Jesus Christ.

It was like being in a car with a couple of drunk high school girls.

Paolo looked at me with a sickly expression like,How the hell could you leave me alone with them?!

“Let’s go,” I said as I held out Paolo’s phone.

“Ooh, I wanna see it!” Isabella said as she snatched it away from me.

Ludavica clapped in excitement.

“What?! NO!” Paolo cried out as he twisted around in the seat. “Give it here!”

“I won’tcallanybody,” Isabella reassured him. “I just want to look on the internet.”

“For what?” I asked.

“I don’t know – anything!”

“You’ve never even been on the internet.”

“Now’s the perfect time to start, then.”

Paolo looked at me in a panic. “Boss?”

I sighed. I didn’t have it in me to fight over a goddamn cell phone. “Let her have it.”

“But – ”

“It’s the least of all the secrets we have going on,” I said grimly.

“Yeah,” Isabella agreed. “Theleastof all the secrets.”

Paolo grumbled, then turned back around in his seat and started the engine.

“Um… Valentino?” Isabella asked.

“Yeah?”

“…how do you get on the internet?”

71

Caterina

Ihung up the phone and stared off into space.

He was going to say ‘I love you.’

And then he didn’t.

Why didn’t he?

I already knew the answer:

Because he doesn’t love you.

It hurt like hell to admit that.