“Excuse me,” I growl, stomping past to the elevator.

  I chose this building because I’m out of place. Because of the faintly horrified expressions of my fancy neighbors whenever I cross the lobby with another grocery bag filled with instant noodles. I wanted to be weird, to set people on edge, to shake up their perfect worlds, but as I jab the elevator button, for the first time in my life, I wish I could fit in.

  If I wore crisp designer clothes and skillful makeup, I wouldn’t look out of place next to the model-handsome Luca Bianchi.

  If I could make small talk and tell pleasant jokes with strangers, maybe he could take me on dates. Introduce me to people as his girlfriend.

  But I don’t do those things. I’m not that girl, and as the elevator swoops upward, my black mood gathers around me like storm clouds. I bet he’s not even there. I bet he got what he wanted—my agreement to come home—then promptly lost interest. I bet he over-watered my plants, too.

  I bet, I bet.

  Grump, grump, grump.

  I stomp so hard down the hallway to my apartment that the door swings open before I reach it.

  “Hello.” Luca leans in the doorway, arms crossed over his toned chest, his mossy eyes sparkling with amusement. “What put you in such a snit? I heard you coming from three blocks away.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I say pointlessly. Obviously he didn’t. Luca knows how to make jokes, because he is a normal human being. The jerk.

  Sighing, Luca pushes my door wider, then steps back to let me inside. Immediately, I’m hit with the muggy, green scent of my apartment, and some of my anger settles. Checking the first few pots, I find dry soil. Not parched, but not soggy.

  “I didn’t water them.” Luca stands at my back, arms still crossed, and his voice is harder now. He’s defensive. “You can check every single pot, or you can take my word for it.”

  Somehow I think there’s a right answer here.

  “I know you didn’t.” My elevator tantrum aside, it wouldn’t have been elegant. Luca doesn’t make sloppy plays. “But houseplants are tricky. Sometimes they get thirsty and sometimes they don’t.”

  “I see.” Luca waits while I kick off my sneakers and drop my backpack to the floor, then make my way down the hall. I check every pot, even the ones where I need to climb onto a chair or table top. Luca sighs when I do that, moving close enough to catch me if I fall.

  Should I have greeted him before the plants? How can I do that when he’s so handsome I can barely look straight at him?

  “Which one is your favorite?” I ask part way round the living room, spinning a peace lily to give the rear leaves more light.

  Luca thinks for a moment, then mutters, “The one on the bookcase with the vines.”

  “English Ivy.”

  He exhales again. “Yeah. I guess so.” Luca really sighs a lot around me. He’s lucky he’s in a room with so many plants, or he might become oxygen deprived.

  He’s mad at me. This first meeting isn’t what he wanted. Because I’m not what he wanted? Sometimes I hate being right. Should have listened to those dice.

  “Well?” The mobster waits until I’ve checked every last plant in my apartment. We’re standing in my bedroom, staring at each other across the expanse of my bed. The covers are straightened, the pillows fluffed and piled up. It’s the first time the bed’s been made since I bought it.

  “Well what?” I’m not good with open questions, and last night Luca lay there naked and touched himself. A very distracting memory. I saw it all on June’s laptop screen, and my abdomen feels heavier just thinking about it, aching and warm.

  Luca huffs and spreads his arms. He’s wearing a dove gray shirt and black pants today, and the fabric shifts against his toned chest when he moves, tension pulling on the buttons.

  I frown at them, mentally urging one to pop open.

  “Do you want me to leave, Frankie?”

  I dart a glance at Luca’s face. His jaw is hard, his eyes narrowed. He was so happy to see me only a few minutes ago.

  “If you want,” I mumble. I’m sure not going to beg him to stay. A girl’s gotta have some dignity, and I’ve been running short lately.

  “So that’s it.” Luca props one hand on his hip, rubbing the other over his jaw. Watching me with those cold, assessing eyes. “You hack me, you phone-fuck me, and now you’re done. Am I not what you wanted? You’ve watched me enough. You knew what you were signing up for.”

