Page 67 of Sins of the Son

I turned back to Milana. “This is no longer your concern. We will head back to Cavalieri, and you will stay on the vineyard grounds, where it is guarded and safe, until the matter is resolved. End of discussion.”

Her eyebrows rose. “End of discussion? End of discussion! There would have to have been a beginning of a discussion for there to be an end.” She placed her hands on her hips as her gaze hardened. “You know what, Cesare? You may not have been involved, but all of this is still your fault.”

The space between my shoulder blades tightened as my body stilled. My gaze swept over her. “Careful, carissima.”

“What’s the matter, Cesare? I thought you wanted the truth?”

She moved until her back hit the furthest wall in the small compartment, shifting as far as possible away from me, both physically and emotionally. It was like I could actually feel the wall of ice crystalizing between us, shard by icy shard.

Her dark eyes became sightless as she stared over my shoulder into the past. “They lured me to the school music room with a cheap Valentine's card….”

CHAPTER 23

MILANA

Seven years earlier

I clutched the cheesy, American-style Valentine’s Day card in my hand as I peeked around the corner to make sure the school hallway was empty before hurrying down the darkened corridor. If I got caught there would be hell to pay. Cesare, Amara, and I were already in trouble for sneaking out early three weeks ago for a football game. My nonna had locked me in my bedroom and berated me for being a whore who only cut school to have sex with boys, just like my mother, for an entire week after that stunt. I was still buried in schoolwork because of it.

I looked down at the silly Valentine's card he had given me for La Festa Degli Innamorati.

Bee mine.

There was a cartoon bee with a goofy grin holding a heart and a bunch of flowers. I rolled my eyes but couldn’t suppress a smile as butterflies fluttered in my stomach. If this had been a few months ago, I would have known it was just a stupid prank. We were always playing them on one another.

But something changed back in January at the La Befana festival.

Something had shifted between us.

It was nothing I could put into words.

It was more like a feeling, a sense.

It was in the way I caught him looking at me when he thought my attention was elsewhere. Or in the protective way he now always put his hand on my lower back when we were in the crowded school hallways. He never used to do that before.

Then yesterday, we were walking through town and I turned down the wrong lane. We found ourselves in a narrow, secluded alleyway. I had turned around so abruptly I had slammed into his chest.

All the breath left my body.

How had I never noticed before how… big and strong he was? His chest was like a freaking wall of muscle.

His arms wrapped around my waist, and time seemed to stop.

He then said my name… but not in the usual way. Not in the casual way he had said it a thousand times over the years and years of our friendship. No, this time my name was like dark honey slowly dripping off his tongue.

When I froze and didn’t respond, he had wrapped his fist around my long ponytail.

I could still feel the gentle tug on the back of my skull.

He forced my face to tilt up to his, our lips a breath apart…when a woman above opened her shutters and shouted at us.

The spell was broken.

Coming back to the present, I stared down at the silly Valentine's card.

He was going to kiss me.

Cesare Cavalieri had planned to kiss me at that moment. I was sure of it.

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