"Goodnight, Dante."
"Goodnight."
I climb the stairs, feeling his eyes on me the whole way.
And when I reach the bedroom—his bedroom—I close the door and lean against it, trying to catch my breath.
We almost kissed.
Again.
And next time, I'm not sure either of us will stop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Dante
"I'm going with you."
Bianca looks up from her coffee, surprise clear on her face. "What?"
"To see your mother. I'm going with you." I lean against the kitchen counter, already dressed for the day. "You mentioned you’d visit her today. I'm coming."
"Why?"
"Because people are going to be watching us. They'll ask questions. And if I don't know basic things about your mother—like what she looks like or where she's being treated—it'll look suspicious."
It's a reasonable explanation. The kind of thing I'd normally do.
It's also not the whole truth.
The whole truth is that after our conversation in the car, after learning what her mother means to her, after understanding that this woman is the reason Bianca agreed to any of this—I need to see her. Need to understand the leverage I'm using.
Need to face what I'm holding hostage.
"Fine," Bianca says finally. "But you let me do the talking. She doesn't know about the arrangement, of course. I told her I had started seeing someone."
"Then we're dating." I grab my keys. "Let's go."
The drive to St. Catherine's takes thirty minutes. Bianca is quiet, worrying that gold pendant between her fingers like she always does when she's nervous.
"She's going to ask questions," she says as we pull into the parking lot. "About how we met. How long we've been together. She's... observant."
"I can handle observant mothers."
"Can you handle lying to dying women?"
The question is sharp, accusing. Fair.
"If I have to."
"Of course, you can." She unbuckles her seatbelt. "Just... don't be yourself. Be someone she'd actually like."
"I'm charming when I want to be."
"You're calculating when you want to be. There's a difference."
St. Catherine's is nicer than I expected. Private, well-funded, the kind of place where cancer patients get actual care instead of being warehoused. The lobby is bright, clean, smells like flowers instead of disinfectant.
