light as a drifting feather—close to the feeling I got when Maggie Beautiful’s special hot chocolate made it to the pit of my stomach. Goosebumps prickled my skin.
He was out there, watching me.
The urge to run to him became strong, but I controlled the impulse in favor of dancing for him—just for a bit. My movements came in time to the whimsical music. I danced like he was the last audience I would ever dance for—no regrets if he was. When the song came to an end, a different one picked up. His absence from the other side of the window could be felt, but his presence just moved, this time into the studio.
The rush I felt when I saw him started in my head and rushed to my toes, making me feel dizzy. Our time together had been scarce of late, and seeing him felt like the first time, but even better.
His smiles should’ve come with a warning. He did the most dangerous thing then: he smiled at me, and the breath caught in my throat. “Ballerina Girl.”
On impulse, not thought, I ran to him, throwing myself into his arms. Running my fingers through his hair, cold from being outside, I gripped, pulling his mouth to mine. His tongue tasted like raspberry sucker and mint. He broke the kiss, both of us short on breath.
“You missed me.”
I pinched my fingers together, only leaving a slight margin to let light through. “A little.”
He smiled and then kissed me again. He missed me too.
“I love when you surprise me,” I whispered against his lips.
A shiver ran through his body and another warm rush spread through mine.
“Yeah.” He wrapped his arms around my body, picking me up off the floor, keeping me pressed against his chest. My hands rested on his wide shoulders. “It’s never a sure thing. Not when you feel me before I can surprise you.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “you do come as a surprise. That’s why I love it so much. It’s rare.”
He stared at me, face unreadable. I wondered what had caused me not to feel him when he had first arrived. It wasn’t until some time after he arrived that his presence in my blood started to rise like champagne bubbles. The connection between us stood strong, but there were times when my attention would be so focused on one thing that I didn’t feel him until after his force field had plowed over all others. I assumed this was because the connection became background noise, and if I didn’t sense anything wrong, it settled into the natural noise of my beating heart.
Or…had he figured out a way to hide from me?
I laughed at how ridiculous that sounded and looked down at him. He narrowed his eyes but said nothing. “I thought you had to work?”
“I took off. I needed to see you.”
“About?”
“Nothing. The word ‘need,’ Scarlett. You haven’t eaten much today. We’ll eat.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know what I’ve eaten today…or not?”
He tapped his temple and then his heart. The only answer I’d get. We both knew he had people reporting back to him about what I did. I just hadn’t realized how minute the details could get.
“I bet you pay those Italian men that come to town every so often to keep an eye on me,” I teased. “Must be mundane for them to have to count the calories I consume.”
At the mention of the Italian men, he squeezed me even harder, his arms slipping further down, to my behind. The mention of the Italians in bespoke suits made him tense.
“Or Mick,” I said, attempting to soothe over what I hadn’t intentionally caused. “How much do you pay him, hmm?”
“Fucking Mick,” he said, and the anger in his voice surprised me.
It belatedly dawned on me that he assumed Mick had told me the truth: Brando paid him to watch out for me.
“You pay him!” I gasped, attempting to wiggle out of his iron hold. He refused to relent.
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“Why?” My voice went high.
“To keep me sane.”
“There’s not enough money in the world to fix that,” I mumbled, knowing it was useless to even try to argue with him.
He grinned at that.
I sighed, a soft breath that he seemed to breath in. “Your snitches are wrong, Fausti.” Most people in town butchered his last name, but since I had Italian, I pronounced it correctly—Fow-stee. “Violet brought me a salad earlier, compliments of Eunice. Besides. You know what happens to snitches.”