  I shrug, so miserable. I knew he’d have second thoughts, but I didn’t think I’d screw it up this quickly. This conversation barreled off the rails the second I stepped through the door, and I have no idea how to force it back on track.

  “You’re either very brave or very stupid, Frankie.” I choke out a laugh. I’m neither of those things, but there’s a real warning in Luca’s eyes. They’re dark and glittering. “But once I walk out that door, you can’t watch me anymore. Do you understand? I can’t allow it. Next time I won’t be so forgiving.”

  Threats, always threats. I wet my lips. “I won’t watch you.”

  Luca’s expression hardens even more. “Well, then,” he says, and then he’s striding around the bed. Yanking me close by the elbow, and kissing me hard enough to bruise. I make the world’s most embarrassing squawking noise, and it’s my first kiss, so there’s no way I’m any good. But Luca lets me wind my arms around his neck, burying my fingers in his bronze hair, and he growls with approval when I crush myself against his chest.

  “I liked you better on the phone,” he snarls, and yeah. That’s it. That’s the moment when I crack open down the middle. Luca Bianchi might as well have buried an ax in my rib cage.

  “I’m not good with people.” I press the words against his neck, voice shaking.

  A harsh laugh. “No shit.”

  It’s my first kiss, and that’s supposed to be happy, I think. Romantic, even. But though Luca makes my nerves spark to life, though he overwhelms my senses in the best way, I’m too raw and hollow to really enjoy it.

  He nips my bottom lip. I pull away.

  Luca Bianchi steps back, face carefully blank. A stranger to me again.

  He reaches out, ruffling my dark bangs with a fingertip. “Be seeing you, Frankie. Stay out of my fucking tech.”

  Then he turns around… and he’s gone.

  * * *

  With time to replay our meeting over and over in my head, I can see all the points where I went wrong. Luca was excited to see me; I was so nervous I ignored him for the houseplants. He wanted smiles; I scowled at him. He asked if I didn’t want him, and all I did was shrug and say he could leave.

  This is why I’m better online. In written form. I can have time to think, to read the situation, to figure out what I really want to say.

  When I crawl into bed after a long, scalding shower, my sheets smell like him. It’s still morning, but I don’t care. I’m gonna sleep all day. I recognize Luca’s scent from our kiss, but I like to think I’d know it either way. It’s so him. Storm clouds and smoky cologne. Sharp and electric and unforgiving.

  I bury my face in the pillows and sigh. I don’t cry—much. What is there to cry over? I was always going to screw it up.

  But as I bury my face in soft cotton that smells like him, I sure wish Luca Bianchi would let me watch him for a while longer.

  Eight

  Luca

  This is a very bad time for my cousin Sal to try to kill me. Hours after leaving my hacker, I need to think, damn it, to go over where I went wrong with Frankie. My instincts are screaming at me, squirming in my brain, letting me know that I missed something big.

  I hate missing things. It feels like fucking amateur hour, and I didn’t live to my thirties in this family by stepping wrong. I know people. I play them like fiddles.

  All except Frankie.

  I’ve never felt out of control like that. Exposed and raw, like a nerve. Hurt and embarrassed and so pissed off. I was cruel with her, harsher than I needed to be, and though she rejected me first, it’s not sitting right in my stomach.

  I liked you better on the phone.

  Why the hell did I say that? When I close my eyes, I can feel the exact way she stiffened against me. The way she went wooden in my arms, practically vibrating with hurt.

  I meant that she seemed to like me better on the phone, and I preferred that dynamic. I liked her breathy and eager and sweet in my ear, not stomping around and ignoring me, huffing like she couldn’t wait for me to leave.

  Maybe I read it all wrong. Maybe I made a fool of myself.

  Thinking about the way I touched myself for her… I screw my eyes shut, my face hot.

  “Luca,” the boss clips out. “Are we keeping you awake?”

  We’re gathered in his study, surrounded by polished dark wood and bookcases groaning with leather hardbacks that have never been cracked. All his inner circle are here, getting an update on business. Movements in our territory. Plans for the politicians. I should be listening, because this is my area. I’m the one who pulls all the strings.

