Page 27 of Forbidden Dark Vows

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Dad leans closer when I kiss his cheek goodbye, his eyes boring into mine as if he is trying to see right through to my soul.

Alessandro Russo’sfuneral is a huge glittering affair—the young actor is as large in death as he was in life. There has been no news of Harry since he left Chicago and returned to New York, and I sit down in the den with my dad one afternoonbetween walking a Great Dane for a client and my shift at the ice rink, to watch the funeral coverage on TV.

I don’t feel any sense of morbid curiosity for the actor’s family. I can’t even begin to imagine the extent of their grief, and besides, it’s a private thing, even though they agreed to the funeral being televised. I’m simply hoping for a glimpse of Harry.

Kurt Russell is there with Goldie Hawn. I try to picture meeting him in the restaurant with Alessandro the night before he died, and the memory is hazy, like a pencil sketch splashed with water. So much has happened since then that it’s almost as if I pressed the reset button on my life when I walked into the hospital room to see Harry. Everything before is a blur.

“They make a handsome couple,” Dad says, pointing at Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. “That’s a match made in heaven if ever I saw one.”

“You say that about everyone, Dad.”

“Not everyone. See the way they look at each other?” He gestures for me to pay attention with a nod at the TV screen. “That’s the kind of love everyone wants.”

I laugh. “You’ve been watching too many Disney movies while I’m at work. Maybe I’ll start taking you out on dog walks with me. Just with the slow movers.”

“If you’re talking about Peggy the Dachshund, I’m in. I think even I can walk faster than she does.”

I return my attention to the TV. The Russo family arrive in a gauze of black, heads down, escorted directly into the church by bodyguards wearing black suits and black wraparound shades. I recognize Tom Cruise as he enters without stopping to pose forthe cameras. It hits home that Alessandro Russo had a starry future ahead of him, cut short by an accident that should never have happened.

Then I spot Harry and Ronnie, both dressed in smart black suits, Harry’s arm in a sling. My pulse races, my heart performs somersaults, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

What is wrong with me? This is the funeral of the last man I went on a date with, and here I am acting like the heroine from an old historical romance, going weak at the knees over the sight of his friend.

Harry isn’t striking in the way Alessandro was, but there is something about him that makes him stand out on TV as he follows the guests inside the church. Is it the way he carries himself with his head held high and his chin jutting? Or is it those clear blue eyes, even though he didn’t look directly at the camera?

“Was that him?” Dad asks.

I suck in a deep breath and try to hold it in my lungs. “Was it that obvious?”

“Only to me, sweetheart.” He watches me closely. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt to call him and ask how he’s feeling after the funeral.”

I stand up; I’ve seen enough. “Don’t ever apply for a job as a matchmaker, Dad. You’d be terrible at it.”

“Aw, shucks. Just when I thought I was winning.”

Laughing to myself, I go to the kitchen and make hot chocolate—it feels like it’s going to be a long winter even if the thaw is almostcomplete—and come back with a plate of cookies. Just in time to watch the footage cut to the funeral party leaving the church.

There’s Harry standing beside Ronnie and another guy I vaguely recall from the ice rink, staring straight at the cameras. I freeze, cup of hot chocolate in one hand and cookies in the other. It’s as if Harry can see me watching him, and I instinctively step backwards, trying to avoid his line of vision.

But I don’t move far enough. My eyes are still glued to the screen when a young woman in a short black coat, six-inch heels, and legs that would reach the moon, squashes herself in between him and Ronnie and kisses Harry full on the lips.

10

HARRY

I watchthe footage again later that evening on the news report.

I’m alone in my apartment, still wearing my suit pants, white shirt, no tie, with my feet up on the glass-topped coffee table, and a brandy and soda in my hand. It has been a strange day. One of tears and laughter, of stories—old and new—and memories shared of Alessandro.

Carlos Russo hardly left my side. He was like the big brother I never had, my shadow, keeping an eye on me to make sure that I didn’t overdo it. I’d spoken to the family about the accident. I didn’t need to tell them that Alessandro had been drinking before he climbed into the driver’s seat of his car—it had shown up in the postmortem results. But rather than guilt-tripping me over allowing him to drive, they said that I shouldn’t have gotten in the car with him.

I wish I had answers for them. I wish I could tell them what had triggered his strange mood that day, but we’ll never know, and it will always come back to haunt me because I was the one who encouraged him to take Ruby out for dinner.

I sip my brandy—my first drink since I was discharged from hospital—and feel the burn as it travels down inside my body. Today, the ache of loss for my friend has overtaken the ache I feel in my chest for Ruby, but already her image is sneaking back into the spotlight. Her smile. Her huge green eyes. The way she looked with her hair tousled around her face when she straddled me on the hospital bed.

The stirring inside me isn’t purely sexual. It goes way deeper than that, although I want Ruby more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman. It’s a connection that refuses to be severed.

In Greek mythology, humans originally had four arms, four legs, and two faces—two people in one human form. Zeus, out of either fear or rage, split humans into two, and tasked them with spending their lifetime trying to find their other half. It’s a bizarre story, one that I would’ve scoffed at in the past, only now I can believe it.

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