A Dark Sicilian Secret

And so when he wrapped his arm around her, his forearm warm and snug against her breast, she unsteadily exhaled and inhaled and exhaled again to keep the tears from falling.

How could she mistrust him and yet need him so much?

How could he make her feel so vulnerable? No one else made her feel this way. Why did he?

Lying in the bedroom’s semidarkness, with the last lingering rays of sunlight fading from the sky, Vittorio felt Jill’s chest rise and fall, a silent hiccup of emotion that she never acknowledged, and always refused to discuss. Suppressing a sigh, he drew her small frame closer to him, her soft round breasts pressed to his arm.

She was so full of secrets and her secrets wore on her. He’d known many men who lived in the shadows, clandestine lives filled with cloak-and-dagger games, but those men reveled in their furtive behavior, thriving on danger, thriving on power. Jill didn’t.

He’d once wished she’d tell him what troubled her. He no longer cared. Or that’s what he told himself.

But when her narrow rib cage rose and fell with a deep shuddering breath, his own chest grew tight.

In Bellagio everything had been easy between them. Not just the sex, but the connection, the conversation, the friendship they’d been building. He’d trusted her. He’d believed she was honest, true and real.

Turned out nothing about her was honest or real. Not her name. Not her past. Not even her hair color.

His meeting tonight was with one of his detectives. The detective had learned what he’d called “significant details” of Jill’s past.

Tonight in Catania he’d discover who she really was.

Tonight could change everything.

And so he held her closer, held her as if he could possibly keep bad news from changing the fragile tie between them.

Maybe in his own way, he still loved her a little.

“When I first saw you on the cliff, I thought perhaps you were wearing a wig,” he said quietly, his voice rough with passion and emotion he’d never share. “But it’s not a wig. You dyed it.”

She lay still in his arms. “Yes.”

“How have you perfected so many different disguises?”

“Theater. I performed in all the high school plays and musicals. I loved it so much that I went to Gonzaga as a theater arts major.”

“I thought you studied hotel management.”

“I did. I graduated with a degree in hotel management, but initially I wanted to be an actress.”

“Why?”

She took a deep slow breath. Her voice wasn’t entirely steady. “I wanted to be someone else.”

Vittorio stayed with her another half hour and then wordlessly he pulled away and left the bed. She lay on her side facing the wall listening to Vittorio dress.

He was leaving.

Leaving her.

She told herself she didn’t care. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to ignore the slide of fabric and the scrape of zipper. Then came a moment of quiet. She felt Vitt’s hesitation. Felt him standing over the bed, gazing down at her. She didn’t turn to him, or speak. She kept her eyes closed pretending to sleep.

Then he walked away and the bedroom door opened. She opened her eyes then, looked toward the door and the hallway. A ray of light fell across the bedroom floor and she glimpsed Vittorio’s hard, handsome profile and his shoulder before the door closed, shrouding the bedroom in darkness once again.

For long minutes she lay on her back, thinking but not thinking. Feeling but not feeling. Doing her best to close her own door on her inner turmoil.

She couldn’t let herself feel. Couldn’t analyze a single emotion. Couldn’t go inward because if she did, she’d fall apart.

Every time she was with Vitt it felt so right, so why did it have to be so wrong?