All too soon, in the heat of something so intense I found it hard to pull my lips away to breathe, the distant sound of a strange hum dragged us back into our earthly bodies. Breaking away from me and panting heavily, Nic fished his buzzing phone from the pocket of his jeans.
He placed a hand over his heart and clutched at his chest. “Valentino,” he answered in a shaky voice. “I’m on my way.” He clicked off and returned his attention to me, but the softness in his eyes was gone, and I realized with a jolt that I was looking at a very different version of Nicoli Falcone.
“You have to go,” I said, still breathing hard.
“I’m sorry.” He took my hand in his. “Sophie, please don’t speak about this with anyone. I’ve taken a vow and my family wouldn’t be pleased with me breaking it, even just a little.”
“I won’t,” I said without having to think about it. I could still feel the warmth of his kiss on my lips, and I might have promised him anything just then.
He lifted my hand to his lips, brushing them against it. “Riguardati, Sophie,” he murmured. “Be safe.”
In a fleeting moment of madness, I considered running after him and pulling him back to me, but then I remembered Luca’s warning. I didn’t want him anywhere near Millie or my mother.
I trudged back upstairs and crawled into bed, thinking of that brief moment in the backyard when everything in my life was heady and blissful. It was just as I was dropping off into nothingness that I remembered something Nic had said.
Jack warned you … ?
How had he known my uncle’s name? I had never mentioned it to him — I knew I hadn’t.
I started to remember other things then, things that were only just beginning to make sense: Luca’s strange questions in the diner the first time we met; Dom’s interest in Millie’s place of work, and how he’d dumped her once he’d gotten information about me; how Nic had been lingering around the diner that night we broke in, his car parked far away in the shadows, as if he was waiting for something or someone.
Suddenly I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that this certain something or someone was the very person who had been avoiding Cedar Hill since the Falcones first arrived — my uncle Jack.
That’s when I realized there was more to the Falcone-Gracewell story than I’d thought. And that while Nic may have had feelings for me, they certainly weren’t interfering with his ability to lie, and lie hard, to my face.
The initial aftermath of my nighttime good-bye to Nic was harder than I thought it would be. The things he said had turned my world upside down and made me question everything I thought I knew about my family, and my heart. Every so often, sneaky memories of his dark eyes, the way his tousled hair fell, or how sometimes his smile tugged more to one side would creep into my consciousness and twist the knife deeper into my gut until it felt almost like a real pain threatening to split me in half.
I tried to ignore the unpleasant flickers as much as possible by doubling up on shifts at the diner, coming in early and staying late to cash out. A small part of me hoped Nic might come in, but I knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t. I made sure to take the longer route home after work so I wouldn’t have to pass the Priestly — or Falcone — house and risk the horrible sinking feeling I had come to associate it with.
Things with my uncle had gone from strange to entirely bizarre. He was completely AWOL. I kept trying his new number, but he never answered. I texted him constantly, but he replied only once, and when he did, it was with two irritating words — I’m fine. More lies.
There was something wrong with him, I could feel it, but I still couldn’t pinpoint it. He knew I had questions for him and he had no intention of answering them, through text or otherwise. Now, not only was he avoiding Cedar Hill, he was avoiding me, too, and it was making me increasingly anxious. I was beginning to feel like I was screaming into a void and there was no one around to hear me.
“So you really haven’t heard anything from him?” Millie asked as we made our way through the stone archway at the entrance to Rayfield Park. It was outdoor movie night, and she had convinced me to go with her. She wanted me to at least try and put everything out of my mind for a few hours, before I went insane with worry. “That’s really unlike Jack.”
“I know.” Jack had made a promise to my father that he would always look after me, and the fact that he wasn’t responding to my attempts to contact him was not a good sign. “Something must be really wrong if he’s avoiding his whole life,” I said.