Page 111 of Legacy
Adriana
Ishould be taking the bar in Florida.
That was the plan.
Instead, I’m stuck where the sidewalks are gray and slushy, the buildings too tall, and the air smells like cigarette smoke and ambition.
Forced to relearn state-specific statutes I already mastered—cramming bar prep nonsense into my head while pretending not to notice the six-foot-something shadow following me everywhere I go.
Enzo.
That’s what Angelo calls him.
I call him the stray I never picked up.
He leans against his matte black car when I head to the library, waits for me to leave, follows me to the bar prep center, and doesn’t even pretend not to be watching.
He doesn’t talk.
He doesn’t blink.
He just exists—for Angelo.
To“keep me safe.”
From the stupid fucking war I got married into.
If I had just stayed in Florida, I would be in my own apartment, with my friends, studying on my terms. No shadows. No guards. No goddamn contracts.
Now I get to be Angelo Amato’s wife.
I’ve been avoiding him for a week.
Because every time I’m in a room with him, I forget how to think straight.
He’s distracting and infuriating in the same breath.
It’s the way he smells just how I remember. The low timbre of his voice when he speaks. The way he moves—deliberate, predatory, like the space belongs to him. LikeIbelong to him.
And Ihatethat my body notices.
So I fill every minute.
I wake up at six. I’m out the door by seven-thirty. Library. Bar prep. Study groups. More coffee. More outlines. By the time I get home after ten, exhaustion is the perfect shield.
I slip past him if he’s in the living room, hallway, kitchen—wherever he is.
I don’t stop. I don’t look.
I close myself behind my bedroom door and let the silence swallow me.
Every night, there’s dinner waiting.
In the microwave, plated and covered.
I haven’t seen Clara, the supposed chef, so I assume he’s the one cooking.
I eat in silence.
