Page 44

He doesn’t wait for me to follow him. Instead, he turns slowly and makes his way downstairs, the dull, heavy thud of his footfalls fading as he does.

He knows I’m going to follow him, and I do. My legs wobbling, I hurry down the stairs and then the hall. The study door is open just enough to cast a warm glow into the hallway. I approach the door and see him standing right inside. My heartbeat stutters.

Without making eye contact, I hurry into the study, noting the heat radiating off him as I pass. Then he shuts the door with a click as I take a seat, my pulse pounding in my ears.

For a long moment, Enzo doesn’t speak. He crosses slowly over to the windows and stands with his back to me and his hands in his pockets. I sit in the middle of that enormous room and wait, which is a punishment in its own right.

“How old is he?”

“Mr. Accardi…”

“How old is the boy, Stevie? It’s not a difficult question. You know the answer to the day.”

“Four.” My voice is steadier than I am. “He’s four.”

“Four.”

He turns finally. The controlled blankness is cracking a little, and an emotion I can’t quite make out is breaking through. Anger? Sadness? Both?

“And it’s been a little under five years since you left that ring on the pillow and slipped out of my life.” He takes a slow breath. “So I’ll ask you once, Stevie, and I’ll only ask once. Is he mine?”

I try to lie. God help me, I try, because lying is the only defense I have left, and because the truth in this room would paint a target on my son’s back.

“No.” My voice holds. I don’t know how. “I was seeing someone after you. A few months, nothing serious. He moved to Phoenix before Matthew was born. He’s not in the picture.”

Enzo doesn’t move. He looks at me for a long time, the way I imagine he looks at men across a negotiating table, waiting for the crack.

I don’t give him one. I’ve had five years of practice.

“A man in Phoenix,” he says finally.

“Yes.”

“What was his name?”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.” The corner of his mouth moves, but there’s nothing amused in it. “I held your son. And I have spent my whole life across tables from men who lie to me for a living. You’re very good. You’re better than most of them.” He steps closer, and my heart slams against my ribs. “But you blinked when I said mine.”

“I didn’t…”

“So here’s what I’m going to do.” His voice drops, low and even and frightening. “I’m going to take your word for it. Tonight. I’m going to let you keep your man in Phoenix, because you’re sitting in my study looking at me like I’m the thing under the bed, and I won’t pull the truth out of you with my hands. But understand me, Stevie. I don’t forget anything. That boy is going to grow up under my roof, and every single day, I’m going to be looking at my own face.”

The room tilts. I grip the arm of the chair.

“Tell me why,” he says, quieter. “Not the boy. You. Why did you run?”

“I was twenty,” I say. “I was twenty and broke, and I had just found out through a door that the man I’d spent the best night of my life with was Enzo Accardi. A billionaire. A crime lord. The men outside that door said your name like it was a warning, and I knew exactly what it meant. What was I supposed to do? Wait in your bed for you to wake up and decide what I was to you?”

“You could have asked me.”

“Asked you what? Whose fingers you were breaking before breakfast?”

He doesn’t answer. That’s the answer.

“I should go,” I say on reflex. The oldest one I own. “I can find another job. I’ll be out by the weekend. You don’t have to see either of us again.”

I turn to the door. He moves fast, the predator under the suit finally showing, a man crossing a room to stop a woman from leaving him a second time.