Simple.
Too easy.
Vincenzo walked in the world of shadows and blurred lines. Designing the takedown of my wedding took planning and strategy. For the life of me, I didn’t understand why. What we had in the past, what we felt for one another once upon a time, was pale. Youth-driven longing that ended in heartache. The kind of inexperienced affection that thought it would stand the test of time. It seemed utterly ridiculous that he spent the last decade obsessing over me to the point that he came back to interfere with my life.
And yet, he’d swooped in to destroy my wedding. He’d made my father cower.
Regardless of whether my father had known about us or not, Vincenzo believed that was true. While I spent the last decade thinking my old flame had spared me from being engaged to a criminal serving his sentence for racketeering, Vincenzo saw prison as a pause button.
He came now to take me? To make me his after all these years? Was it really so strange that young love didn’t die? But this didn’t feel like adoration. Vincenzowasn’t here to spend a romantic weekend with me. He was already gone after getting what he wanted—the terms of which still didn’t make sense. We were married. Was that it? To prove he could take whatever he wanted? This wasn’t a happy ending to our story. This was a twisted nightmare. Maybe his feelings didn’t grow during this time. Maybe they’d festered with his years spent behind bars.
That thought chilled me to the bone.
The sudden urge to escape gripped me. The crash of the waves on the shore was a haunting melody. The glittering sunlight was too intense. I needed to leave and embrace normalcy. That meant work. Once I grounded myself, once I was back in the familiar routines and patterns, I could deal with this clusterfuck.
His crony said whatever I wanted….
“Take me back to New York,” I hedged.
Bill chuckled. “I thought that might be what you said. The jet’s already fueled and waiting.”
***
On the private plane, I’d tried to call Steven using the wi-fi. It went straight to voicemail. My text messages to him went unread. Right as we landed, a foreign number messaged.
Unknown: Miss Loring, kindly remove all forms of contact from your device. You made your intentions clear when you left our nephew at the altar. He does not want to hear from you.
I sighed and closed my phone.
“Why the long face?” Bill cracked his knuckles.
“It’s nothing.”
The crony gave me a skeptical look. “Well, my number’s in your phone if you need it. Best of luck to you. I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”
He rose, brushed a hand over his shirt, and began walking to the cabin door as the flight crew lowered the staircase. I hefted my laptop bag over my shoulder and grabbed my suitcase, which I hadn’t let the attendant store during the short flight.
I didn’t trust them. Any of them.
This seemed too good to be true that I was simply allowed to return to life as usual.
“Wait!” I hurried after Bill.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Yeah?”
“You’re just…?” I lifted my hands but quickly reached for the railing as a gust of wind barreled down the runway. “You’re just leaving?”
“I brought you to New York.” Bill pulled out a pair of aviators. “That’s what you asked for, right?”
My designer pumps clattered against the metal steps. “Right.”
Bill smirked. “You don’t sound too sure.”
“I just….” I paused on the last step. “It feels…wrong. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Looking up to the bright, cloudless blue sky, Bill hummed. “My granny always said don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She was the positive one. So positive, right until the day she died. A tragic end for someone sunny like her. She was run over by her neighbor’s minivan.”
I gaped at him in horror.
