“I like to look at you. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
My face warmed despite me, and he smiled. He loved to say things like that so I’d blush for his amusement.
I cleared my throat. “Where do you go to college?”
“I study Economics at UChicago.”
“And why have I never seen you at Bellomo before this year if you’re an alumnus?”
“Because I’d probably left before you joined. How long have you been there?”
“Five years.”
“Yeah, I transferred a year before that. I…” He let out a deep breath. “Something terrible happened to my family that year. I needed to get away. My father and I moved to San Francisco for a while.”
I can relate.“I’m sorry. Family tragedies are the worst.” I didn’t want to pry or ask for more details. That might lead him to ask aboutmyfamily tragedy. I wasn’t ready to share.
He stared back at me, but this time it was different. It was knowing.
“Oh my God.” I looked down, shaking my head. “You know about my father, don’t you?”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lina. With all due respect, he was a scumbag that deserved to be brutally murdered.”
I gritted my teeth, grabbing my bakery bag to leave. “I’m not ashamed of it. It was just nice, for one freaking second, to talk to someone who didn’t know about the worst thing that ever happened to me, the one thing that defined me everywhere, made everyone see me asthatgirl.”
“It doesn’t define you, not to me,” he said fast as if that would stop me from leaving my chair. “Lina, please, you have to believe me. This isn’t what I see when I look at you.”
I cocked a brow in a challenge, lifting my chin. “Then what do you see in the poor, orphaned and abused program kid, rich boy?”
He leaned forward, countering my move with equal determination to win. “Not that either. I see a girl, smart and beautiful inside and out, one that deserves to have anything and anyone she wants because she’s no less than any other girl, one that deserves to be loved for who and what she is. The only problem is, she doesn’t see herself the way I see her, but I won’t stop until she does.”
My lips twitched and my nostrils flared. This could be one of the most beautiful things any girl wanted to hear, but for me, it was infuriating and condescending. Nicky’s words echoed in my head.We don’t need boys or husbands or any of that shit. We don’t need saviors.Only each other. Baldi girls versus the world. “So what, you think you can save me? From myself?” I mocked, but on the inside, I was shaking like a leaf with fury and pain.
“Do you need saving? I would if you did, and not just from yourself.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“There’s something that scares you, Lina. I don’t know what it is, and it’s driving me crazy. It’s the real reason you don’t want to let someone in or open up your heart.”
If only he knew… “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know I can protect you. From anything.”
“Not fromhim.” I mumbled under my breath, the words falling out of my mouth reflexively yet fortunately too low for anybody to hear.
Or so I thought.
The darkness that swam in his gaze meant he did hear it. “Who’shim?” he seethed.
My eyes widened, fear crippling me. I’d never told anyone before about the day we met. I’d been lying to Nicky about it for months so she wouldn’t know. Why the hell did my tongue slip now? I should have never mentionedhim. Ever. Especially when Leo reacted that way. I knew he was intense, but he gave the word a new level.
“Nobody.” I gulped, stepping away. “I gotta go.”
“Lina, wait,” he said as a warning, his hand grabbing my arm before I could leave the table.
My bulging eyes dropped to his grip. “Let go of me.” I trembled with fear and rage, ready to scream if he didn’t comply.
Swiftly, he removed his hand and put it in the space between us in surrender. “I’m sorry. But you can’t just say something like this and leave. You gotta tell me who he is so I can protect you.”
