What would Ben say if I admitted my feet hurt from being on them for two days straight? Would it give him a glimpse of the entitled, spoiled brat I’d been all my life?
He took a step closer and cupped my cheek with his palm. “There it is again.”
I looked into his eyes.
“I wish I had the power to take away the memories that haunt you. Replace them with happy ones.”
“Maybe you do,” I murmured, wishing as soon as I had that I hadn’t.
“I’d like to believe I can.”
“Ben, I…”
He kissed me, perhaps knowing it was the only thing that would soothe me. “If I’m ever the cause of your sadness, I want you to tell me.”
13
Halo
Tara took a step back and turned away from me, but I could see that she bit her lower lip.
“Ah, so I am the cause.”
“Not entirely,” she mumbled.
It wasn’t long after Tara had gone upstairs two nights ago that I got a message from Striker, asking me to check in. When I told him what I’d witnessed when we were in Sienna, he suggested I lay low for a few days and see if anyone showed up at Valentini or followed Tara if she went back to the pensione.
I thought about knocking on her door when I went up to bed to tell her I had to leave for a few days, but if she was asleep, I didn’t want to wake her.
I’d kept a distant watch for almost forty-eight hours before deciding it was a waste of time. No one resembling the man I’d seen in Sienna came into the tasting room either day while she was there and, certainly, no one she’d had such a strong reaction to.
Last night, after she had dinner with Pia and her mother on the villa’s terrazza, I’d watched from a distance as she walked back to the casina where she and Pia had taken her things earlier in the day. Less than twenty minutes later, the lights were off, and I was sure she was asleep.
When she walked back to the casina earlier tonight, I made the decision to drive into town and pick up some groceries. I came straight here when I returned.
How could I explain it to her now in a way that sounded at all plausible? “I told you the other night that my work is investigative,” I began.
She stiffened and kept her back to me. Wrong tack. I was, in essence, holding up a red flag, and that wasn’t what I wanted to do.
“Catarina?”
“Yes?”
“Please look at me.”
She turned partway.
“I received a message after you went to bed about a lead on a story that I needed to follow up on.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“No? Yet I contributed to your sadness.”
“It’s fine.”
“Uh-oh.”
Her eyes opened wide. “What?”