Page 35

35

STEFI

F or the rest of the meal, we talk about lighter things. I ask Joao about his life in Venice, and he delights me by telling me he has a cat. “I found her cowering outside my door a couple of years ago, and I started feeding her.” He grins. “She moved in a couple of months later. Her name is Mimi.”

“Mimi?” A smile breaks out on my face. “That’s what we were going to call our cat.”

“I remember, little fox. I remember all our plans. Why do you think I ended up in Venice?”

My heart constricts painfully. “Because of me?”

He nods. “You always wanted to live there. I even bought a house near the water because that was your dream.”

A lump rises in my throat. Even when Joao thought I was gone, he still found a way to hold on to me, to stay connected to the life we dreamed of building together. I’ve always been there with him, and that realization is both beautiful and incredibly painful.

Because the universe has a sick and twisted sense of humor. Venice might be the city I’ve always dreamed of living in, but Antonio Moretti runs it.

I don’t tell Joao what I’m thinking because I don’t want to ruin our nice dinner by having the same discussion over and over again. Joao trusts Moretti, and I don’t, and neither of us is going to change our minds without overwhelming proof.

“You bought a house?” I ask, hungry for every detail about his life. “Tell me about it.”

“I bought it three years ago,” he replies. “It’s in Giudecca. An old palazzo came up for sale, and a bunch of us got together, bought it, and converted it to row homes.”

“When you say a bunch of us. . .”

“Tomas, Daniel, Goran, Matteo, and Paulina,” he says. “We all work for Antonio.” Amusement touches his eyes. “It’s a good thing I like my coworkers because they’re also my neighbors.”

I suppress the urge to ask him who Paulina is; my attention is caught by a more familiar name. “Tomas is Alina’s boyfriend, isn’t he?”

“Fiancé now.”

A shadow passes over his face when he mentions Tomas. I can guess what caused it. Me. After my attempt at abducting Alina, I can’t be popular among his friends. “Does he know you’ve been looking for me?”

He nods. “He knows.”

“And?”

“And what?”

He’s being evasive. “And what does he think?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“He hates me, doesn’t he?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeats stubbornly. “I don’t need Tomas’s approval, or that of any of my other friends. They will be polite to you, or else.”

I stare at him unhappily before turning my attention to my food. I hate this. As much as he’ll deny it, I’m a bomb tossed in the middle of Joao’s peaceful life. I’m already making him choose between his boss and me, and now I’m going to be the person who comes between him and his friends.

The food is delicious, and it’s warm in the restaurant. Tonight, when I fall asleep, it’ll be on a comfortable mattress. If I’m cold, I can turn up the heat. If I need to clean myself, I can hop into the shower stall, open a tap, and get hot water on demand.

Despite all of that, I want, more than anything, to be transported back to our farmhouse. Where it was just Joao and me, and the outside world couldn’t intrude.

We’re going to set our trap tomorrow. In less than forty-eight hours, we’ll know where the leak is coming from. And I can’t shake the premonition that our time together will soon be coming to an end.