Page 10 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

I took advantage of her surprise to press my point.

“I know you do not want to feel like you are using me, so I will let this go for now. But if I see an opportunity to help you, Linnea, I will do it. If there is an audition I can help you land, a nurse I can pay for, a meal I can treat you to at the end of a long day, I will do it even if you hate me for being high-handed. This is how a man like me loves a woman, you understand? I care for her, even when she refuses to care for herself.”

I watched her long neck as she swallowed thickly, my gaze traveling up to that ridiculously full mouth. She licked her lips, and it felt like a dare.

Kiss me , it said.

Madonna santa , I wanted to.

“I won’t take a hand out,” she repeated, this time breathlessly.

I could feel the brush of her hard nipples through the wet fabric of her suit against my chest.

“But you will accept my help if I offer a reasonable solution?” I pushed.

“If you offer a reciprocal solution,” she countered, and her hands reached up to play with the hair at the nape of my neck in a way that made me shiver. “But the moment it feels like you are pitying me or I am taking advantage of you, it’s over. Your friendship means more to me than anything else.”

“ Accordo ,” I said. “Deal.”

“I won’t be another person in your life who takes from you,” she shocked me by whispering.

I was still reeling from the comment and wondering at her insight when she ducked slightly to press a feather-light kiss over my mouth.

Before I could respond, she was slipping out of my lap like a seal, smoothly diving into the water to emerge belly down on her surfboard.

I watched as she cut smoothly away from me, timing her escape so she dropped into the bowl of a wave and rode it on sharp cuts back into the shore.

Leaving me oddly aroused and emotionally sore, bobbing on the ocean alone.

It wasn’t until the following week that the idea came to me.

I was eating at Nobu in Malibu with my sister Elena, and her husband, Dante, who were in town for work, and Dante’s pseudo-father, a man named Amadeo Salvatore whom everyone called Tore.

I didn’t know or particularly like the man, but he had become a staple at family gatherings over the years due to his close relationship with Dante, Elena, and, for some reason, my twin sister, Cosima.

Even Mama seemed caught up in his web. I often caught them whispering heatedly in the kitchen at family dinners, but when I pressed her about it, she always evaded.

Still, I was happy to see Elena. Growing up, we had not been particularly close, but the past ten years had changed her immensely and brought us closer than ever.

She had been through more than most people ever survived in a whole lifetime, and it had made her the strongest and smartest woman I knew.

She’d cut a man to ribbons with her sharp tongue, and she would protect any of her loved ones until her last breath.

It made me immeasurably happy to know that she had the love and devotion of a man like Dante Salvatore. The infamous mafioso, with a criminal record as long as my arm, was a complete sap for Elena and their children, Aurora, Chiara, and Amadeo.

The kids were with one of Dante’s “men” at their hotel so that the four of us could have a late dinner in relative peace.

Or, more accurately, so Elena could grill me about my life.

“I saw a photo of you with some blond woman in the tabloids this morning,” she mentioned as Dante served her from a platter of sashimi. “An ‘unidentified woman’ practically sitting in your lap on a surfboard at Topanga Beach.”

I slanted her a cool look. “Since when do you read the tabloids, Lena?”

“She has an alert set for each of her siblings,” Dante divulged, ignoring his wife’s glare. “She likes to stay on top of what’s happening with you in case she needs to intervene.”

“Intervene?” I asked with a raised brow before popping a bite of miso black cod into my mouth.

“Legally,” Dante explained. “Or illegally, if she asks for my help.”

I laughed at him as Elena swatted his shoulder. Dante caught her hand and tugged her in close to kiss her mouth.

“You are the most frustrating man,” she told him, but her voice was soft, almost sweet.

“You are the most infuriating woman,” he countered through a broad smile before sliding his hand under her hair and kissing her again.

“They’re sickening, aren’t they?” Tore asked me, leaning closer conspiratorially.

They’re all I’ve ever wanted , I thought but didn’t say.

“So, who was she, patatino ?” Elena demanded to know, using my childhood nickname. “She certainly seemed your type. Blond and beautiful.”

“She’s nothing like Savannah,” I said before I could curb the impulse.

Which, of course, made everything worse.

My sister was like a bloodhound. Once she caught a scent, she could not let it go.

“Ah,” she said smugly. “So she is not just some other Unidentified Woman. What’s her name?”

“Linnea Kai,” I muttered. “And we aren’t seeing each other. She’s an old friend.”

“The one he sends the postcards to,” Tore noted, to my surprise.

When I shot him a look, he shrugged. “Cosima has spoken to me about this. The girl you write to.”

“She shouldn’t tell you my personal business,” I said, even though it made Tore, a seasoned criminal himself, flinch slightly.

“Sebastian,” Elena reprimanded. “Don’t be rude. Tore is part of our family.”

