Page 48 of Vow of Vengeance

“Packing for what?”

“To go on a trip to visit his family. He said not to mention it to you because you were still upset about it.” As I speak, I realize I’m doing precisely what Gian told me not to.

“He never mentioned a trip to me.” He looks distraught, raking his hand through his dark curls.

I stand up from the bed, going to him. “He didn’t?”

“No.” He’s shaking his head. “Ophelia, he doesn’t have a family to visit.”

CHAPTER 17

Haze

How isit that being in the same room with her simultaneously slows my pulse and makes my heart beat faster?

I stand in the doorway momentarily, absorbing her loveliness, before telling her, “Ophelia, he doesn’t have a family to visit.”

She blinks. Twice. A beautiful doe in the headlights of my gaze. “Where has he gone, then?”

“I have no idea. Gian hasn’t taken any of our cars,” I say. “He’s taken his old clunker. And he left his staff watch on the kitchen counter. He doesn’t want us tracking him.”

“He said he wasn’t going till tomorrow afternoon. He was going to help me with schoolwork in the morning.” She looks down, thinking, chewing at her bottom lip like she does. “I wonder why he lied to me?”

“It’s not like him. He’s never done anything like this before.” I pace her bedroom floor. “I don’t understand why he would do this. As soon as I came home and couldn’t find him, I called the head of our security. Eros is scanning camera footage now but, as of yet, hasn’t found anything.”

Seeing my state, she tries to calm me. “Come, sit down. We’ll figure this out.” She goes to the cushy armchair next to the desk, one I had Charlie buy for the room. “You’re wearing lines in the carpet. Which, you really shouldn’t be wearing shoes on.”

Sitting across from her, I sink onto the corner of her neatly made bed, eyeing her. “No one tells a man to remove his shoes in his house.”

“And no one wears shoes on my lovely carpet.” She eyes me back. Something in her gaze makes me break our eye contact.

How can I argue when she’s caring for the things I’ve bought her?

I concede, slipping one shoe off and then the other, thinking of how Gian would get a kick out of watching this exchange. Thinking of him makes that strange gnawing feeling creep up from my gut. He’s never left like this before.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why did he leave? Tell me everything that happened today and everything he said.”

She goes through their day, doing her best to relay the information. As she speaks, I ask a few questions and gather some clarification. None of this makes sense. Gian would have told me if he was leaving for an above-board reason. I stare down at the plush carpeting and my mismatched socks.

I was so out of it this morning that I guess I couldn’t tell stripes from solids—no wonder I’m not captain material.

What a day.

She ends with, “He said we needed to take time to get to know one another and that he would be in the way. I asked him to stay.”

“He left to give us some space…” I mull over the idea.

It does sound like something Gian would do.

I know he wants nothing more than this wild, impossible thing between her and me to work out. He’s a romantic at heart. What Italian isn’t? My blood pressure is up after the failed meeting. I’m overthinking again. Gian just buggered off to give us some space. Nothing more.

I run a hand through my hair. “It sounds like him. He should have told me, though.” My eyes lock with hers. “I don’t like sneaking around. I don’t like lies.”

“You don’t like lies?” She scoffs, defending a fast and fierce friendship with Gian. “Lies like bringing my family to the Villa so someone could tell them I was studying abroad. Or sneaking around, like breaking into people’s houses? Pretty sure you snuck into my bedroom and threw my boyfriend out the window.”

Ignoring her accusation, I hang on to a word that made my stomach clench when she said it. It turns my mind off Gian, and it tastes terrible in my mouth as it comes out.

“Boyfriend?” Is that jealousy or just pure hatred oozing from my tone?

---