“What are you smiling at?” I snap, exasperated with myself as much as him. I know I should be running for the hills right now. And yet here I am, rooted in place by my feelings for him.
“I’m just thinking about how I couldn’t have chosen a better fake wife.”
When he pulls me close to him, I don’t fight it. With our bodies pressed close, his cologne washing over me, it’s easy to make-believe that we’re just a normal couple. “You’re smart, Dani. And you have your eyes open. You don’t flinch away from the life.”
“The life?”
He winces. “Life, I meant life.”
“You said the life. What is that, criminal code or something?”
“I don’t know what else to say,” he murmurs, his hands moving through my hair. And I let him, oh God, I let him because it feels so good and I think I might be falling for this man. Am I an idiot? “I’ve told you more than I’ve told anybody. Ever.”
“How do you know I’m not just biding my time so that I can make a run for it?” I counter. Even as I say this, I’m gripping his arms, smoothing my hands down his back, getting as close to him as I can.
“Are you?” he asks.
“What if I was? What if I tried to leave? Would you stop me?”
He chuckles lightly. “You leave all the time. You work sixty hours a week.”
“But that was before …”
He kisses me softly on the cheek. “Nothing’s changed, signora. I am still your husband, and you are still my woman.”
“But I thought it was all just a game,” I say, my voice getting weaker. There are other things I should ask: the drugs, the killings he’s tacitly admitted to. But I don’t want to push too much, because if I do, I might discover something that shatters everything. And that seems like such an awful waste of the fragile thing growing between us. “It’s all fake, right?”
“We’re going in circles.” He kisses my forehead, my cheek, the edges of my lips. “Answer your own question, Dani: does this feel fake to you?”
“No,” I admit. “It doesn’t. But I’m scared, Angelo. I can’t fall for you. I’ve got too much going on. With my career, with my life. With my little brother. And you’re a—you’re not the person I thought you were.”
He laughs darkly. “We’ve been living together for weeks now. I know you’ve seen things. I know you’ve been looking the other way. You can’t pretend you’re innocent and I’ve just been deceiving you. You’ve been deceiving yourself, too.”
I place my hand on his chest, meaning to push him away. But I end up pulling myself closer instead. “That’s not true,” I lie. “I just …” I stand on my tiptoes, bringing my face close to his. I feel his breath on me. I feel his eyes, too, like they’re penetrating me, baring me. I’ve never felt so seen in my life. “I just want us to be something, I guess. I want this to make sense. But how can it, now?”
“You’re confused.”
I laugh drily. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” he smiles. “I’ve never met anybody who confuses me as much as you. But I know something, too. Felice was my friend and he died today because he was driving and I wasn’t. I was miserable, depressed. I still am. But every time I look at you, I can’t stop smiling.”
We pause, just looking at each other. Then this flicker moves across his face. It’s like he’s scared he’s said too much. I get the sense that he wants to take the words back.
His hold on me gets weaker. Then he lets go and turns away. He turns off the faucet and I get it. It’s like a signal: enough real talk.
When he turns back to me, he has a wicked smirk on his lips.
“I’ve got an idea.”
“What?” I say. Because it’s too easy to just let go of all the serious stuff and have fun with Angelo. That’s the conundrum. I want to stay mad, but when he smiles like that, I feel myself melting. “You’ve got this mischievous look on your face. What the hell are you thinking?”
He takes my hand. “Do you trust me?” he asks.
“Stupidly, I sort of do. Why?”
“Because I’m going to need to blindfold you.”
Okay, so this is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done in my life. This