Page 40 of The Cost of Corruption
Truer words had never been spoken.
“So how am I supposed to know what’s right?” I asked. “How did you figure it out?”
She gave another laugh, one that helped cut through all the tension in the room.
“I don’t think I everfiguredanything out,” she said. “Any decisions I made about Gabriel didn’t have a damn thing to do with my head. They were all made with my heart.”
“But that’s because you love him,” I said, stating the obvious. There was no other reason an intelligent, kindhearted woman like Liv would be with Gabriel D’Angelo. “Whatever is going on between Matteo and I isn’t like that. There’s no spiritual connection. It’s purely physical.”
Liv arched a brow. “Are you sure about that?”
“Of course.” What else could it be?
“You might not say that if you heard how he was talking about you to his brother this morning,” she said. “I’ve heard Matteo talk about plenty of women he’d only felt a physical attraction to, and trust me, he didn’t sound anywhere near as passionate about them as he did about you.”
Really?
Still, I shook my head. There had to be another reason.
“He’s probably just realizing the consequences of our actions,” I said. “My father has to be on the warpath.”
Liv shot me a look that wordlessly conveyed that wasn’t it. “The D’Angelo brothers aren’t scared of anyone. Not other mob bosses. Not overprotective fathers. Not even God.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just that Matteoneverloses his temper. Especially not with Gabriel,” she said. “But this morning he did.”
Over me?
That didn’t make sense. I couldn’t be anything more than a fling to him. An amusing distraction. A break from his usual fare. Nothing more.
But amusing distractions didn’t usually get a whole new wardrobe in the front of his closet.
Or maybe they did.
What did I know? I couldn’t pretend to have any idea how these kinds of casual relationships worked. Up until a few hours ago, I’d never even experienced an orgasm.
What I really needed was the help of someone who had been down this path before. I looked over at Liv and found her smiling down at me with a kind expression in her eyes.
“So you think I should stay?” I asked.
“If that’s what you want,” Liv answered.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, uncertain I could handle another conversation aboutwants. Life had been so much easier when someone else made all my decisions.
But it had also been paler and flatter. I might not have made any mistakes, but I’d also felt less alive. The pain was less, but so was the joy.
So was everything.
Maybe I was asking the wrong questions.
“Matteo promised that if, at the end of two weeks, I still want to take my vows and become a nun, he’d take me to the convent himself,” I said to Liv. “Can I trust him?”
“I’ve never known him to break a promise,” she answered. “If Matteo said it, then you can believe it.”
Her confirmation felt like a giant weight being lifted off my shoulders. So many times, I’d been told one thing—like my father saying I could tell himanything—only to have it end up biting me in the ass.
“And do you think God will forgive me for this two-week experiment?”
