Thinking about her brother’s face brought on an anguish that she hadn’t felt before, not even when her mother had died.
“Where do you want me to take you?” Kayne’s quiet voice broke through her furious thoughts.
“I don’t care, as long as it’s not home.”
Laying her head back on the headrest, she watched the rain pour down the window as she listened to the windshield wipers in motion, as fast as her fury. She shut her eyes, wishing and wanting and praying for the last week of her life to disappear. Then she could stop Leo from ever going near that car.
A hand on her shoulder had her lifting her lashes to see Kayne staring back at her.
“Come on.”
She should stay put, not get out of the car, and ask him to take her back home … but she wouldn’t. Maria needed him tonight like she had never needed anyone.
Kayne was normal.
He wasn’t a Caruso.
Or a Luciano.
Something that Dominic would never be.
Something that Maria would never be.
But, for one night … she could be. That was what got her out of the car and into his apartment.
Being a Caruso was a death sentence. Either it put you in the ground or it killed a part of your soul that no mansion or Louis V was worth the toll it took. It for fucking sure hadn’t been worth Leo’s eye.
“Here.” Kayne led an exhausted Maria carefully to his couch. “Sit down.”
Maria fell down on the couch, taking in his apartment. It was so small and homey, and it shocked her that she liked it as much as she did. The best thing about his place was the shivers that she had been suffering from for the last week were gone … it felt like she’d finally started to warm. Not even a cold Maria had been a match for a freezing hospital room.
Lifting her legs to the couch, she curled like a warm kitten on the ugly material, sinking into the thick padding. “I like your home.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t compare to yours,” he said, taking a seat beside her.
“Big houses can trick you into thinking they are a home when they’re not.”
Throwing an arm over the back of the couch, he got comfortable. “Well, you have to like a couple of things about it.”
“Yeah, my closet,” she answered honestly about her favorite part of the museum she lived in. “And Leo, but he isn’t there right now.”
“How’s he doing?” Kayne’s tone became so serious that she could almost feel his own anger.
“Not good.” Her beautiful baby brother had been touched by the ugliness of their family business. “But he will live.”
With a price.
The hand that was on the back of the couch came down to sweetly sweep her hair behind her ear. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah …” Maria bore her emerald eyes into his gold ones at his tender touch. They had only stolen kisses here and there and held hands out in public, but now she needed more. “Hold me.”
In answer, he lifted her onto his lap with his big arms.
She snuggled in, trying to get closer, as if she could crawl inside him and live there until she died. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold.”
Kayne smiled. “You told me last week you don’t get cold.”
“Well, I was wrong.”
“It’s going to be okay,” he tried to soothe her, letting his fingertips lightly stroke the hand she had placed on his chest.
Maria liked the feeling of being in his arms and the way his heart beat in her hands. She tried to let herself creep inside the hole she’d been digging in him and did so deeper, making a place just for her. His fresh scent only drew her deeper.
“Maria …” Kayne twirled a finger over her soft hand, drawing out his next words. “There is something I need to tell—”
The sudden ping of her cell phone had them both freezing.
Maria fished her cell phone out of the coat that she was still wearing, looking at the text from Lucca.
Come home. We need to talk.
“Is something wrong?” Kayne asked.
“You mean something else?” She held the button that shut off her phone. “No, it’s just Lucca wanting me to come home and talk. We’ve hardly spoken since the accident, and when he wanted to send me home with Nero, I told him no. He’s probably regretting that he let me leave and wants to tell me which bodyguard he’s going to replace Jerry with.” Maria gave a harsh laugh. “Poor sucker won’t live a month. I’m batting two for two. Both of my bodyguards have been killed in the span of no time.” On their date, when she had left Jerry at the bottom of the elevator in the skyscraper hotel, she had confessed that he wasn’t her cousin after Kayne’s constant questions.