Chapter 18: Rule Four

Twenty men in good shirts waited for my answer.

I did not give it to them.

"Renzo," I said, without looking away from Gemma.

"You never took a thing of mine that was worth keeping. You didn't take her."

I put my hand out, palm up.

"Is it true?" she said again, quieter.

"Come outside," I said. "I'll tell you where nobody can hear it."

She looked at the table, at Renzo's wrist, at the bartender with his towel.

Then she took my hand.

We walked out into the white noon light, and the door swung shut behind us.

We did not speak in the car.

At the boathouse she went straight to the stove and stood with her back to me.

"He's right about one thing," she said.

"You didn't know me. You'd have looked straight past me in any room."

"I'm the one who wanted you."

"Turn around."

She didn't.

"Gemma. Turn around."

She turned. Her eyes were dry and her mouth was set hard.

"I didn't say yes in that car to hurt my brother," I said.

"I said yes because you walked out of a warm house without your coat."

"No one else in that room followed me."

"That could be pity."

"It could be. It wasn't."

I came closer.

"Rule four. Either of us can walk on the fifteenth. I'm tearing it up."

"Nico."

"I'm not walking. If you walk, I'm following you."

Her breath caught, and a laugh came out of her that was half a sob.

"You'd get lost," she said.

"Then I'll ask directions all the way."

I put my hands on her face and kissed her, slowly.

She let out a long shaking breath against my mouth.

"I don't want it to be fast," she said.

"Good."

I took her coat off her shoulders, and I let it fall.

I took off her sweater, and she raised her arms for it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Family Stole My Wedding Day, So I Stole His Bride-to-Be from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.