“How long?” I bite out.
“A month. Maybe longer.” She adds with frustration, “I don’t know.”
“Where did you cut him?”
“On his bicep.”
“Right or left?”
“What is this, Dante? An interrogation?”
“Right or left?”
She pushes off the basin. “Left.”
I trace the cut on her chin with a forefinger. “And this?”
“I fell and hit my chin on a step.”
“How many stitches?”
“Two.”
“What was his name?”
“What?”
“The man who was chasing you… What was his name?”
She grips my arms and pushes me away. “Your perverse curiosity will have to wait. My son’s bathwater is getting cold.”
Standing aside, I let her go.
She pulls the plug in the tub. After grabbing a towel from the rack, she holds it open for Noah. When he stands, she wraps it around him before lifting him out of the bath. I watch as she dries him, the two of them laughing as she rubs his body and hair vigorously.
“Not too cold?” she asks, sounding guilty.
Noah shows her his hands. “Look. They’re pruny.”
“Don’t worry.” She kisses each one of his fingers. “They won’t stay like that forever.”
I leave the bathroom and close the door behind me. Noah’s giggles follow me down the lobby on my way to the study where I take my laptop out of the safe and send an encrypted message to my investigator with the details Tatiana shared with me.
I want him to find the man who attacked her. And for reasons I can’t put in an email, I want that son of a bitch alive.
Chapter
Seven
Tatiana
* * *
I’m snuggling with Noah in his hotel bed, the storybook we read every night open between us, when Dante appears on the threshold. He’s lost the jacket and tie. The first two buttons of his shirt are undone, giving me a glimpse of the chiseled chest that fills out the fabric so perfectly the shirt must’ve been tailored to his size. He’s folded back his sleeves to reveal muscular forearms covered in ink. Beneath the shirt, his abdomen is hard and sculpted. I know. I’ve both seen and felt the well-cut muscles.
Despite myself, my heart gives a funny little jerk. I’d like to believe it’s apprehension, but there’s more to my reaction than that. There’s anticipation in the mix. Let’s face it. Dante has always been a handsome man, too easy on the eye, but now, he’s in a different league. He’s become unobtainable, like a mythical creature or a god, and he’s so perfect it hurts to look at him. But inside, he’s still the same man who betrayed me. No, I think he’s worse. There’s something cold and unforgiving about him now, an impenetrable armor of steel around his heart.
Even though I know the story I’m reading to Noah by heart, my tongue trips over the words. At my blunder, Noah looks up from the book. His eyes light up when he spots Dante where he’s bracing a shoulder against the door frame, watching us.
