Page 111 of Bad Little Bride

“We’ll find a way to give them back.”

I smile at his instant response, believing he would do all he could, if he could. “I had just gotten into the school I always wanted. It would have been mine and mine alone. Something I earned, but I couldn’t pass the physical.” Bitterness used to bleed through me at the mere thought of what I missed out on,but I find as I tell Enzo, there is none. “Scoliosis. Nothing life-threatening, thankfully, but at the time it felt…life-ending.”

“And it no longer feels that way?”

I think about that for a moment, even though the answer filled my mind the second he asked. “No. I’d be happy to simply dance for fun, maybe even choreograph.”

“Then you will.”

A low chuckle leaves me and I roll onto his chest, looking down at him.

Before I can say anything, he takes his chain in his own hands. “The reason it was so simple to have Katana considered as a student for Greyson Elite as my sister is because the records already existed.”

A small frown begins to build across my brow and with his free hand, he swipes it away, a half smile on his lips.

“I did have a sister,” he says, a haunted look I’ve never seen slipping over his eyes. “I don’t anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” I try to push off, but he wraps his arm around my middle, holding me to him. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“You’re my wife. My life, past and present, belongs to you.” He pauses. “She died when I was still in juvenile hall. They didn’t allow me to attend the funeral, not that there was much of one. Miss Aurelia could barely feed her own children, let alone hold a funeral for the little girl she took in. So when I got out, myself, Mino, and Miss Aurelia held one of our own. This is the necklace she was wearing when she died, and Miss Aurelia gave it to me the day she took me to the place where she spread her ashes.”

I think of Jazzy’s similar necklace, warmth settling into my bones as the answer becomes clear. “Grandma.”

“Yes.” His lips twitch. “Grandma,as you call her, cared for her when no one else would.”

I offer a small smile, pressing my lips to the edge of his because I don’t know what else to do.

No one showed me what you’re supposed to do when you lose someone.

After the first few weeks following my mom’s death, I had to figure it out on my own as an eight-year-old.

“My mom was murdered,” I say suddenly, deciding telling him when I found out will do nothing with where we are now.

Enzo slides his hands into my hair, tugging my forehead to his. He kisses me softly, his lips hovering over mine. “So was my sister.”

His mouth moves slowly against my own, his pain seeping into me, and I welcome it.

Pain.

Such a shitty thing to have in common.

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Boston

“You’re staring.”

“I told you. I’ve been staring at you for months, longer if you count before we met.”

A strange sensation bubbles in my stomach at his words, so I look away as I pull my silk robe closed tighter and climb up on the stool of the kitchen island. “Not that I believe you, but if that is true, it’s called stalking.”

“It’s called obsession and I’ve been living with it since I saw you take the stage at the Galileo Arts Center.”

My eyes snap up just as he turns, moving to the long counter at the back of the kitchen like nothing, as if he didn’t just drop a bomb as casual as a fuckinghi, how are you?

“That was, what, over two years ago?”

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