Let Me Love You

“How are we fitting everything in there?” I asked as Enzo loaded only his weapons-case thing into a Porsche at JFK. The trunk was located under the car’s hood at the front, which I already knew because Enzo had owned one back in Charlotte.

“We’re not.” Enzo closed the hood-trunk and swiveled around with his sunglasses hiding his eyes. “There’s space behind the seats, but I need that for something else.” He tossed a look toward the two security details and pointed to our suitcases by the car. “These will need to ride with you two,” he instructed, and one of them quietly grabbed our suitcases and loaded them in the Suburban parked behind us.

“How’d you manage to get a case of weapons through security anyway? Didn’t it have to go through a scanner or something?” I asked.

“I know a guy who knows a guy.” He shrugged, and was that sarcasm or was he being serious? Right now, I couldn’t tell.

I folded my arms, not ready to get into such a tight space with him, worried his bad mood would suck all the oxygen from it. “Are you mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad at you?” He walked past me and pointed to the passenger door, a silent command to get in.

“Oh, I don’t know, because I’m here. You haven’t talked to me in more than an hour, and you’ve altered between scowling, brooding, and just looking overall moody.”

Turning to face me, he set a hand on the roof of the car. Leaning toward me, his lips twitched, a near smile. Was he laughing at me? “Pretty sure those are all the same thing, bellissima. Now, will you please get in?” He opened the door for me.

“Deflection, nice.” I maneuvered around him to get in the fancy car as he said something in Italian before shutting the door, then walked to the driver’s side.

He slid behind the wheel onto the burgundy-colored leather. “Buckle up.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Moody and bossy. Great.

I hated to admit the luxury car suited him. It was a metallic-gray Porsche 911 Turbo something or other. I knew he missed the Porsche he’d sold in Charlotte, but I had no clue he had another one in New York. Well, I was assuming this was his and not a rental. “So where are we staying while here? A hotel?”

“No. Constantine thinks we should all stay together at my parents’ place in Long Island, but I need to stop by my place in Chelsea first and pick up a few things.”

A curtain of shock had my eyes dropping closed at that revelation. “You kept your house? I thought you gave up your life here when you moved.” I wasn’t sure why that hurt so much, but it made me think back to my mother’s irritating warning on my birthday that Enzo might leave me one day.

“I feel like we’re about to fight, and I don’t know why.” Enzo sighed, and I opened my eyes to see his sunglasses up as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just like having my own place and car when I visit, that’s it, Maria.”

When I didn’t respond, Enzo flashed me an uneasy look and returned his Ray-Bans into place.

I knew why I was mad at him. It was those last words he’d said to me on the jet before we both had gone radio silent for the remainder of the flight. He was trying to push me away again. His words were meant to scare me, and when would he learn I wasn’t going anywhere?

I let several minutes of silence swallow the space between us as we left the airport before finally mustering up a conversation starter. “Won’t it be weird to stay at your parents’?”

I’d been to his parents’ home before, but the one that overlooked Central Park. I’d almost forgotten they had another place outside the city in Oyster Bay Cove, Long Island.

“This entire situation will be awkward. But Izzy will be there, too, and I’m sure she’ll love seeing you again.” His tone was a bit less edgy this time.

I hadn’t seen Isabella since the funeral, and she had to be thirty now, or maybe already thirty-one. When I visited for my birthday six years ago, she’d been working overseas for a company in London.

She was living back in the States now, managing billion-dollar brands from what I’d last heard.

“Izzy’s bringing her boyfriend.” He revved the engine a touch.

“You don’t like him?”

“I don’t know him. None of us do. The fact she kept him hidden means she doesn’t think we’ll approve.” He glanced at me while saying, “Bringing him to Long Island for the rest of the week can only mean one thing.”

“And that is?”

“She’s marrying him.” He looked back while spinning the wheel with the heel of his hand, reversing the Porsche to avoid a roadblock in our way.

Why was it always so sexy when a guy did that instead of using the cameras? Of course, everything Enzo did seemed to turn me on. “What is it you need at your house?” I decided to drop the subject of his sister’s boyfriend, worried his foul mood would return, and I needed a break from Mr. Moody.

“I have some of Bianca’s things there that I want to bring with me,” he answered without much emotion in his voice, which meant he’d probably worked hard to do that.

And at that, I realized maybe we shouldn’t talk at all. To fill the uncomfortable silence, I turned on the radio and flipped through the stations until I found a song I liked. Can’t go wrong with Sam Smith.

The grumbles from Enzo had me changing the station. Maybe it was too sexual?

Landing on a country station next, which made my heart happy, I hummed to Chase Rice’s song, and either I sucked at humming or he hated the song, because when I glanced his way, his bladed jawline was tight. Not to mention his forearms were flexed. One hand on the wheel and the other on the stick shift thing.

“Can you change that, please?” he asked, and I hurried to do so, but I had the feeling he wouldn’t exactly love the next song.

“You’ve got to be kidding. Someone is fucking with me, I swear,” Enzo said as “Bad Decisions” played. He reached over and shut off the radio. “How about the sound of silence instead?”

I slumped back in my seat. Feeling restless, I grabbed my phone from my purse and opened my photo album to look at pictures of Chiara.

“Have you talked to him today?” Enzo’s deep voice rumbled through the space a few minutes later.

“No, we haven’t spoken since last night. And I’ve been dodging his calls today. If he knows I’m traveling with you, he’ll flip out.”

“He has no business dictating what you do. None.” He faced the road again, and I honestly had no clue where we were now or what part of the city we were in, but it was bustling and alive. Exploding with energy. And so different from where I grew up.

He switched lanes and stopped at a red light before looking at me. But then his attention shifted over my shoulder, and his entire body seemed to go lax, including his mouth.

I pivoted to follow his eyes, unsure why a Catholic church, which looked like it belonged in the Renaissance era based on its architecture, had produced such a reaction from him. “What’s wrong?” I faced him again, but he was already looking toward the road, pulling through the light, accelerating a bit more than necessary.

“Nothing,” he whispered.

“Don’t lie. Please.” I reached over and set my hand atop his forearm and gave him a gentle squeeze.

“It’s just . . .” He cleared his throat. “That was Bianca’s church where she went to mass. And it was also where I was arrested for murdering her killer.”