I release her. “You’ll go in disguise. I don’t want anyone recognizing you. Do you understand me?”
She pulls away from me. I let her. “I do. Let’s get this over with.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Emma
I never make foolish decisions. Rarely, anyway. I don’t know why I allowed a hot guy like Mario to swivel my head like I’m some sort of marionette. That isn’t me, that isn’t how I work.
I have a job to do and goddamn it, I’m going to do it well. He helps me get ready. I pull on a black wig, tucking my blonde hair in. I wear designer jeans and a fitted tee, delicate silver earrings and muted makeup.
“Do I look like I fit in?” I ask him before we go.
He turns to look at me. He’s hot, goddamn it, dressed in black jeans, a black tee, and a leather jacket. He looks like a race car driver.
He curses under his breath in Italian. “Sacrilege,” he mutters. “There’s nothing you could do that would make you fit in, doll. But no, you don’t look like Detective Emma King right now. Seems we’ll have to settle for that.” He teases a strand of my straight black hair.
No, I scream internally. No, I can’t deal with flirtatious Mario right now. He’s so damn hard to resist.
“We should go,” I whisper. I steel myself against what I know has to happen, what I know I must do. I can’t fall in love with a man who’s the antithesis of everything I’ve ever worked for. I can’t.
And I’ll never fall in love with a man who can’t fully love me for who I am. Being with Mario would mean relinquishing who I am to a greater purpose, to the code of his family. It would mean denying the core of who I am. I won’t do it.
My decision’s reinforced when we get to the racecourse. It’s well hidden behind a grove of Italian cypress trees, but once we get to the clearing, the road ahead looks perfect for a race. From what Mario told me on the ride over, the race is earlier than usual because dusk has barely fallen.
We park with the other cars by the main gate, and as soon as Mario steps out of the car, he’s accosted. A flock of women come to him.
It’s no lie that Italian women are beautiful. I’m not even into women, and I find them mesmerizing and sexy, so tantalizing I can hardly draw my eyes away.
Stylish. Sophisticated. I can smell their designer perfume and hear their voices lilting at Mario before I even exit the vehicle. I slip away like we practiced. Still, so much for not drawing attention to ourselves. Everyone knows Mario’s here.
Sigh.
Mario will be eighty years old and walking with a walker, and he’ll still be drawing the interest of women wherever we go. He’ll still be flirting, still looking for attention from the female species.
Why I ever entertained the notion of being his makes no sense to me now. None. It was a childish, fleeting fantasy. My judgment was clouded by his good looks and charming manner. And let’s not forget the mind-blowing sex.
I shake my head and get to work. Sidle up to a low fence that marks a place for onlookers to stand apart from the track.
“Ciao,” a leggy brunette says. “Americano?”
“Mmm,” I respond. “You?”
“Ah, no,” she says in a thick Italian accent. “But I went to school in America. You look American.”
Another great.
I give her a forced smile and decide it’s time I go for broke. There are few people nearby, so I doubt we’ll be overheard.
“Yeah,” I say with a nonchalant shrug of my shoulder. I look back at the track and narrow my eyes as if peering, as if trying to find a particular race car. “I’m here to see Moby Dick race.” I give her a wink, like it’s an inside joke. I figure the worst she can do is not understand what I’m talking about. But no, a flash of recognition lights her gaze even as she shakes her head with a roll of her eyes.
“Oh, really?” she says. “Moby Dick is not nice. He’s… selfish. Mean. Why you like a man like him?”
I shrug again. “He’s a good racer.”
She spits on the ground beside her. Wow, then, tell me how you really feel. “Good racer but male chauvinist. You know he rape woman and not serve time?”
I school my features. “No,” I say absentmindedly. “I honestly know almost nothing about him.”
“Be careful,” she says, zipping up her sweatshirt and looking away from me. Apparently, I don’t interest her anymore. “The son of a governor gets everything in America, even in Boston, no?” She looks back at me and shakes her head. “Watch the race but be careful.”
She bends to kiss both cheeks before she turns and walks away. I feel a surge of adrenaline when I realize that I’ve struck gold.