“Your family,” I corrected, even though it was cruel to do so. Something about the Italian had always rubbed me the wrong way and brought out the worst in me. I did not respond well to men who tried to be my authority figures, not after Seamus and the circling mafiosos of my youth.

I did not find crime romantic, not after my childhood. It was a testament to Dante’s winning personality that I liked him at all, given his job. Mostly, I liked him because he would raze the earth to ash for Elena, and she deserved that kind of love.

All my sisters did.

“Ours,” Elena snapped. “You are the one who always stressed to me the importance of family. Do not disparage ours now when we have all fought so hard for each other.”

Only a big sister could make a grown man feel so ashamed.

“I apologize, Tore,” I said, facing him even though I did not like the look of him.

Something in his pale brown eyes, a shade darker than my own, unsettled me.

“ Nessun problema ,” he said quietly in Italian.

No problem.

He was always too kind to me, always too attentive.

I wished Elena and Dante had not invited him.

“You should ask her out,” Elena said, not to be deterred from her mission. “You haven’t truly dated anyone since Savannah Richardson.”

“I’ve dated plenty.”

“Loved, then,” she pressed. “You haven’t loved since her. Since them.”

“Elena…” I warned.

But she would not be ignored.

“I read that Adam Meyers might lose his part in the new Daventry film because there are rumours he had a sex tape with a male lover,” she said baldly.

I looked around on instinct, my heart racing at the thought of anyone hearing the gossip. I hadn’t known there was a supposed sex tape, but cazzo , of course there was. My chest burned, and for a moment, I thought I might be sick in the yellowfin tuna on my plate.

“Have you spoken to him?” Elena asked softly, reaching to smooth her fingers over my knuckles, white from the strain of clutching my water glass.

“Not in years.”

“I’ve never understood why she deserved your grace and not him.

” I looked up at her in surprise, because I had never thought of it quite like that.

“You haven’t told me the whole story, but I’ve always believed the more something hurts you, the more you try to avoid it.

Doesn’t it say something that you’re willing to see Savannah, but you haven’t spoken to Adam in a decade? ”

My gaze shifted to Dante, who was kindly engaging in quiet conversation with Tore, to give us a semblance of privacy. I knew both men were listening despite the ruse, but it meant something that they did not seem to care.

“You told Dante,” I said, not a question because it was obvious.

“He’s my husband.” She shrugged elegantly, and it reminded me of Savannah.

They had many similarities—both could be aloof, cunning, elegant, and cold—but at the end of the day, my sister was the brave one, always going after what she wanted and trying to better herself even when it was uncomfortable to do so.

Maybe that was why I kept nursing this weak flame of hope that one day Savannah would find some courage, too. “Are you worried about him?”

I closed my eyes for a moment because my mind’s eye conjured the memory of Adam mid-panic attack when he’d discovered the paps had captured an intimate photo of us on the beach. He had looked so…wrecked. Broken to pieces barely held together by fragile skin.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I can’t stop thinking about him.”

She uncurled my fingers from the glass and threaded them through hers. In the setting sunlight, her hair glowed like a dark flame, her eyes a clear, burnished grey. She was so lovely and so happy settled into her skin, it made something loosen in my chest.

“Call him, then. Help him. I’m not saying he deserves it, but I think you need to do it. You’re the most selfless person I know, save for Cosima, and I think it might kill you not to go to him in his time of need.”

“How exactly am I supposed to help?” I said, biting off the words in frustration. “Associating with me is hardly going to help when I was the source of the problem the first time round.”

“No,” she agreed, sitting back in her chair with pursed lips as she mulled over the problem.

“What he really needs is a good beard. Some pretty girl who can change the narrative and wouldn’t mind being at the center of attention for a moment.

I’m sure his publicist can find any number of thirsty starlets to take the part.

Whether or not they can be convincing or care about Adam at all is another story of course…

why do you have that look on your face?”

“What look?” I asked absently, still stuck on the thought that had cropped up in the wake of her words.

“That look,” she said, pointing at my face. “The same one you had before you called Leone Valeria a pig when he pushed Cosima into the mud. The one that preluded you getting a broken finger.”

“Worth it,” I retorted. “But you’re right. I think I have an idea that could help more than just Adam.”

“Well, then,” she said, crossing her long legs and reaching for her wineglass. “Aren’t you lucky to have a wise sister like me?”

I snorted, but lifted our joint hands to my mouth to kiss her hand. “ Sono baciati dalla fortuna .”

I am kissed by fortune, I told her.

And despite the heartbreak I’d experienced in my life, I knew I was the luckiest son of a bitch in the world to have the love of the women in my family and to have experienced the kind of love that changed my center of gravity, even if I’d spent the last ten years trying to regain my equilibrium.