Page 37 of The Art of You

“I didn’t feel right about sharing it with Isabella listening. My sister is alive, and Bianca?—”

“Bella would be happy for you, not jealous,” I interrupted.

“I only spent five minutes with her in the kitchen, but you’re right, I can tell she’s a good person.” She tugged at the sleeve of my shirt. “Come on, let’s not keep them waiting.”

I opened the door. “We’ll celebrate when this is over. Your news and mine.”

“Yours?” She shot me a funny look from over her shoulder before going inside.

“Yeah, ensuring I never have to find out if orange is my color. The Feds may not have anything to charge me with, but if I find out someone is stalking Bella, I won’t hesitate to commit murder.”

Chapter 13

Hudson

I’d underestimatedmy ability to act like I hadn’t been kicked in the nuts. Seeing Constantine in the kitchen was bad enough, but making eye contact with Bella had me wanting to full-on retreat. It was my least favorite thing to do as a SEAL, but they never trained us for this type of defeat.

“Coffee?” Callie nudged a cup my way. I didn’t have the energy to take it, but her offer at least pulled me free from my staring contest with the woman I supposedly could never love back.

It wasn’t because I was broken. And I really did have a heart, so that wasn’t my problem. I felt the evidence of its beats beneath my rib cage as it tried to unleash holy hell on my emotions.

“You look like shit,” Alessandro’s observation pierced through my thick skull, a reminder to save self-reflection for later. “I know your stubborn ass didn’t take home any prescription pain meds.” He tossed me a bottle of Advil, and I snatched it in time before it hit my face.

Of course I had to grab it with my dominant hand, the oneattached to my bad arm, so that was great. The quick jolt flared up the pain in my sore arm.

I cleared my throat, trying to buy some time and cover for the grimace on my face. “Sorry for the delay.”

I looked back at Bella to see her stalking my way, barefoot and determined. She immediately took the Advil from me, unscrewed the lid, and placed two gel tablets in my hand, clearly worried I’d either take too many or none at all. Wordlessly, she swapped the bottle for the coffee mug and waited while I swallowed the pills.

Thanks, Mom.I half wondered if she wanted to check under my tongue to make sure I swallowed them, but I kept the sarcasm to myself. We had an audience, one of whom probably wanted to dig a ditch just in case I went back on my word and broke his sister’s heart.

“You okay?” Bella mouthed, the lipreading game seeming the safest form of communication with so many people in the kitchen and up in our business right now.

I’m on top of the world, how about you?My asshole tendency to try and push people I cared about away knew no bounds sometimes. And yet, I couldn’t offer the smart-ass comment to the woman before me, even if I needed to draw some new lines between us.

Adelina had seen through my BS, and it’d only taken a butter-knife approach to peel me open. Constantine would use a much different utensil on me. More like a fucking machete.

He also wouldn’t have laid into her in the hallway with a warning about me if he hadn’t already figured shit out. So, as much as it pained me after what we just went through together, I had to find a way to build a wall between us that consisted of more than sarcasm and attitude.

I needed to finally flip the switch to “just friends” for both our sakes. No more flirting because, apparently, itwasn’t all that harmless. It may have resulted in some jealous psychopath sending her that photo and removing me from the picture because they didn’t like how friendly we’d become.

“Hudson.” Constantine wrangled my attention away from his sister and out of my head, which was such a bad place to be right now. “Maybe we should recap everything we know and go from there, then see how Miss Cattaneo can help going forward?” He deferred to Adelina, eyes on her. “Unless you feel the need to go first?”

“No. Sadly, nothing much on my end requires immediate action,” she answered him.

I was okay with that. I wasn’t ready to address the photoshopped image and face what it meant.

Callie offered Adelina coffee before settling in between Enzo and her husband at the breakfast bar. Alessandro reached for her stool and slid her closer to him.

“So, who wants to take the lead?” Adelina looked back and forth between me and Constantine as if sensing there was tension between the two of us.

That “tension” planted herself on the stool by Enzo. He offered her a frosted donut since sugar did a much better job of waking her up than caffeine.

“We can go through the details together, but maybe you should sit?” Constantine motioned for me to join the others at the breakfast bar, but I shook my head. If he was going to remain a standing, tense statue, so would I.

“I’m good.” I set the coffee down, resisting the impulse to hold my back at the sudden pain there trying to betray my words.

“Fine, let’s get started,” Constantine said after a deep exhalation.

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