Enzo stood beside me again, close enough that our shoulders brushed.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Because it’s quiet.”
“That’s it?”
He looked at me then, really looked. His eyes were brighter in the sunlight, but still steady and unreadable. “Because I thought you needed some beauty and peace in all this chaos.”
Something in my throat tightened.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
He gave a small nod, and for a long moment, we just stood there; the two of us, the sound of the falls, the cold air pressing close.
When I finally turned toward him, I didn’t think — I just reached up and brushed a bit of frost from his collar. His breath caught, barely audible. For a second, neither of us moved.
Then he stepped back just enough to break the tension, clearing his throat. “We should head back before you freeze.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Right.”
We drove home in silence, but not the kind that was heavy. At one point, I caught him glancing at me in the rear-view mirror — not to check, not to measure, just to look.
He didn’t say a word, and neither did I.
For the first time since we’d met, I didn’t see the cleaner, or the job, or the danger waiting for us. Just a man who took me to see something beautiful when the world gave us a small chance to breathe.
And that was everything to me.
Chapter Eight
Enzo
Gianina looked up from her book, meeting my gaze for the first time that evening. Her lips parted, and for a moment, I thought she might say something.
Instead, she just smiled at me. That soft one she’d been giving me since we’d gotten back from the gorge earlier that afternoon.
She was acting different. She wasn’t as playful and teasing and she looked at me in a way that made my chest ache; a way that made me think she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
And that was dangerous.
“What do you think you’d be doing if we weren’t trapped in this cabin?” Gianina asked, her voice soft, almost teasing.
I didn’t answer right away. I took a few moments to think. Life would be easier if we weren’t there. But then, I wasn’t sure it would be better because it meant she wouldn’t be with me.
“Instead of this?” I asked, my voice gruff. “You mean not waiting for an impending ambush in a snowstorm?”
She shrugged, as though dismissing the question, but I could see the vulnerability in her eyes. "I mean if we hadn’t met," she said quietly. "If you didn’t have to babysit me."
The thought made my chest tighten. I wasn’t supposed to care about her. She was untouchable; forbidden. She belonged to a world I could never fully be a part of. I wasn’t born into it; I was allowed to be in it and I could easily be taken out of it.
But that didn’t stop the heat that flared in my chest when she looked at me with those eyes; like she saw deep into my soul even though we’d only known each other a little over a week.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, breaking the silence. “You know that’s not all this is anymore.”
She sighed and closed the book in her lap, setting it aside. Leaning her head back on the headrest, she folded her arms over her chest, the firelight dancing across her face. She looked so damn beautiful in that moment that it hurt. “Then what is this?”
We stared at each other for what felt like hours. The only thing I could manage to say is, “More.”
