Maybe Lia was making too much of those moments of weird tension from Geoff. Obviously, he was upset. A friend of his had been hurt, so obviously he’d be tense. But she got the feeling that he knew why somebody would tattoo the word RAPIST on Jackson Crenville’s chest.
The ghost of close calls danced down her spine, and she shuddered.
~oOo~
She’d gone to the end of the block and turned the corner when Alex fell in at her side.
“Hey, Lia. You know better than to go off on your own.”
She side-eyed him. “Obviously, you knew exactly where I was.”
“Yeah, and that was a bad call. You need to stay clear of that scene.”
“My dad did that, didn’t he?”
Alex glanced around, apparently decided that the coast was clear, and shook his head. “It’s not his style. But I know whose style it is.”
“Did you know about it?”
“Not until this morning, when I got a call to get my ass to campus right away because you’d gone rogue.”
“The SUV was on my butt the whole way. If that’s me going rogue, I suck at it.”
He laughed. “That’s not a bad thing, Lee.”
She sighed, feeling irritated and trapped, and he grabbed her arm to stop her.
“All this, it’s to keep you safe.”
“I know. Maybe my dad shouldn’t have had kids, if this is what he has to do to keep us safe.”
Alex said nothing, but his eyes stayed locked on hers.
He was a good-looking guy—tall and broad-shouldered, cut lean. He had an obviously Italian look about him, with rich brown eyes and dark hair, a strong nose, and a square jaw that he kept covered in careful stubble. He was twice as Italian as she was and looked a hundred times more.
Lia was alone among her siblings in favoring their Anglo-Saxon mother—a fair-skinned, auburn-haired, round-hipped blend of English and Scottish—over their Italian father. The other three were dark and lean, like Papa.
But she had his eyes, at least. Bright green, they were her best feature.
“You don’t mean that,” Alex finally said quietly. “You’re lucky, Lia, to have a father like yours. Who loves you so much. My old man had a whole second family and ditched me and my mom the second he got found out.”
Now Lia felt truly guilty. She hadn’t meant what she’d said, and she was lucky. Her life had always been full of love and privilege. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good, and probably worth these hassles and intrusions.
After all, if it hadn’t been for Alex and all the other protections her father had erected around her, last night would have been horrible.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just feeling weirdly guilty over Jackson.”
“Jackson—the guy? You feel guilty?”
“Yeah. It’s stupid, I know. He deserved it. He’s lucky that’s all that happened to him. But … I don’t know. I just feel weird.”
“Getting your day back on track will help with that. You still want a run this morning?”
Alex was right. Putting the night and morning behind her was for the best. Plus, she always felt unsettled when she didn’t exercise. Since she’d started losing weight, she’d gotten kind of obsessed. “Yeah, I do.”
He grinned—he had a really nice smile, with straight white teeth and crinkles at the corners of his eyes. That smile went all the way up and turned lights on in his eyes. It was the smile of a nice guy.
People thought the Pagano Brothers were bad men, but in Lia’s experience they were not. She felt safe and respected around them all. They were dangerous, that was certain, but dangerous wasn’t the same as bad. They were dangerous only to men like Jackson Crenville, and Jackson was bad.
She didn’t mind so much having Alex Di Pietro lurking in all her shadows, keeping her safe.
“Then let’s get you back home to change,” he said, and they walked on.
Harriet and Kayla both thought she was nuts that Alex was only a ‘friend.’ But he could never be more than that, and it would be weird, anyway. Alex spent way too much time in her business to be somebody she’d ever want to date.
Not that her father would ever allow it.
~oOo~
Kayla and Harriet were halfway through their lunch on Monday afternoon when Lia sat with them.
Alex was in the dining hall, too, sitting off in a corner with two other guys, eating his own lunch. Keeping an eye on her as usual, but trying to give her what space he could.