I stop and look at him. “You didn’t tell me I can’t work. I can’t just stay here and do nothing.”
“You don’t need to work. I have more money than I know what to do with.”
“You do. Not me.”
He reaches in his pocket and holds up a credit card. “Now you do, too. This has your new name on it, and it’s impossible to max it out.”
“I’m not taking that.”
“Yes. You are.” He shoves it in my coat pocket. “Whatever you want or need is yours.”
“Kayden—”
He kisses me. “I’m taking care of you, whether you like it or not.” He links our arms together and launches us into a stroll again.
“Then you have to let me help you with something you do to make money. Research, maybe? Or whatever I can do. Please, Kayden. I need to have a purpose. And not only do I not want to live off you, I don’t want you to feel I am, either.”
“I don’t, and I don’t want you to feel that way.”
“Then let me help you in some way.”
“I don’t want you involved in The Underground.”
I step in front of him, forcing him to halt. “You are The Underground. There is no way I can be in your life and not have it be in my life. And besides, how dangerous can research be?”
He studies me, his expression an impassive mask. “This really matters to you.”
Like he does, and I wonder if he knows that, or if I should tell him. I want to tell him. Instead I say, “Very much so.”
He kisses my forehead. “We’ll figure something out.”
He tries to move me and put us in motion, but I plant my hands on his chest, heat radiating up my arms, his credit card burning a hole in my pocket. “Just to be clear. That means we’ll figure something out.”
He laughs. “That is what I said. Now.” He turns me to face our left and the Spanish Steps that seem to climb a mile high.
“Wow. They’re magnificent.”
“Like you,” he murmurs near my ear, and it is becoming clear he has as much charm as sex appeal. “During the warmer season they have flowers everywhere,” he adds. “Do you want to walk up them?”
I face him. “That would be fun. Probably exhausting, but fun.”
He closes my hand around his. “Better now than when we have shopping bags.”
We spend a good hour milling around the steps before starting our door-to-door shopping expedition, and I soon learn the man is truly determined to spend his money on me.
We end up with so many bags we have to drop some off at the car. “You know,” I say as we exit a little pizza joint where we’ve just had marvelous pizza, my hand stuffed in his pocket, a confession on my lips I’ve had on my mind for hours, “when I realized I knew about Niccolo, my first thought was to run.”
“And now?”
“I don’t want to run.”
He turns me to face him. “Running isn’t the answer anyway. I’ve told you that.”
“The idea of anyone else getting hurt because of me guts me, Kayden.”
“You know me well enough to know that I’ve taken precautions. You need to stay in one place, and that place is here with me. Every time you move around is a chance to be seen by the wrong people.”
“What about when they look here?”