And his reply: “You.”
It’s then that images flash in my mind, as if in answer to some question I haven’t asked, and I close my eyes, knowing even before I fully visualize the scene that this is the memory I was having right after Enzo died.
I am in the hotel room where David and I are staying. The room where I ripped the butterfly necklace off my neck and found the note inside. The phone rings and I rush over to it, hoping it’s David, who has been gone for an hour.
“Hello?”
A female voice says, “He’s at Seventy-fifth Avenue.
. . .”
I open my eyes, frustrated that I can’t remember the address. Seventy-fifth Avenue what? And who was it who called me? The voice was strongly accented, but was it Italian? My brows furrow. I don’t think it was. I shut my eyes again, and will more to come to me.
It is dark outside when I reach the address the caller gave me—a restaurant. I enter and walk to the hostess stand, and spot David with a beautiful blonde, who I believe is American. I quickly move out of his line of sight, and dash back outside to the busy sidewalk. I don’t think they’re lovers, but I don’t know. I wait outside, the hood of my jacket covering much of my face, and he finally exits, and the woman is not with him, but he turns away from our hotel, and I follow, sheltering myself in the crowded sidewalk, where shops line our path. For blocks we walk like this, him in front of me, me praying I find the truth about the man I foolishly planned to marry. Love wasn’t in the equation. Normalcy was. I wanted to be normal. To be secure. To forget the dangerous past I don’t want to exist.
Abruptly David turns down a side street and two women block my path. I cut around them just in time to see David disappear. I run after him, but pause at the corner. Peeking down the sidewalk, I find it dark, lined with brownstones, and no pedestrians, not even David to mark my path. Inhaling, I dare to turn down the path he’d taken, hurrying forward until I reach an open gate leading to a private garden. It’s then that I see a man on the ground. . . . David on the ground.
I rush to him, and there is blood oozing from his chest. “I’ll get help! Hold on. I’ll get help.”
I start to get up and he grips my arm. “Wait,” he hisses. “Don’t . . . give . . . him the necklace.”
“Him who?”
But the memory goes blank and my eyes pop open, my heart racing a million miles an hour. “Don’t give him the necklace,” I whisper, repeating his words and then my own. “Him who?”
And I can come to only one conclusion. He didn’t use a name because he believed I knew who he was talking about.
four
“Ella.”
At the sound of my name, my lashes lift and I blink the gorgeous man leaning over me into view, my mind flickering back to the hospital room where I’d done the same. “Kayden?” I ask, rising up on my elbows to find him kneeling beside me.
“Why are you on the couch?” he asks, his voice a soft but evident demand.
“I must have fallen asleep. What time is it?”
“Two in the morning.”
“Two,” I repeat. “The last time I looked it was ten, and—” Everything comes crashing back to me. Raul. Enzo. Adriel. Gallo and Giada. The flashback of David dying on that cobblestone walkway. My fear that Kayden would also die. “Oh God.” I throw aside the heavy weight of Matteo’s jacket, sit up, and fling my arms around Kayden’s neck. “You’re alive. You’re okay. I’m so glad you’re here.”
But he doesn’t hug me; his hands settle at my waist. “But you didn’t want to be in my bedroom, in our room, Ella.”
I lean back to look at him, shadows stroking his face that have nothing to do with the ones I see in his eyes. “I just . . . I needed to be right here while you were gone.”
“Because you don’t trust me right now.”
“But I do,” I confess, no matter how right or wrong that decision may be. “Beyond reason, I do, which is why the idea of you betraying me guts me.”
“The truth is not as simple as a betrayal. And what guts me is the idea of losing you.”
“I don’t know what the future holds, Kayden. I barely know how I got here. I can’t promise how I’ll react to what you tell me. But I know that we’re here, and Enzo is gone, and I can’t lose you tonight.”
His hand slides under my hair, folding around my neck. “I can’t lose you ever.” His mouth slants over mine, his tongue stroking deep, and suddenly we are crazy, wildly kissing, touching each other like we will never touch again, two people who value control and have lost it, as if every emotion we’ve bottled up tonight has exploded right here and now, and become this moment that is all about need, passion, and hunger. My hand slides under his T-shirt, and only then do I realize his guns are gone. The hell is done and over, at least for now, and I press my palms to his warm, taut skin, reveling in this escape that I know will not last.
“Kayden,” I find myself whispering, his name a plea for some unknown something that only he can give me.
His answer is to kiss me again, and I feel the deep, seductive stroke of his tongue in every part of me. I moan and arch into him, and a frenzied rush of our hands on each other’s bodies ends in our shirts disappearing and my bra falling to the floor. It’s then that we slow down and his gaze rakes over my breasts, a hot inspection that tightens my nipples and my sex.