and get a photo and see where he went, but he vanished.”
Something I can’t quite name flickers in his eyes. “You thought he was watching you and you tried to confront him?”
“Yes. No. No, I’m not that stupid. I wouldn’t confront him.”
His jaw clenches, his lashes lowering two beats before he steps closer, the very action protective. “It’s your life I’m worried about. What if he would have been luring you somewhere to grab you?”
“I was in the store.”
“Until you weren’t, Aria. Gio is missing.” His jaw sets hard. “I shouldn’t have let you come in alone.”
I frown. “Since when do paparazzi kidnap people, Kace?”
“We don’t know he was paparazzi.”
“You think he was here for me, not you?”
“I don’t know and neither do you. Do you have what you came for?”
“Yes.” I hold up the package. “I’m set.”
“Then let’s get out of here because they’ll find us.” I don’t know if he means the press or someone else and he doesn’t give me time to ask. He takes the bag and sets us in motion, but not toward the front door. We’re heading to the rear of the building.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Ditching the press. I dropped my car at a hotel a block down and paid them to park it. Walker is picking it up and giving us a ride home.” He cuts us down a hallway leading to the bathroom and directly to an exit, which leads us to an alleyway where an SUV is waiting.
Kace opens the door and helps me inside, before following, sealing us inside. He speaks to the driver who sets us moving. “I can’t believe you just pulled that off in a blink of an eye.”
“Experience and I was ready for them. I pay Walker to be on standby, especially now. The charity events got some press and I knew that would put me on the radar again. And I knew you wouldn’t want to be in the press.” His eyes meet mine and I know he sees the concern in mine when he adds, “The attention will fade.”
And then return, I think, and I don’t doubt that he thinks so as well, because it’s true. We’ve both been hiding from the problem his career and my birthright represent. We are like two sides of a coin. One side is the two of us together soaring as beautiful and high as an eagle, with wings spread in the lift of a perfect wind. On the other side, we are the same eagle crashing into a turbulent storm riddled with unexpected blasts of hail. We can no longer pretend those two sides are only one.
We have to talk about this. We have to consider the risk to him and me alike, and we have to do it tonight. He knows it. I know it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
With what feels like a question of our future together in the air between me and Kace, I rotate and sink lower into my seat. The problematic mix of his career and my past is a topic we’ve avoided for a reason. It could be the end of us and we both know it. And perhaps selfishly, I don’t want to let go of Kace. Minutes pass and awkwardly—when we are never awkward together—neither of us touches the other. I want him to touch me. I want to touch him, but there is an invisible wall between us. Perhaps that wall has always been there, but we had climbed it, scaled right over, and jumped right into all things me and him.
A good ten minutes pass, with traffic just one more obstacle to overcome in these turbulent few days.
Tension pulses in the air, or maybe it’s more like a ticking clock with a heavy, exaggerated arm. A million thoughts charge through my mind, many of them warnings my mother spoke to me over and over, about not just protecting myself but others around me. She would not approve of Kace August. She’d like him. She’d admire his talent. But she would not approve of a man that is a poster child for the world I’m never supposed to visit again. She’d claim he represents danger to me and me danger to him.
But I give a mental push to her assumed arguments.
I was eleven when I left Italy. The odds of someone recognizing me like Kace did are next to zero. Even if they dig around, my history is long and established right here in New York City. And