Page 99 of Maddest Temptation

I took the flowers from his hands and shoved my nose into them. “They are lovely.” And they were. “What are you doing here?”

“Can’t I come see my girl?” he said casually. The flowers almost slipped from my fingers. What did he just say?

“I…I” I had no words. “Cassio…”

“Did you know,” he said as though he hadn’t just made my day, “Martha here says that the average time it takes for someone to bleed out is about five minutes.” Cassio looked at Martha, and she nodded.

Yeah, I was sure he must already know that. Did she know he figured this out by doing very, very bad things to people? I bet she didn’t even know who stood before her. And I bet she would run away crying if she did.

“I didn’t know that.” I responded dumbfoundedly.

“Come on, I have a surprise for you,” he said and took one of my free hands.

What was going on?

Had someone dropped me in an alternate reality, and I was just coming to terms right now? Still speechless and replaying his words over and over in my head, I followed him all the way to his car.

“Is everything all right with your mother?”

I nodded and observed Cassio suspiciously. Had he hit his head? Had something happened? That was the only explanation.

Eventually, he parked his car before what used to be a restaurant. “Peppe’s Pizza?” Cassio nodded, left the car, and came to open the door for me. “Cassio, this place was closed like, two years ago.”

“Yeah, it was.”

He grabbed my hand and led me toward the door, knocked twice, and then when I thought he was losing his mind, someone opened the door for us. “Peppe?” I gasped.

Cassio grinned at my reaction. I greeted Peppe, who I hadn’t seen since I left four years ago, and he led us into his old restaurant. A single table was placed at the center, and everything else was left bare.

“What is this?” I looked at Cassio in confusion.

“I realized we never went on an actual date,” he explained. “Peppe’s was the first time I met you.”

I remembered it like it was yesterday. Arabella had invited me to have dinner with her family. I was fifteen, a child still, but when I saw Cassio Moretti, I knew that he was going to be my everything. One sight and I was already a goner.

Tears prickled the back of my eyes and a lump formed in my throat, so large it was hard to swallow. I gulped a few times hoping I wouldn’t break down right now.

We sat and ate lunch together, something we had done plenty of times in the past, but we had always been surrounded by others. Cassio and I had never been able to be alone, just the two of us, enjoying each other’s company. Even if I was living with him, this was different.

After we devoured our pizzas, Cassio leaned forward and grabbed my hand, turned it around, and ran his fingers across my palm. The act was so mundane like he’d done it a hundred times before.

“You still hurt yourself,” he pointed out as he traced the marks my nails left.

“You still make me nervous,” I confessed.

“Why?” He sounded…worried like he might not like the answer.

The truth was, I was nervous because I was falling for him and today, everything had been more than perfect. Cassio made me nervous because he was and always had been my everything, and now I couldn’t escape him, no matter how hard I tried.

He caressed my skin again. “I have one more surprise for you,” he confessed and stood offering his hand for me to take it.

We left the restaurant; my belly was full and so was my heart. As Cassio drove, I kept on replaying our lunch in my head, afraid this was a dream.

My girl.

Was it true? Did he really want me to be his? Could Donato be wrong? He placed his hand on my thigh, and we drove through Chicago. Cassio parked his car inside Willis Tower, and we headed toward the sky deck. I noticed it was empty. This place was never empty, not with the number of tourists coming in every day.

“It’s ours for the afternoon,” Cassio explained.

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