His gaze shifts to Blake. “Let us talk.”
Blake gives a nod and then he’s gone, heading down the stairs.
Kace and I turn to face each other, each of us with a hand on the island. “What do you think?” I ask again.
“I think it’s a good plan. I think it’s the only move.”
“Me, too,” I say.
His fingers catch mine again. “Gio, baby—”
“I didn’t even tell him about the song. I didn’t tell him our plan for me to come out as myself, even before this broader vision, I didn’t tell him.”
“Why?”
“My instincts told me not to and I don’t think we can now. How did I go from trusting him more than anyone in the world to this?”
His hand settles on my hip and he walks me to him. “While you were changing I was thinking about what you said about your father trusting me and not him. My father had a protégé. Alan Denver. He wanted me to be him and as much as I came to hate my father, I hated Alan more.”
“Where is he now?”
“CEO of one of my father’s companies. That’s half the reason I didn’t sell off at first. Some part of me needed him to know who was in control. In other words, it wasn’t just a ‘fuck you’ to my father, but also for Alan. Gio already knew I had something to do with the formula, even before we knew. Imagine showing back up and finding out I’m in bed with his sister. He’s angry and I believe that from the outside looking in, he has reasons to want you away from me. Don’t doubt that he loves you.”
“I know he loves me and I know you’re right.” Tormented by where I am with Gio, I rotate and rest my elbows on the island, looking skyward and then back at him. “I still don’t trust him. He led a secret life for who knows how long.” I push off the island and face him again. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Start by going to Germany with me.”
I blink. “Germany?”
“I talked to Blake about getting you out of the city where all the heat seems to have focused. I have a home there. We have a home there.”
“We?” I ask softly, a rush of emotions washing over me and settling in my chest.
“What’s mine is yours, baby.”
My fingers curl on his jaw. “And what’s mine is yours.”
He kisses my hand and surprises me by saying, “Actually, no.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He walks to a drawer by the stove and returns with an envelope that he sets on the island. “That’s a contractual agreement that I will never profit from the formula.”
“No,” I say firmly. “No, you are sharing my life, too, Kace. If that formula somehow turns into a future for me, it’s your future, too. I won’t take and not give.”
“You give me everything, Aria.” The way he says everything is low and rough and yet somehow tender, so tender my chest flutters as he adds, “And I have more than I could ever spend in ten lifetimes. This will help your brother come around, but I don’t want you to accept it blindly either. Walker has several attorneys on staff. One of them is going to meet you tomorrow and talk about how to protect yourself. I’d have you meet my guy, but he has my interests in mind.”
“You do, too,” I argue.
“I do,” he agrees, “which is why I want you to meet the attorney and then talk to your brother again. Decide then what to tell him.”
His hand slides under my hair to my neck, warm and strong. “And then say yes to going to Germany with me.”
I have this sense of living in that storybook that once had blank pages, boring and cold, and now has become a colorful adventure of love, life, and laughter. My hand presses to his heart. “I am so in love with you, Kace August.”
A smile curves his lips. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” His lips lower to mine. “And I am so damn in love with you, Aria Stradivari, that it almost hurts.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He loves me so much he damn near hurts.
Kace’s confession is as surreal as it gets.
The kiss that follows is as delicious as it gets, but when our lips part, I cannot escape that word: hurt.
“That’s been my fear from the beginning, Kace,” I say, meeting his curious stare.
His lips, such perfect lips, hint at a smile. “Me falling so damn in love with you that I won’t ever let you go?”
I don’t smile. I can’t. My fingers twist in his shirt, aware that I am selfishly in need of this man, aware that could be dangerous. “That someone will come at you to get to me.”
“Perhaps that’s the brilliance of your father. He made us two pieces of a puzzle. Anyone who wants the formula needs us both alive.” He releases me and snakes his phone from his pocket.
“I’m texting Blake our go ahead with everything, including Germany. Then we eat. After that, we make our travel plans.” He punches in a message. “Done.” He slides his phone back into his pocket. “You know what I haven’t had in forever, and I’m craving?”
“You’re blowing this off, Kace.”
“I’m not. There’s a reason we have Walker Security on retainer.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts to it.” He steps closer, his body heat already working me over, his fingers gently stroking my hair behind my ear. “I’m not a big destiny guy, baby, but in our case, the writing is on the wall. We were always going to end up finding each other again. Your father knew we would. And he knew that I was always going to have the means and willingness to protect you. That we fell in love was a bonus none of us could see coming.”
“He couldn’t have known we’d find each other.”
“Of course, he did. You were supposed to have a journal handed to you at age eighteen with his instructions. It might not have made it to your hands, but his absolute intention is what made someone, Sofia, I assume, leave that note on Gio’s desk for you to find. We were always going to find each other again and we’re here now. We can’t change that and I damn sure don’t want to.” He brushes his knuckles over my cheek. “Now,” he says, prompting me again, “you will never guess what I’m craving.”
