But the man checked his phone a lot.
There was almost no chance of him not having seen it.
Shit.
And I was now stuck with him.
I couldn't run away like every instinct in me told me to do.
I had to face him.
And deal with the consequences.
Resolved to that fate, I grabbed clothes and made my way into the bathroom, taking a cold shower, going through the motions of getting ready for my day, then staring myself down in the mirror, trying to convince my reflection—and myself—that it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like I'd told him I'd felt the tingle of that kiss down to the soles of my feet, to the edges of my hair.
I just said he couldn't kiss people like that.
I could possibly even swing that if I tried.
Decision made, I took a deep breath, and made my way out of the bathroom with my chin high even though I knew it was a front, that I was rocking in anxiety inside.
All in vain, though.
Because as I followed the sounds of masculine voices into the kitchen, I didn't hear Luca.
I didn't find him there, either.
Dario and Matteo were in the kitchen, backs to me as they had some sort of discussion about business. From what I could tell, Dario was upset about some extortion scheme he came up with that Luca had told him was a bad idea.
"I don't know what you're expecting from me here, Dar," Matteo said, head shaking. "I don't have a hell of a lot of power here."
"You have your father's ear."
"You want me to overstep Luca and go right to my old man? You know the kind of shit I would be in if I jumped the chain of command here? No. That's not how this works. And I don't apprec—"
"Good morning," I called, bright, chipper, wanting to interrupt them before they realized I'd been eavesdropping. I didn't know how quickly this family was to kill when an outsider learned too much, but I also did not want to find out.
"Romina," Dario greeted me, doing a poor job of banking down his obvious anger at Matteo's refusal to help him overstep Luca.
"Hey there, Romy. You look like you finally got a good night of sleep. I thought you and Luca might have been up all night... fighting again," he said, and that slip wasn't lost on me.
He knew.
And he was letting me know he knew.
But I couldn't tell if he approved of that situation or not.
Not that it mattered, of course. Since it was never going to happen again.
"Why's that?" I asked, not taking the bait. Things were bad enough. I didn't need to get into any weirdness with the younger Grassi brother.
"Oh, because he looked like hell this morning before he headed out."
He wasn't around.
That was good. Right?
But then why was there a completely irrational sinking sensation in my chest?