m certain he hasn’t told anyone this for years. Decades. Possibly ever.

We sit for hours, talking, until the restaurant is empty of lunchtime customers, and the staff are beginning to make subtle hints that he’d like to close up before dinner service. Sev ignores him for a while, but eventually I glance across at him enough that he rolls his eyes and flicks his fingers for the bill.

“Did Mr Blackwood’s lady enjoy her meal?” the waiter asks me, placing two little wrapped squares of chocolate beside my plate.

“I’m not his lady,” I blurt out, then immediately regret it when Sev’s expression darkens. Shit. “I mean, I’m his…” Nothing. I’m just a girl he watches but won’t do anything about. I’m beginning to doubt my sanity. “He’s my boss.”

There’s an awkward silence as he slides a sceptical glance to Sev, who has returned to his statue mode.

“Thank you.” The waiter turns to go, and my cheeks heat. He must think… God knows what he imagines is going on.

Sev pays without meeting my eyes.

I’ve totally messed up his favourite restaurant for him.

“Sorry,” I whisper when we’re in the car on the way back to the office.

“What?” he snaps.

“They know.” I grasp around for the right words. “About… Us.”

Sev scowls, rubs his forehead, and doesn’t reply.

And I realise that maybe there isn’t any such thing as us. He might stalk me. He might teach me. I might love him. But I’m just his dirty little secret.

12

SEV

I’m a liar.

I promised not to touch her. I said never again. Then one last time.

But I can’t give her up.

It feels even lonelier than usual when Maisie leaves work. I hate that I couldn’t find words to make it right when she was upset earlier. I hate that we had to pretend we weren’t on a date, and that she denied it. This sneaking around is killing me in ways I didn’t expect.