I could push back and force the topic, but ultimately he’s right. This was all predestined by my father and we’re here now. And I feel like I belong with Kace. I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. And so, I smile and say, “Spaetzle.”
“That too, but we’ll save that for Germany. Right now, I want something we can’t get, at least not with the same taste in Europe: Taco Bell.”
“Taco Bell?” I laugh, and it’s these simple moments with Kace that I’m reminded of Sara’s words. He’s just a man. He is, I think. Human, flesh, and bone, flawed and damaged. Kace is a man with layers of damage and somehow they make him all the more perfect. “That was unexpected, but I’m all in. I love Taco Bell. It got me through many a tight month over the years.”
A scowl appears on his handsome face. “No Taco Bell.”
“Oh, please,” I say, and remembering my realization I’d had right before he spanked me, I lean in and settle my hands on his waist. “Being poor is about not having choices. You take what you can get. I have a choice now and Taco Bell with you sounds delicious.”
He inches back and studies me a moment and then says, “You really do seem better.”
“I am. And Taco Bell will only make me all the better.” I quirk my lips with a thought. “Is it safe to go out?”
“You missed that part of the update with Blake. He cleared us of imminent threat and the more we hide, the more we seem like we have something to hide. But we also have Walker shadowing us.”
“It’s weird, always having someone follow us around.”
“You’d be surprised. You get used to it. And Walker is discreet. They’re easy to ignore.”
“Did you always travel with security?”
“Yes, but before I found any recognition of my own, I’d had some
threats related to my father’s work. He pissed some people off and he was rich. Hurting me or ransoming me held appeal to the wrong people. It was more about him than me.”
I open my mouth to ask more, but he kisses me. “Taco Bell now. Ask questions, any questions you want, later, but only when I have a burrito in my hand. That’s my ransom.”
My lips curve. “A burrito.”
“Or three or four.” He turns me to the stairs. “Hurry. Get your purse.”
He smacks my backside and with the shock and the memories of earlier, I hurry forward and glance back at him over my shoulder. The awareness between us in that tiny look speaks of a deepening intimacy between us. I can’t believe how close we’ve become or how much I need him. I head up the stairs and my mind travels to my parents. I thought they were close, but my father didn’t want his journal taken to my mother. Or Gio.
Once I’m upstairs in the master bathroom, I quickly fill my purse and I’m just about to slide it over my shoulder when a memory sends me into the past. My father grabs my bow before I can finish the note I’m about to play. “I told you. Every fifth note. Emphasize.”
“That doesn’t fit the song.”
“It’s about control. It’s about learning how to deliberately give certain notes attention. You can’t pick and choose when you have not mastered the skill. The fifth note, Aria.”
The door to the music room opens and Angelena pokes her head inside. “Those men are back.”
I know which men. The men in the suits that upset my father. “Again?” I ask. “What do they want?”
He scowls and then glances at me. “What they cannot have. I’ll be back, honey.” He kisses my forehead. “Keep working.”
He stalks toward the door and disappears. I set my instrument in the case and hurry after him.
I’m curled up under my father’s desk, hiding from the men in suits my father is meeting in the conference room. I hate it when they show up. They upset Dad. They keep coming back no matter how many times he tells them not to.
The door opens and I hear Gio say, “Are you going to take the money?”
“We have money,” my father says. “We do well for ourselves. We don’t need more.”
“Are you crazy? They offered you a fortune.”
“Once we sell that formula, the brand will be devalued. We were tasked by our ancestors to preserve the formula while protecting our brand.”
“That’s insane, Dad. We’re targets. Take the money.”
“Once again. We have plenty of money, son.”
“Do you even have the formula?” Gio demands. “Is that the problem? You don’t have it.”
I pull my knees to my chest and squeeze my eyes shut. I hate those men, but I hate when Gio fights with Dad even more.
“Son,” Dad says, his voice now a tight band, and I can hear the door shut. “No, I don’t have the formula. That’s the right answer. That’s the answer you had better memorize.”
“What does that mean?” Gio demands. “That’s the right answer. Do you have it or do you not?”
“There are people who would never allow that formula to see the light of day. They’d kill us to keep it a secret.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“Once it’s a mass-produced formula, the instruments that exist now, worth millions or even tens of millions, become devalued. Not to mention our legacy—Antonio’s legacy—is destroyed.”
“If you sell it, then it’s someone else’s problem.”
“This is our legacy, son. We, like our ancestors before us, have protected it. We protect it. And we make tough decisions to protect us and our family. You’re old enough to understand this now. It’s time to grow up.”
“And when someone decides the way to keep the formula a secret is to kill you, then what?”
“You’ve been talking to your mother, haven’t you?”
I gasp and crawl out from behind the desk, to stand up. “Someone wants to kill you, Dad?” My voice squeaks out.
