Another round of thunder burst, and I flinched, spilling some of the hot liquid on the counter and my hand. Perfect.
He mumbled something in Italian including acazzo. Then he dragged me to the sink and opened the faucet. Cold water calmed the burn, but it was his callused, masculine touch that soothed the pain as he made sure the water covered all the redness on my skin.
How could Sebastiano Bellomo be so gentle and caring and kind? I wondered how Leo couldn’t get along with him. Who would have a father so protective and loving and not like him?
Tino—it was gonna take me a while to get used to saying his beautiful name without blushing or maybe I wouldn’t have to because he’d kick us out in the morning after all the crap I’d done tonight—put his gun back in his pants, cleaned the outside of the mug, grabbed it with one hand and held my own hand in the other. Then he walked.
“What are you doing?” I widened my stride to keep up with his.
“Delivering you and your drink safely to your room.”
“I can carry my own drink—”
His warning stare chopped off my words.
“I mean, thank you, Tino.”
He chose the stairs, not the elevator, and I welcomed the extra time spent with my hand in his. The silence between us begged to be filled or else my mind and eyes would roam where they shouldn’t. I dared anybody to walk side by side with Tino and not do the same. “So, it’s not like I don’t love the stained glass, but in this weather, which is most of the year in Chicago, don’t you think it’s a little more spooky in here?”
“No.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but that was it. “Oh-kay. Well, it’s spooky, like dark, gothic horror—”
“When I painted them, I didn’t know a little girl who’s afraid of thunder would be living here.”
“I’m not a little girl.” I didn’t know why I had to stress that more often for him. I was two years younger than his own son, so of course I was a little girl to him. It infuriated me, though. “And I wasn’t always afraid of thunder.”
It started when I was five. When my father began his nightly visits. He didn’t use to come to my room every night, but he always did when there was a thunderstorm. He was a truck driver, and whenever the weather was really bad, he stayed at home. For some reason he always chose me to satisfy his sick urges on those nights.
Then the night he was killed, there was also a storm, when I’d waited for the other monster to visit.Hedidn’t, and I was all alone, scared shitless, waiting for the pain that didn’t come, which was equally painful.
Today I’d come to realize the monsters’ absence was as scary as their existence.
Shit. How many memories was I supposed to slap or push away today? “Wait,youpainted them?”
Tino nodded. “Most of them anyway.”
“The details are intricate. So beautiful. How long have you been an artist?”
“It’s been a hobby of mine since I was kid. I stopped painting years ago. I’ve returned to it only recently.”
“Is that why you rented the penthouse? To paint again where no one can disturb you?”
“Something like that.” He opened my bedroom door with the same hand holding the mug, as if he was afraid if he let go of my hand, I’d do another one of my clumsy, stupid things.
I loved the protectiveness oozing from his every move, but I hated that I showed him I needed it. I wasn’t an awkward klutz or a chatterbox or the ogling, touching people without permission kinda girl. At all. I was shy, quiet, fully capable of taking care of myself—except in the kitchen—and had never ever flirted with anyone before.
Not that I was flirting with Tino. That would have been completely inappropriate and weird and wrong and all kinds of taboo.
Right?
He was a Mafia boss. He was Abel Magwitch, and I was Pip. He was the father of the only boy I’d come this close to dating. And above all, he was almost forty, and I was seventeen.
Tino walked me to the bed and placed the mug on the nightstand coaster. “Go ahead. I’m going to stay until you fall asleep. This storm isn’t ending soon.”
He’d do that? For me? I opened my mouth to ask and object but shut it instantly. I’d learned my lesson. “Thank you, Tino.”
I wanted to hear thatAtta girlagain.
