Page 227 of Lorenzo

“We agreed I would try.”

“Try harder.”

He mutters at me in Italian.

I laugh and start walking again.

After a second, he falls into step beside me.

Mocha has discovered a fallen branch and is sniffing every inch of it as though he expects someone to have hidden contraband underneath.

“So what happens now?” I ask.

“We find Marcello before he makes his next move.”

“And by we, you mean your family.”

“I mean all of us.”

I look at him with narrowed eyes.

“That sounds dangerously close to acknowledging that I am still on the case.”

“I'm smart enough to know that you will not stop investigating, and I can protect you better if I don’t try to make you.”

“That might be the most sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“I am going to regret learning compromise.”

“You definitely are.”

His hand finds mine, and he threads his fingers through mine. The gesture is so ordinary that it feels almost out of place in this conversation.

But I like it.

I suppress my cheesy smile at the casual romance of it all.

Donna Costa doesn’t do cheesy smiles and romance.

I shake my head.

The lake stretches ahead of us, gray beneath the afternoon sky, while Mocha trots along the edge of the path and Lorenzo’s security keeps their distance behind us.

This morning my office was destroyed, my house was searched, and I found out a man I had never heard of may now consider me useful leverage against Lorenzo.

And yet somehow I am walking around a lake holding Lorenzo Conti’s hand less than an hour after we declared our love for each other mid-argument in the middle of the wreck of my office.

My life has become strange.

I squeeze his fingers once.

“Marcello paid Rachel through those shell companies?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“And Harbor Peak still leads back to him?”

“Yes. So I’ll keep following the financial trail I was planning on following before you gave me all of this background.”