Page 34 of Jude

His lips quirked. ‘This is synchronous and serendipitous as fuck.’

I glanced up into his face, amazed by how a simple piece of molded silver could dismantle a thick wall of awkwardness.

The defensive posture he used to keep the world at bay eased off.

Replaced by a shared, quiet intimacy as his now-warmed eyes gazed into mine.

A delicious heat seemed to fill the room, bridging the canyon between his wariness and my anguish with soaring emotion.

Without taking his eyes from me, he stepped back.

However, he stayed, asking questions in his baritone burr about my childhood and parents as I finished up, wiping the counters down and putting the last things away.

His former reticence toward me thawed as I warmed to his keen, quiet inquiries.

‘Where did you go to school?’ he asked in his deep timbre.

‘In Calabria. My aunt, Sonia put my cousin Anya and me through school. I worked twelve-hour days at her market kiosk to add what I could to the tuition money She never let us slack off, and she insisted we take night English and Spanish lessons to give us a shot at something bigger. We spent our evenings practicing our vocabulary and conjugations. At the same time, our fingers flew, shaping fresh gnocchi and twisting tortellini to sell at her stall under the street lamps at night. That grind got me into college, where I earned my degree in social work.’

I fell silent, conflicted about telling him about my five-year acting career.

It would change the dynamics between us, and I didn’t want to explain just how much the mafioso and crime gangs had taken control over my life.

So I skipped over a chunk of my life.

I’d tell him in time, perhaps when trust was better established between us.

‘A few years later, there were no jobs in my field, and the bills didn’t care about my degree. I packed a single suitcase, traveled to Milan, and took the only steady employment on offer. I did shift work in hospitals and laundromats. I even spent three months on a loud, hot factory assembly line just to keep my head above water.’

‘Is that where you met Luisa?’

I nodded. ‘She befriended me, and I was lonely. I guess. She made me all these promises, told me how I’d get easy gigs being a model, and I believed her.’

My voice trailed off in sadness.

Jude lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug of solidarity.

‘Hey, we all make mistakes, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’ll all pan out, it always does.’

We locked eyes as he spoke, and I gave him a tremulous smile. ‘I really hope so.’

As I dried my hands on the kitchen towel, he rose to his feet and escorted me, with old-world courtesy, to the door of my guest room.

We stood outside it for a beat; our eyes clashed as an arc of energy swept between us.

‘You’re too good to me,’ I murmured, meaning it from the bottom of my heart. ‘Thank you.’

His lips quirked, making him even more impossibly handsome.

‘A pleasure,’ he growled as I turned, a shiver threading over my spine as I walked into the room and shut the door.

Chapter 9

JUDE

The sun in my face woke me the following morning.

Hungry, I showered, dressed, and walked into my mother’s kitchen and stopped at the threshold.