Page 141 of Cara & Gian: The Guzzi Duet

She smiled, or as much as she could manage. “I won’t need to after today, but thank you.”

“That’s easy to say now, sure.”

“Tommas—”

“Okay, Cara?”

Her brother’s expression hadn’t changed from the moment he’d started talking. Never once had judgement shone in his eyes. He hadn’t shamed her for the things that she had overlooked, or the mess she now found herself in. No, he only cared for her, and her happiness.

Wasn’t that what family was supposed to do?

She forgot what that felt like, to be looked out for, and cared about, by someone who shared her last name and blood.

“Cara?” Tommas pressed again.

“Yeah, Tommas. Okay.”

He nodded, and then waved a hand toward the gate where other passengers had started lining up to hand over their boarding passes. “Have a good flight, Cara. Call me when you get home and have a minute.”

“All right. Thank you, Tommy.”

Tommas shrugged. “It’s what big brothers do, right? Or, what we’re supposed to do.”

Yeah, it was.

She had forgotten that little fact.

Customs was not half as bad coming back through Toronto International Airport as they had been when Cara entered through them in Chicago. The customs officer gave her passport a glance, barely opened her carry-on and purse up fully, and sent her on with a smile.

That was one damn thing to be grateful for.

While the flight from Chicago to Toronto wasn’t a long one, her emotional turbulence meant that Cara wasn’t in a particularly good place. She was exhausted—mentally, and physically. The only thing she wanted to do was get home to her apartment, give her brother the call she promised him, and then lie in her bed for several hours.

She needed sleep.

Cara pushed through customs, and headed toward arrivals where her luggage would be waiting, and a line of taxis outside the exit doors. She had stepped off the escalator when she spotted the guy standing at the very front of a large group of waiting people.

Several held signs with last names scrawled on them, waiting to pick up someone from their arriving flights.

Not this man.

Chris didn’t need to.

Wearing all black, his hair smoothed back, and a flat smile plastered on his face, Cara let out a sigh at the sight of Chris.

She had wanted to go home. She’d hoped for a little bit of time before she would need to have an actual face-to-face meeting with Gian. Some breathing room to get her thoughts and feelings in order, so that when she did see him, her raging emotional vomit didn’t spill all the way out, making a mess of everything it could reach. Surely, she wasn’t asking for a lot.

Apparently, Gian was not going to give Cara that option. Well, he would have nobody to blame but himself when he faced her anger. He could have given her a day or two—anything—to let his lies sink in.

“Miss Rossi?” Chris asked as he came to stand in front of Cara.

She looked him over. “Gian sent you, Chris?”

“Sì, miss.”

“I suppose if I said that I didn’t want to go see Gian, it won’t make much of a difference, huh?”

He smirked a bit. “I’m to deliver you to his penthouse, nowhere else. I only follow orders. It would be best if you didn’t make a scene. Either way, the penthouse is it.”