if they had a secret. Even though it was a very publicly known fact that the two people seated here at this restaurant on the terrace on a June night with the fountains behind them wanted each other badly.
* * *
After the waiter served his fritto misto and her tortellini, Brent broached a subject that had once been a source of friction between them, but then had brought them closer.
“Is your mom still writing to you?” he asked gently, picking up his fork. He watched her, careful not to push too far.
She closed her eyes briefly, her fingers clutching her wine glass. When she opened them, she was the girl he’d known in college, the one who’d relied on him for everything.
She nodded. “Yes. Every few months. She still says she didn’t do it.”
“She probably always will say that,” he said, softly, wanting so badly to erase all her sadness. He’d always wanted to, ever since she’d finally let him in. They’d nearly broken up once in college over this. She’d been so closed off at first about her family, so secretive, and it had driven him mad. He’d wanted to be let in, to talk to her, to help her through her troubles, but she hadn’t even told him what it was that tore her apart. He only knew someone kept sending her letters.
That had been one of their worst fights ever. He’d been frustrated beyond words over the way she’d kept him out. She’d been terrified to let him know the full truth about her family. But before the two of them blasted apart into smithereens, she’d confided in him, telling him all the things that weren’t in the press, that weren’t known simply from growing up in Vegas when it happened. He’d known her as the girl whose mom had killed her dad, but he hadn’t been privy to the backstory, the details that didn’t make it into the local news.
The full story had shocked him to the core.
His family was so... normal. His parents were still married. They were both retired now and played golf together a few days a week in a swank suburb on the outskirts of the city. He tried to see them once or twice a month, and always visited on holidays. He even baked a pumpkin pie every year for the Nichols family Thanksgiving. There was no drama, no dysfunction, and certainly no murder for hire.
Maybe that was why he’d been able to comfort her when they were younger. Maybe that was why they’d been drawn together on some subconscious level. He’d grown up unequivocally happy, and he had extra doses of it. He had a whole storage closet full of additional happiness, and he tried to bring that to her. Lean on me, he’d told her. He could handle it. He handled all her tears and sadness. He’d do it again if she needed him to. “And have you seen her recently?”
“I went at Christmas with Ryan. She asked if anyone had found the people who did it. Same thing she always says, even though she knows Stefano is behind bars.” Then she lowered her voice to a feathery whisper, her tone confessional. “I still check his inmate number every few months. To make sure he’s still in prison. It’s silly, I know, since he’s in for life. But I just like to know he’s where he belongs.”
Brent shook his head, reassuring her. “It’s not silly in the least to find some kind of comfort in knowing he’s locked up.”
“It’s not like it makes me happy,” she said, sadness washing over her eyes. “It just makes me feel as much peace as I guess I can feel.”
“You don’t have to be happy. You can just... be,” he said, and that was what he’d told her in college, too.
She met his eyes, a sliver of a smile forming on her beautiful lips. “I’m happy right now,” she said.
And hell if that didn’t add an extra gallon to all those stores he had.
CHAPTER TWELVE
After the plates were cleared, Shannon declared the meal a feast. “I knew I asked the right man to get me into this delicious restaurant. It was amazing, and everything I hoped it would be,” she said, then launched into a new topic. “I watched a funny video before I met you for dinner.”
He raised an eyebrow in question. “I thought you weren’t into Internet videos?”
“I’m not. I only watch videos of my dance rehearsals, and I shoot most