I blink back to the present, not even sure how much of that memory is accurate. I mean, I was eleven and it was a long time ago, but I think Kace visited around that time. After. I think he visited shortly after. I feel as if it was the next day, perhaps. The memories of his visit feel connected to this one, but that could be because they are newly remembered pieces of the past. I don’t really know. I need time to process the memory, maybe even write it down.
“I’m starving, woman,” Kace calls out from the bottom of the stairs. “Hurry.”
At Kace’s shouted plea, I shake off the memory and grab my purse. “Coming!”
Once I’m downstairs, I find Kace standing at the front door, leaning on the wooden surface, casual in jeans and a T-shirt, confident not just in his clothes, but in his own skin. The man has demons, but they do not defeat him, nor do they steal his principles, and I believe in that, he is all too like my father.
I join Kace and he pushes off the door and when he would reach for my coat, I press my hand on his chest, holding him in place, heat radiating up my arm and across my chest. He doesn’t move. He seems to sense there is something in my mind right now and there is, so many somethings. And so, we stand there, staring at each other, a current of energy pulsing around us. We are connected. We are one. My father’s words are on my mind: we make tough decisions to protect us and our family. You’re old enough to understand this now.
“Your family turned their backs on you,” I say. “My mother and brother turned their backs on my father and then he adopted you.”
His blue eyes darken. “You remembered something.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me,” he urges softly.
“The men in suits visited often. They wanted to buy the formula. My father told him they didn’t have it. One day, I was under my father’s desk when he and Gio fought. Gio wanted him to take the money. Dad told him that we had plenty of money and to reveal the formula would devalue the instrument and the legacy. He told Gio we have a responsibility to protect those things.”
“And Gio said?”
I tell him the rest of the story, everything I can remember. “My father believed the safest answer for us as a family was to tell the world that we didn’t have the formula.”
“But you believe he did?”
“Oh yes. I believe he did and we know I believe we do. Bottom line, he knew what we have figured out. Some people will kill for the formula and others for the chance to destroy it. I believe my father knew that in his death that Mom would destroy it.”
“And Gio.”
I think back to that memory of Dad and Gio fighting over cashing in the formula and all that I know of Gio’s personality. “I think Dad thought Gio would sell it.”
He tilts his head, studying me. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“I think that losing your family and seeing time passing, no, feeling it pass, begins to redefine priorities. He wanted our legacy back. He talked about it. We talked about it. I believed that to be his driving passion.”
“Then let’s talk about the men in the suits. You have brought them up several times. Angelena spoke about them taking your father. What do you remember about them?”
“Not much really, but the very fact that Angelena says they took him and he’s now dead, leads me to one conclusion: they wanted the formula to destroy it and when he wouldn’t sell it, they killed the only man who could reveal it.”
“Which would mean those people who own a Stradivarius would be the most likely suspects. Especially those in Italy at the time.” He pulls his phone from his pocket. “Like the old man who wants us to come to Italy to sell us a Stradivarius.” He punches in a rather long text message before he says, “I know Blake is looking into the seller, but I just want to be sure he’s putting together the pieces as we just did.”
I nod, a clawing sensation in my gut. “My father didn’t give the formula to them. I know he didn’t. It’s what
my mother feared would happen. I know they killed him.”
Kace shoves his phone back into his pocket and then settles warm, strong hands on my shoulders. “If that’s the case, baby, they would have killed him anyway because it was in his head and his heart.”
“And now it’s in ours.”
“Yes,” he agrees, “but we have a plan.”
“Is it a good one?”
“Don’t start doubting now.” His hands come down on my shoulders. “We’ve got this, Aria. You and me. We will not let your father down.”
We.
Just the two of us.
Which is so very right and so very wrong. I’m missing one thing. I need Gio to come to his senses. I need my brother back.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Fifteen minutes later, Kace and I have taken a short, chilly, winter wonderland walk to Taco Bell. With way too much food in front of us, we sit at a table stuffing our faces and laughing. I am always laughing with this man and this new life where I share everything with Kace is more than a little surreal. We’re just finishing up when his phone buzzes with a text. “Jenny,” he says. “She wants us to come by and try a new cookie. We need to go tell her we’re headed to Germany the day after tomorrow.”
I straighten. “That soon?”
“I want you out of a city that’s become a pitstop for every asshole that wants what is yours.”
What is mine.
I toss my burrito wrapper on the tray, a bit of our conversation before we left the apartment coming back to me. “I’ve never thought of the formula like that at all.”
He tosses his paper as well. “It’s time you do. That’s one of the many things I want you to talk to the attorney about tomorrow. I want you sheltered from any liability your name represents and—”
“Liability? What liability?”
“Just looking at this through a cautious lens. If you have any inheritance, there may be those who try to get a piece of the pie.”
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