Page 40 of The Enforcer

17Alfonso

We leave almost as soonas Ugo arrives. Zoe tries to walk down the stairs, but I remind her that for every step she takes down the hill, she’ll have to walk up one more. She freezes. It’s already a warm summer day, but I can feel the heat of her anger as she clenches her fists and then turns around and heads up the steps, glaring at me as she passes.

Ugo laughs, and I push him like I used to when we were children.

We let Zoe set the pace. Besides the fact that she seems like the kind of woman who prefers to be in charge, the steps aren’t any fucking easier on me or Ugo, and Zoe’s slow, steady climb is just fine for me.

Also, I like the view.

“You shouldn’t look at her like that in front of mamma,” Ugo says in Italian, dropping his voice just in case Zoe can hear and understand Italian.

Besides the fact that he’s interrupted my very important study of the muscles in Zoe’s ass — specifically her right cheek — I’m angry at his assertion.

“I can look at my fiancée this way.”

Ugo snorts. “Nicola might have believed you. Dario might even try. But we know one another better than that.”

I glance at him and then at the sea beyond. I’m not ashamed, but I don’t like having to keep a secret from anyone in my family, but especially not with Ugo since he is even more allergic to lying than I am.

“I’m not going to ask why you are here or who she really is. But if you look at her that way, mamma will expect her to stay. Every time you come home, she’ll wonder about her, and that’ll just be one more thing standing between you two. I know you don’t want that.”

I look up at Zoe only so that I won’t accidentally make eye contact with my brother. She’s still just as sexy, but Ugo’s words have robbed me of the pleasure of watching her move. Well, some of the pleasure, at least.

“I don’t want that,” I admit because sometimes I worry that my family thinks I enjoy hurting my mother. I do not.

“I didn’t think so,” Ugo says casually.

I feel the need to respond. There are a number of things that I probably should confess, but the words that might actually lower my mother’s expectations or make her think better of me would ruin my cover, and I cannot. Besides, what Ugo was seeing in my gaze wasn’t love, just lust, and I shouldn’t be looking at her that way anyway. There’s also no use explaining any of this to Ugo because Dario might be a priest, but Ugo’s life is just as secluded and celibate.

Salvo sent me here for a reason, to hide Zoe, and that’s it. There’s no safer place than home, and if anything should happen to me, I can count on my brothers to take care of Zoe and alert Giulio and Salvo. So, I need to focus on doing my job and making sure that the Positano part of my life never meets the Napolitano.

Ugo claps his hand on my shoulder and then jogs the few steps up to Zoe.

He touches her elbow lightly and then points toward the next landing before jogging ahead of us both. She glares at me over her shoulder.

That lightens my mood.

It takes Zoe and I at least five minutes to make it to the landing where Ugo has disappeared.

“Oh my God, my ass hurts. How is that possible?” she groans.

My eyes immediately go to the matter at hand, and I smile.

“Stop staring at my ass.”

“Come,” Ugo calls. “Have some water.”

I gesture for Zoe to follow him through a stone arch that I’ve likely walked through more times than I can remember.

“You just want to stare at my ass,” she mutters.

“Certo. It is a nice ass.”

She scoffs. “It better be more than nice when I leave here. All these goddamn steps.”

I can’t help but smile after her, and not just because my appreciation for the view has returned in full force.

Zoe

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