Page 22 of Sinners Atone
“And he works for the family business too?”
His smile pulls taut. “Mm-hm.”
From what I’ve seen of him, even under the dimmest of lighting, I can’t imagine him sitting behind a desk tapping away on a keyboard. “Doingwhat?”
He pauses. “Security.”
My heartbeat slows a little. Well, I suppose that makes sense. The Viscontis are probably worth a fortune, and I’m sure both their family name and bank accounts bring all sorts of criminals out of the woodworks.
It would also explain why I haven’t seen him around and why he was lurking in the shadows of the parking lot. Being covert is likely part of his job description.
But it doesn’t explain what he was doing that night.
ABBA fades, and the DJ rambles something incoherent over the microphone. A loud cheer ripples through the crowd in response.
Rafe puts his hand on my shoulder and flashes a brilliant smile. “It was a pleasure, Wren, but it’s about time that I…” He tugs back the cuff of his shirt and glances at his bare wrist. A look of contempt flickers through his expression. “Get a new watch,” he mutters, then kisses the back of my hand. If he notices it’s shaky, he doesn’t mention it. “Save a dance for me tomorrow, okay?”
With a wink, he’s gone, parting the crowd with his mere presence.
Now what?
I’m too jittery to dance or make small talk. Shuffling from one foot to the other, I run my sweaty palms down the side of my dress and peer around. Tayce is still AWOL, and Rory and Angelo are still attached by at least two limbs and a mouth.
Rory. I bet she still hasn’t had any damn water. I take a step toward the bar but stop myself. My legs are like jelly—butwhy? Why am I so nervous? I should be happy—he’s alive!—and I am happy. In fact, I should bounce on over to him, throw my arms around him, and tell him so. Then we’ll gush over how it’s such a small world and how we can’t believe his brother is marrying my best friend, then we’ll marvel about how we’ve never bumped into each other before this.
I’m sure he’ll thank me. And then…
A cold sweat drifts through me.
And then he’ll ask me to tell him my secret.
There it is, the source of restlessness humming under my skin.
My mind drifts back to that night. The ghost of the October chill caresses my nape, and those words dance on the tip of my tongue. I blow them out in a long, hard breath, letting them dissipate between dancing bodies, never to be uttered aloud.
Another cheer rises up from behind me, and a plucky base fissures out of the speakers. Someone shouts my name over a rising beat. When I spin around, two lines have formed on the dance floor.
Well, then. The day I don’t dance to the “Macarena”is the day I’m dead.
Usually, I’d elbow my way into a space front and center, but tonight, the black hole in the back corner has a gravitational pull. So I squeeze through a gap in the first row and join the far end of the second, turning to face the front before the strobe light can reveal the man at the heart of it.
Shyness is a foreign concept to me, and it’s not the reason I can’t bring myself to turn around and break the ice. Or even just melt it a little with a smile and a wave. It’s something more unsettling. It crackles out of the darkness, prickling my back like a low hum of an electric fence warning me not to touch it. It glues my socks to the floor and rolls my head to the right, forcing me to make pleasantries with Priti, a girl who used to sit in front of me in math class.
She ignores my compliment about her cute shirt. “So, you and Rafe Visconti, hmm?” She wiggles her eyebrows, just in case the insinuation dripping from her tone wasn’t obvious enough. “We all saw you dancing.”
I roll my eyes. “I dance with all my friends.”
“Uh-huh, sure.”
“I’m dancing with you now, aren’t I?”
The dance floor shudders as twenty girls in heels jump to face the right wall. We put our hands out front and turn our palms up.
“You look cute together,” Priti shouts over her shoulder.
Whatever. Even if my thoughts weren’t too busy probing around in the shadows, I wouldn’t bother defending myself.
Because if I had a crush on Rafe Visconti, Lord knows the world and its wife would know about it.