  “No, sir.” I force myself to listen, ignoring the excited way Sal’s preening across the room. Yeah, he definitely thinks he’s in line for my job. Bullshit. I meet his eyes, expression hard, and the asshole nearly wets his pants.

  I need to deal with my cousin. Sal’s a loose end, and I’ve got bigger problems.

  But bigger problems or no, another hit man broke into my apartment when I was gone. Ola told me about the damage he left, the broken door and boot prints, whispering in my ear when I came home to change. Her hands were white-knuckled on her mop handle.

  I sent her home and told her to stay away until it’s safe. I’ll pay her either way, but I don’t need Ola’s death on my conscience. Plus I love those perogies.

  “Luca,” the boss says, “go round the members’ clubs today. I want dirt on the new candidates. And take one of these assholes with you.”

  “Sal,” I say, eyes fixed on my cousin as my smile spreads wide. He goes chalk white, wriggling in his chair. “I’ll take Sal.”

  “Good.” A meaty hand waves in the air, dismissing us. We all stand, wood chairs creaking in relief. “Get it done.”

  Oh, I will.

  * * *

  I call Frankie in the early evening from a pig farm twenty miles outside the city, watching hundreds of muddy swine chew up the body of my cousin. It gives me no pleasure except the satisfaction of a task ticked off my list, and the knowledge that the hit men should stop coming for me—for a while, at least.

  The boss won’t be happy about this. But he’s never happy, so what’s new?

  And he won’t care once he hears about the hit men. At the risk of sounding like a child on the schoolyard, Sal started it.

  Pigs are good for this. See, who needs a cleaner anyway? These pigs are doing a better job of body disposal than Sal ever did, eating him bones, boots and all, and standing out in the countryside is almost restful if you can get past the crunching.

  Frankie takes a long time to pick up. For a minute, I worry she’s tossed her latest burner away already—or worse, that I fucked up so badly that she’ll never speak to me again.

  “Hello?” Her voice is wobbly and thin.

  “Frankie.” Surely no one else would call this number, but she still sucks in a shocked breath when she hears my voice.

  “Oh. Luca.”

  Yeah.

  Oh, Luca is about all I deserve after some of the stuff I said to her. The more distance I get from this morning, the more our meeting changes in my mind. It’s like I’m viewing it from new angles. From her cameras, maybe, tucked away between the leaves.

  I don’t look good in these reruns.

  Because Frankie was tense. Terrified. So nervous it infected me too, set me on edge, and what did I do? Did I set her at ease? No. I escalated.

  I threatened to kill her all those days ago, and then when I finally lured her home, I lost my temper with her. Fuck, I ought to be in there with those pigs.

  “Um,” she says, because I haven’t spoken yet. Too busy kicking my own ass. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing much.” I squint into the sunset, at the dying rays of bloody light. “Getting rid of a body. You remember Salvatore?”

  There’s a long pause. Then, so hollow: “Are you threatening me again? I said I won’t watch you anymore.”

  Thud. That’s the feeling of my heart slamming to the base of my rib cage, dropping a sickening way down my body. I’ve really fucked up if Frankie’s still scared of me. And I dig the heel of my palm into my eye, grinding hard enough to hurt as I stare out over the rolling grassy hills.

  “I’m not threatening you, sweetheart.”

  Another soft noise. “Sweetheart, huh? You really do like me better on the phone.”

  Ah, shit. “I shouldn’t have said that to you. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I didn’t. I loved you in person too. Are you kidding me? With those cute little bangs? Those retro sneakers? I just didn’t love you pushing me away like that.” I swallow hard, pulse thudding in my ears, but she’s still not saying anything. I keep going. “You were so beautiful and clever and you wouldn’t even look at me, Frankie. After everything we did. Do you know how badly I wanted you to look at me?”

  “I was nervous,” she whispers. I squeeze the phone until it creaks. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I just—I panicked.”

  Fuck. My heart. “I know. I know that now. Please let me come back. We’ll try again, okay? And you’ll look at me, and I won’t be an asshole.”

