Page 12 of Beautiful Dangerous

“You’ve got her wrapped around your little finger, huh?”

“Something like that.”

I finally look at him, watching as he beats a bowl of what I’m assuming is pancake batter. “Why are you doing this?”

He shrugs. “No reason. I just wanted to do something nice for you, that’s all.”

“Again, why?”

“You can be incredibly suspicious at times, do you know that?”

“I have a lot of reasons to be. But you cooking breakfast isn’t one of them. I am curious, though. Why the sudden need to make me pancakes?”

“I like to cook, you know that.”

I lean back against the counter and cross my arms. “Yeah, I do, I’ve just never seen you cook breakfast before, that’s all.”

He smiles at me. “You’ve never seen me do a lot of things.”

I raise an eyebrow and turn to get some juice from the fridge.

“It’s already on the table.” Lucca jerks his head toward the open glass doors that lead onto the terrace and I head out there. The table’s already laid out with fresh orange juice, coffee, maple syrup, and a pile of pancakes. It’s fair to say I’m impressed.

“Did you make these?” I shout through into the kitchen as I sit down and drag a pancake from the top of the pile onto my plate.

“I did.”

I drench the pancake in maple syrup before pouring myself some juice. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

He comes outside and lays a plate of bacon in front of me. “There you go. Help yourself. There are plenty more pancakes if you want any.”

“Aren’t you having anything?”

He sits down opposite me and pours himself a coffee. “No. I had something earlier.”

He doesn’t sleep much, I know that. I hear him sometimes, in the night, because I don’t sleep all that much, either. I don’t rest easy these days, I haven’t done since Javier’s death.

Reaching for the bacon, I pick up a couple of rashers, break them up into bitesize pieces and sprinkle them over the syrup-covered pancake before cutting off a piece and popping it into my mouth.

“Oh, these are good!”

Lucca’s face breaks into a slow smile, the corners of his ice-blue eyes crinkling up slightly, and it’s amazing how different he looks when he smiles like that. Relaxed, almost at ease, and that isn’t something he is very often. “Like you said, I’m full of surprises.”

I smile too, and slice off another piece of pancake. “I guess you are.” As I eat I look out at the ocean; the way it merges with the clear blue sky, and I let my mind drift, just for the briefest of moments, to the time Javier and I visited the beach at Santa Monica one summer, not long after I moved in with him. We were having a few days away, on our own, a rare time when even Lucca didn’t travel with us. I don’t know why, looking back, Javier was never usually without protection. But I guess that was one of those times when he felt safe. Or one of those times when he just wanted to pretend we were normal. At that point, I’d still thought we were.

He’d asked me to marry him during those few days away. On the beach. As the sun set. He didn’t go down on bended knee, there were no romantic clichés, just me, him, and a day turning into night. That was romantic enough, thinking back, and it was probably the reason why I’d said yes without a second’s hesitation… No. I’d said yes because I’d loved him. I wasinlove with him. Or I would never have agreed to be his wife.

On the day I married Javier Delgado, at his Ensenada estate, the sun had shone and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I’d worn a simple, strapless, off-white dress and a diamond tiara, I’d felt like a princess, beautiful and loved, the most special thing in this man’s life. He'd worn a dark suit and an open-necked white shirt, he’d looked so handsome he’d taken my breath away. Did I know who he was, who he really was, by that time? On the day of our wedding, did I know the man I was marrying? Did I know what he’d done? What he was capable of doing? Yes. I did. I knew it all. I’d chosen to know it all, even though he’d asked me, several times, if I understood what knowing meant.

It would change my life, forever.

It would make me as much of a target as him.

It would mean I could never really leave him, even if I wanted to.

I didn’t, want to.

I understood the consequences.

---