Page 75 of Sinner's Vows

As he walks over to the sink to wash his hands, I scan his body, his posture, his profile, the way his hair falls forward over his forehead. I’ve been desperately studying him, looking for anything that might spark my memory of Randazzo, but the photo we found with the journals showed me Dominic isn’t Randazzo’s son. I’d hazard a guess he’s ninety-nine percent Guiliano Scalera’s offspring. But is that enough? Not with the fresh knowledge of my half-brothers in the mix.

Never mind our family dynamics, the seal of Randazzo is a temporary tattoo, made to last only a few months.

Then there’s the sad fact that beyond being assaulted by Franco, I’ve never had sex with anybody.

That Portia suggested I seduce Dominic to keep his mind and body occupied is such a joke, now that I’m alone with him, I break out in a nervous giggle. I wouldn’t know where to start. In fact, my inexperience petrifies me.

Dominic looks up from where he’s doing a surgeon’s job washing his hands. “What are you laughing about?”

I drag in a strained breath, forcing my gaze to stay locked with his. “There’s nothing to tease out of me,” I lie. “We really did spend the day ferociously cleaning. Once Portia got started, she got a bit obsessed.”

Because Portia had to do something to kill time, to digest and organize her scramble of thoughts after her epiphany in that closet.

And so did I.

I might be sitting on the biggest pile of secrets here as it is—adding Portia’s hardly makes a difference—but my own discovery makes me want to curl back inside a shell I don’t have. And with Dominic here, I’m even more open and exposed because he knows things about me that I’ve never told anybody before. Things that hurt so much, sometimes, I still feel bruised, deep inside my core.

A hurt I really want to shed. With him. Those hands…his voice…the way he touched me. His suggestion that he could help me overcome what Franco had done to me?—

The last thing I want is for him to be my brother, because I want him to guide me to the space where I can live with being broken.

40

ARIANA

“So we just make dinner, then,” Dominic says as he reaches for a dishcloth to dry his hands. “Portia has prepped all the sauce ingredients, and that takes just a minute. So…it’s just the pasta.”

“She’s very efficient,” I say, trying not to look too relieved we’re now on safer ground.

I’m fooling nobody here. Until the last secret is out, there is no such thing as safer ground. Only once I’m back in Italy and can disappear, away from this whole mess, would I really consider myself safe.

Dominic comes to stand by my side again and pours the flour onto the marble countertop. I watch as he makes a bowl in the flour and crack the eggs into it. He takes a fork and whisks them in slowly.

“You’re a real pasta pro, here, aren’t you,” I say, feeling exactly as redundant as I did earlier with Portia. She walked into the kitchen and started prepping as if she’s a master chef on the clock, which I suppose she’d become out of necessity, feeding a house full of boys.

“I like the ritual of it, the tradition, using my hands,” he says without looking up.

Those hands…they’re mesmerizing. And he’s so good with them. “Who taught you?”

“Portia. I bet she wanted a big family of her own, but instead, she got stuck with ours. She only has one daughter. Rosalia. She works for Matteo.”

“Keeping it in the family, aren’t you,” I tease, biting my lip to hide that I probably heard the real story behind all of that today.

“It’s the Mafia way,” he says, turning to me with a crooked smile, and then booping my nose with a forefinger smudged with flour.

“Dominic!” I say in mock horror as I wipe my nose, glaring up at him as the flour dusts to my T-shirt.

“Dang. You looked cute with that,” he says as his gaze drops to my lips, and lower, then slowly returns from my breasts all the way up to my lips and eventually my eyes.

This man. I feel the invasive heat of a blush as my nipples harden right on cue. He’s flirting with me. Easily, light, playful flirting. Everything our lives are not. His whole being is an incongruous mess. About as much as that raw egg and flour blob he is mixing into shape.

I need to get space between us—lots of space—because I swear the next thing he is going to want to do is kiss me, and I—I?—

I swallow down the need to feel those warm lips on mine, the scruff of his five-o’clock shadow brushing against my delicate skin.

“What do I do?” I ask as I get off the stool so at least that is between us.

“Set up the pasta roller,” he says, unfazed, cool and calm, nodding to where Portia placed it on the counter earlier. “And start boiling the water. It always takes a while to get ready.”

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