Page 36 of Angel
Chapter Eleven - Angelo
Three weeks.
How could they go by so fast?
I managed to keep Paige at my place all that time. She’d only gone home once to pick up more clothes.
Things had been easy between us. Too easy. Hell,unrealisticallyeasy.
Unlike many other women, who constantly got on my nerves after several hours, having Paige around for days was a cake walk. We kept to our separate spaces in the penthouse, doing our own things after work but coming together for dinner and then, always, damned good lovemaking.
The weekends, full of ambling around the city and picnicking in the park, were just as pleasant as the week days. My nights of going out to the clubs and bars with Jeff and the other guys were gone. There was no point in hitting downtown and trying to pick up some woman I would just dispose of the next day.
I already had what I craved.
After a couple nights, I basically moved into the guest room with Paige. Not that I meant to. Leaving her side at the end of the night just seemed pointless, my own bedroom just down the hall a thousand miles away.
That and I couldn’t stand the thought of her in another room all by herself. I worried about her constantly. What if she woke in the night after having a bad dream? Would her newly discovered memories give her night terrors?
Sometimes she whimpered in her sleep, but when I asked her about it the next day she always claimed she didn’t remember any dreams.
I meant what I told her that first night back home. I would do everything in my power to help her.
I’dbeendoing everything in my power. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough. No one in my family was talking, the tight-lipped Salvatore trait I used to admire grating my nerves in the worst way.
“What’s that?” Paige asked.
I glanced over to where she sat in the passenger seat. I’d surprised her on Saturday with a shopping trip downtown, and though she initially protested I insisted that she at least let me buy her some work outfits.
The new cream colored suit dress she wore hugged her in all the best spots. Just the sight made me practically salivate.
“Huh?” I asked, already distracted.
“You sighed.”
“Oh.” I pretended to focus on the morning traffic. “I was just thinking...”
“About my birthday,” she finished.
“Yes,” I slowly agreed, and then I changed the subject. “About where we should eat. Where would you like to go? There’s that new French place in the Lower East Side. But we don’t have to go there. You liked that seafood place near the pier, right?”
Nowshesighed. “You were thinking about the other part of me turning twenty-five, weren’t you? Not the partying part. The not so good part.”
My shoulders bunched up. “Yes.”
Mostly I’d been thinking about how impossible it would be to let her go. Really, though, I’d exhausted the only option I could think of when it came to preventing that. There seemed to be no avenues left. I had to be careful where I poked around for information. If word got out that I was asking about Paige and Moretti that could put me on some people’s naughty lists. Go too high up on one of those and one day you end up missing, never to be heard from again.
“Dominic still hasn’t told you anything?” Paige asked.
I huffed. “No.”
She frowned. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with Sophia. I mean, if you don’t count the few texts she’s sent to check in. I hope… I don’t know… I hope she’s not hiding anything else from me. I don’t think I could handle that.”
“She might be having service issues,” I suggested, then gently bit my tongue.
I still hadn’t told Paige the guy in the photo with her parents was Moretti.
Unfortunately, the thing about secrets is the longer you go without revealing them the harder it becomes to do so. With each passing day, you risk looking like more and more of a dick for having kept something to yourself in the first place.