  “What if I don’t?” Frankie wails, so loud I hold the phone away from my ear. “What if I can’t?” And she sounds so melodramatic that I have to laugh. It bursts out of me, echoing over the hillside. The closest pigs pause their chewing, snorting at me before they duck back down for another bite.

  It’s no way to go, chewed up on a pig farm. But then, Sal doesn’t care anymore, does he?

  “Stop laughing!” She’s telling me off, but I can hear the reluctant smile in her voice. We’re getting somewhere, thank god. The ice is thawing. “That was my first kiss, and look how it ended! I don’t know if I can do any of this, Luca.”

  That sobers me up. “I didn’t know it was your first.”

  “Would you have been sweeter?”

  My mouth twists. “Probably not.” I am who I am. “I was so fucking hungry for you, I could barely see straight. But I wouldn’t have left like that. And there would have been second and third kisses, Frankie. Other things, too.”

  She blows out a slow breath. “…Yeah? What other things?”

  She’s giving me an opening. I gaze up at the heavens. Thank god.

  “What else would I have done to you?” I wait for the last scrap of Sal disappear, then turn on my heel and stride away in my rubber boots. The farmer knows better than to come out and talk to me while I’m here, so it’s a clear walk back to the mud-splattered car. I put her on speaker as I fold into the driver’s seat. “I can tell you, Frankie, but I’d rather show you in person. I’ll need a shower first, though. I smell like pig farm.”

  She giggles, and it’s the sweetest sound filling the car. I flex my grip on the steering wheel, pulling over the bumpy track toward the highway. The evening light is soft, tinted the exact same shade of pink as her lips.

  “You can shower here,” Frankie offers, so shy.

  I tilt the rear view mirror, watching Sal’s final resting place slide into the distance. “I’m on my way.”

  Nine

  Frankie

  He’s coming back. Oh my god, Luca’s coming back. I stand at the foot of my bed, body frozen and mind racing at a hundred miles per hour. Should I bathe? No, I already did that. Should I clean? Well, he’s already seen my mess.

  Oh, god. What if I can’t look at him again? What if I screw it up for good this time?

  Because Luca Bianchi should come with a warning. I knew he was beautiful, obviously, but seeing him through a webcam or in photos online versus seeing him in person were very different experiences. It was like spotting a mountain lion a few feet away instead of in a grainy photo on a news website, staring at you from the roadside and looking hungry.

  My heart rate spiked. Adrenaline coursed through my body.

  And I turned into a complete idiot.

  If I had more warning this time, a few days to prepare, I’d make extra sure that Luca feels welcome when he gets here. Maybe I’d buy him some kitchen equipment, or fresh ingredients for the fridge. Maybe I’d set out a towel for him, like this is a hotel, and put a foil-wrapped chocolate on his pillow.

  Hey, I’ve got towels. I can do that right now.

  I pick out my favorite one for him, a fluffy midnight blue one, and brush off any tiny specks of lint before balancing it on the bathroom counter top.

  “Um.” My voice bounces off the tiles. I’ve never invited a man here before. I never really invited Luca the first time—he just showed up. Will he expect something? A freshly made drink pushed into his hand? A peck on the cheek like a 1950s housewife?

  Sinking slowly into my panic, I stare at the white bathroom tiles and forget to blink. My brain’s buzzing and rattling around in my skull, and I should do something. Change out of my sweatpants and baggy black t-shirt, maybe. Wash up the bowl and mug from my lunch.

  God knows how long I stand there staring. However long it takes to drive here from a pig farm, I guess, because a brisk knock on my door makes me jump.

  “Shit.” I slip out of the bathroom and tiptoe down the hall. Like if he doesn’t hear me coming, that evens things up somehow. “Double shit.”

  Luca stares at me when I pull the door open. Too late, I remember I went to bed with wet hair and now my head looks like a bird’s nest.

  My gaze skates away from his mossy green eyes. Travels down his toned chest and gray button-down shirt; his black suit pants and leather shoes. He must have worn those farmer boots out in the country, because there are splatters of mud on his pants, but they start just below the knee.

  I wrinkle my nose and address his stomach. “You really do smell bad.”

 

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