Without a word, the quiet, willowy girl next to him got out of the front seat. She paused for a moment, letting the dusty breeze blow at her ocean-blue sundress, and Felix was caught by the yearning in her eyes as she scanned the city from the road.
She wanted to be free.
He could sense that in her, much like he could feel Danny’s underlying fear of being pinned down. Like Danny, this girl had been hurt, again and again. Like Danny, she’d damn near gnaw off her leg at the ankle to get out of the prison she found herself in.
Felix slid into the seat, keeping his idiot farm-boy grin in place with an effort. Once he’d belted in, he gave her an eager puppy-dog smile.
She glanced at him and then away, like she was afraid to even make contact.
“Don’t you just love the smell around here?” he asked, because it was one of his favorite things about the hills. “The pine and the olives?”
She glanced at him again, surprised. “I like the smell of the ocean,” she said softly. “I miss it.”
Oh. Oh, that was real.
Felix’s heart twisted. “The beaches in San Diego are the best,” he said fervently, and she relaxed enough to shake her head.
“The ocean in Ireland is part of the heartbeat.”
Poetry. Felix’s heart gave another vicious twist. He’d never fall in love with this girl—not like he loved Danny—but dammit, he had better not hurt her either. As they passed the hedges behind which Danny crouched, Felix looked out his window searchingly, hoping for something, anything, that would tell him what to do.
Present
“HE’S HERE,” Julia said in Felix’s ear while Danny gave Phyllis an enthusiastic greeting. Felix marveled. It had taken less than a breath, less than a heartbeat, really, for Danny to put a happy face on the broken, miserable part of himself he’d let Felix see.
With a swallow, he gave Julia a weak smile. “Most of him,” he said.
“You can’t hold yourself accountable for that,” Julia murmured. “It was all—”
“I can and I will.” Felix had to turn away. “Julia, what we asked him to do twenty years ago….”
“I was going to say it was all my fault,” she said, her voice toneless. “You start something to get you out of a bind in the short term and—”
“And you find yourself trapped.” Felix closed his eyes. “Ten years we trapped him into being the dirty secret. It wasn’t fair.”
“And he keeps thanking us for Josh,” she muttered. “I could weep.”
Danny turned from Phyllis and pinned them with a bored gaze. “You two—out of the guilt pool,” he demanded. “Phyllis has made me chicken and waffles and bacon, and look! It’s cold as fuck outside, but the sun is shining. I’m calling it a win.”
But Felix saw Julia shake her head, and he knew what she was feeling.
If Danny hadn’t been blackmailed by bacon, he would have been out the door before they could stop him.
Because they didn’t deserve absolution. They hadn’t earned it yet, either of them. Not if they wanted Danny back in their lives free and clear. Not if Felix ever wanted to hold him again.
And Felix did. More than anything, Felix wanted a future with this man who held the keys to his past.
“What are you doing?” Julia asked softly, looking over his shoulder as he pulled out his phone.
“Texting,” he said, keeping his voice innocent.
“Texting who?”
“Our son.”
“You really are a con man,” she said, voice full of admiration. “I thought you’d forgotten.”
“Never.”
Danny’s here, but if you don’t get your ass over right now, he’ll be in the wind.
Shit. We’re on our way. Tell Phyllis to make lots of food.
Deal.
“Better make it a buffet,” Felix said, his voice jovial, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Seems Josh and his friends are on their way over.”
Phyllis looked up and caught his eye, then slid a look at Danny. Felix nodded back.
“Excellent,” she said, as though cooking hadn’t been a thing she’d had to learn or Julia’s father would have fired her. “Can’t ever fry enough chicken.”
Felix and Julia made themselves busy setting the table, while Danny regaled Phyllis with stories of a glamorous Monaco that featured no mobsters, no failed cons, no rehab, and no scars.
Since he wasn’t going to get the details from Danny—not now—Felix instead allowed himself to fall back into the past. That had been harsh enough.
Past
LIVING UNDER Hiram Dormer’s thumb turned out to be harder than Felix had anticipated. The man didn’t like noise, he didn’t like Felix and Julia talking, and he didn’t like Julia going places unescorted.
But he was also in Italy to do business. Felix could never fathom what business because his portfolio in the US was so incredibly diverse. It wasn’t until he eventually took over part of that portfolio that he realized Dormer had gotten most of his first cash investments from the mob.
But in that first week, it was just him and Julia, knocking around the big house, trying to be nice to each other during meals and not get caught talking to each other at other times.
It was rough because old Hiram—in addition to wanting to know where she was every minute of every day—had ears like a bat. Felix had started asking her for walks in the garden more for his own sanity than as any part of the con. While there, he’d talk—tell her stories about feeding the cats by the Coliseum, watching the sunset from the bridge at Fiumicino, and how the smell of pine nuts made him wake up hungry every morning.
She listened to his rambles without responding for so long that Felix wondered, was there something he was missing? Did she have difficulties communicating? Did she ever talk?
Until one night, at the end of his first week, she looked up at the sky and said, “Do you think your young man minds you being out here under the stars with me?”
Felix gaped at her. “My… I, uh, don’t know….”
“My father drives down that street all the time. I spotted the two of you a couple of weeks ago.”
Felix’s stomach twisted, and he wondered if he had time to throw up and collect his things before he vaulted the garden walls of the Dormer villa and made a break for it.
“Has your father…?”
She shook her head. “He knows nothing.” There was a viciousness to the way she said it. Felix, who had heard Hiram scream at her for being thirty seconds late for dinner and then seen him throw salad at her from across the table when she wouldn’t eat, could understand the viciousness.
“He’s pretty awful,” he said candidly, admitting nothing.
“Whatever you and your friend want to do to him, he deserves it,” she said bitterly.
Felix had no answer to that. It was true. He paused for a moment, head tilted back, and wondered at the smell of olive trees. It was like olive oil. You didn’t think it added anything to the flavor of your food, but then it would hit you—life was just better because it was there.
“Do you want to help?” he asked, hoping Danny would forgive him. She seemed so lost here. Lost and alone. And Hiram Dormer deserved a chainsaw up his ass more than he deserved kindness from his one living relative.