Page 6 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream
“Uh huh. Right.” My fingers tremble slightly as I reach for another flute. “Well, what a reunion that’ll be.”
His voice dips so low I can barely make out the words. “Yes. Yes, it will.”
I inhale some deep breaths—it feels as though my lungs have closed in too much. I busy myself with ridiculously pointless tasks until he speaks again.
“So, these sisters…”
That draws a smile from my lips and warmth from my belly, and I arch a brow. “Yeess?”
“Where do they live? What do they do?”
“Um…” I want to talk about them, I do. But I still haven’t mastered talking about my family while avoiding any suggestion it might be connected to the New York Mafia. “Well, we grew up on Long Island and they all still live there. My eldest sister, Trilby, lives with her fiancé. She’s an artist.”
“What kind of artist?”
“She paints.” I smile tightly and I hope he doesn’t probe further.
“What’s her style?”
I stop my forehead dipping into a frown and remind myself he’s just a hotel guest passing time, making conversation.
“Contemporary. She, um… she has her own gallery now, in Williamsburg. It was a gift from her fiancé.”
As soon as I say those words I worry I’ve gone too far and said too much. That’s something I will always hate about this new world we live in. There’s so muchsecrecy at play that I don’t know what I can and can’t tell people where Cristiano is involved.
He arches a brow. “That’s generous. Is he in the business?”
I swallow hard. “Wh— what do you mean?”
“The art business. Is he in the art business?”
“Um, no…” Oh God. My palms are sweating and I know I’ve turned the same color as my hair.Whydid I bring up my sisters?
He doesn’t press any further but watches me thoughtfully. I hate the silence, so I go back to his earlier question.
“Anyway, my younger sisters, Tess and Bambi, they live at home. Tess is a dancer and Bambi’s still in high school.”
I’ve moved all the way along the bar, so the only glasses left to polish are right beside the man I feel might set me on fire if I step too close. I brave it and reach for the glasses closest to him.
His jaw softens in my periphery but his eyes continue to burrow into me. “Your mom must have had her hands full raising four girls.”
For a moment, I feel it. A surge of sadness so deep and so visceral, I can’t breathe, let alone form a sentence. But just as quickly, it’s gone.
“She did, yes,” I say quietly. “But she passed away seven years ago.”
I place the polished glass on the shelf and turn to reach for another but his hand falls on top of mine, dragging a breath from my lips.
His touchburns, drawing my gaze to where our hands are connected. A flush of blood rises from my collarbone to my cheeks and I shyly lift my lashes to peer back at him.
His voice is rough and soft in a way no man’s voice should have permission to be. “I’m sorry.”
I swallow three times and croak, “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
He doesn’t let go of my hand, instead demanding I sink myself into these few long seconds where no one in the world exists but him and me.
When he eventually slips his hand away, I find myself craving it again, but I lock that thought away at the back of my mind and throw away the key, because no good can come of me lusting after a mysterious man when I have a past life to forget and a new life to build.
“It sounds like having a balance is important to you,” he says. “What do you do when you’re not working?”
