Page 48 of The Fixer

“If you want to run?—”

Run? Me? I close my eyes, and she’s there, her jasmine scent, her luminous eyes, and her relentlessly optimistic smile. She maddens me during the day and tantalizes me in my dreams. “I’m not going anywhere,” I reply, lacing my fingers in hers. “Ifyou’re trying to scare me, you’ll have to work harder at it.”

“You want to hear a litany of my flaws? Do you have all night?” She laughs ruefully. “I recently discovered that I have a jealous streak, and I don’t like it. I wanted to claw Andrea’s eyes out. It was an extremely disconcerting feeling.”

“Who’s Andrea?”

“The flight attendant.”

“Who?”

“On our flight back from Lecce, remember? The woman who kept eye-fucking you?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come on. How do you not remember Andrea? She had truly impressive breasts.”

This, at least, is easy. “When you’re around, I only have eyes for you.”

“And when I’m not around?” she asks teasingly. “What then?”

“You’ve taken center stage in my fantasies, principessa. It’s just you.”

She squeezes my hand. We lapse back into silence.Tell her,my conscience orders.She’s giving you something infinitely precious. If you can’t match her bravery, at least offer her the truth. Tell her about Patrizia.

“Tomorrow, I’ll get contractors to fix the roof.” I trace a circle over her hip with my fingertip. “I’ll vet them, of course, but there are no guarantees that Santini hasn’t paid one of them to spy on us. Until they finish their work, we should share a bedroom.”

Santini is probably still a threat, but not a big one. From all accounts, he’s busy dealing with his own problems. There have been at least two serious attempts on his life in the last week. He thought he bought himself some time by selling off his daughter to his second-in-command, but Lorenzo Corio seems to have run out of patience. He’s trying to kill his boss, his boss is trying to kill him, and all of Puglia is a powder keg waiting to blow. Given everything happening right now, I doubt very much if he cares about whether Rosa and I are sharing a bedroom.

But now that I have her in my arms, I don’t want to let her go.

“That’s a good idea,” Rosa replies, nuzzling into me. “Besides, we haven’t fucked in the shower, and I want to see if it lives up to the hype.” She kisses my palm. “Good night, Leo.”

24

ROSA

Leo’s still asleep when I wake up on Saturday. I sneak out of his bed and head to my room to survey the damage. Last night, I wasn’t thinking of water damage to my clothes, but today I am, and I’m dreading opening my closet.

It’s empty.

All my clothes—the entire contents of my closet—have been moved to my sewing room.

I swallow a lump in my throat. I sew my own clothes. I was bracing for hundreds and thousands of hours of work to be ruined, but Leo rescued them for me.

Franco, the last guy I dated, thought that fashion was frivolous. “With the world in the state it is, Ithink people should focus on something more important,” he announced pompously. I told him about the glow on a customer’s face when they tried on one of my dresses and it fit them perfectly, and Franco dismissed it as meaningless. To him, working in a hedge fund and playing financial games with the lives of working-class people was serious work, and making pretty clothes was a pointless waste of time. Franco proudly labeled himself a feminist, but he had a lot of hidden sexism that he never examined.

Leo, on the other hand? He’d probably roll his eyes if I asked him if he’s a feminist. But he’s never,everdismissed my work as unimportant.

I climb down another flight of stairs to the kitchen and get the coffee maker going. Leo comes downstairs an hour later. “I slept in,” he says, looking bewildered. “I didn’t wake up when you got out of bed.”

“I know.” I hand him a cup of coffee. “You were out like a light. So what?”

“I don’t sleep well,” he replies with a frown. “I haven’t slept through the night inyears.”

I fell in love before you took your first steps, he said last night. He would have been seventeen, falling in love for the first time. I’m dying to knowmore about the girl he fell in love with and why it didn’t work out, but I hold my tongue. Leo clings tight to his secrets, and hopefully, we’re taking baby steps toward a relationship. I don’t want to undermine my progress by probing.

He drains his coffee and pours himself another cup, topping mine off in passing. “Are you sore from last night?” he asks. “Did I hurt you?”

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