Page 93 of Wicked Sinner
I can tell myself that Isabella knew my husband better than I do, and use that to comfort myself when I’m alone after all of this, wanting a man I should never have allowed myself to have.
The food arrives, and for a while we eat in comfortable silence. Caesar digs in enthusiastically, and I can't help but smile at the sight of this powerful, dangerous man eating a four-dollar hot dog.
"What?" he asks, noticing my expression.
I bite my lip. "Nothing. You just… you look different here." I draw in a breath, watching him. I never thought someone could look sexy eating a messy hot dog, but somehow, he pulls it off.
Caesar sets his food down, looking at me cautiously. "Different how?"
"Younger. Less..." I search for the right word. "Less weighed down. More like you did the night I met you," I admit. “You were cocky and arrogant, but you seemed so much younger that night. After you came back, it was like you’d aged ten years.”
“Thanks,” he says sarcastically, and I roll my eyes.
“I don’t mean it like that. I just mean?—”
“I know what you mean.” Caesar runs a hand through his hair. “The day after I met you, everything started. Meetings with Konstantin, demands to get married, insistence that I might not be the one to inherit all of this. Ifeltlike I aged. And being here with you, like this, eating food I wouldn’t normally eat and pretending to be normal—” He lets out a dry laugh. “It does make me feel better.”
“But you couldn’t do it every day.” I look at him from across the booth, feeling that odd ache in my chest again. “You couldn’t live like this.”
Caesar shoots me a look. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that today.”
I let out a breath, reaching for my milkshake, and nod. “You’re right.” But it’s impossible not to think about it. Not to think about the fact that there’s no way this man could live this life with me, day in and day out.
After lunch, I drive us to the only roller rink left that’s open during the day. It’s nothing fancy, and I see the expression on Caesar’s face as we walk in.
"Roller skating?" Caesar looks at the rink with something that might be alarm. "Bridget?—"
"Come on." I'm already walking toward the skate booth. "When was the last time you did something just for fun? Something completely ridiculous and pointless?"
“I’m not sure I?—
"Exactly." I grab his hand and pull him toward the rental booth. "Time to live a little, Mr. Genovese."
Fifteen minutes later, we're both wobbling around the rink on rental skates that have seen better days. Caesar, who moves with lethal fluidity in every other situation, is struggling to stay upright on wheels. I can't stop laughing at the look of intense concentration on his face as he grips the wall.
"This is harder than it looks," he mutters, taking a careful step forward.
"You're overthinking it." I skate backward in front of him, showing off skills I haven't used since I was twelve. "Just relax and let the momentum carry you."
"Easy for you to say. You're not about to fall on your ass in front of your wife,” he mutters, and I stifle a laugh. He hears the sound and looks up at me, a gleam in his eyes that makes my heart stutter in my chest.
"Your pregnant wife," I remind him. "If I can do this, so can you."
He takes his hands off the wall and manages a few unsteady strides before grabbing my arm for support. We end up laughing and stumbling together, and for a moment I forget about everything else—the danger, the forced marriage, the fact that all of this is, ultimately, pointless. Caesar hasn’t told me I shouldn’t be doing this, and I haven’t seen his security anywhere, even though I know they must be watching us from afar.
For a moment, we're just two people having fun together.
By the time we leave the rink, the sun is starting to set, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange. I drive us to a small beach that's always been my favorite thinking spot.
"One more stop," I tell Caesar as we park near the water. "The best part of any day in South Florida."
The beach is nearly empty, just a few joggers and dog walkers enjoying the cooler evening air. I kick off my shoes and walk toward the water, feeling the sand between my toes and the salt breeze in my hair.
"This is where I used to come when I needed to think," I tell Caesar as he joins me at the water's edge. "When my dad got sick, when I was trying to figure out how to keep the shop running, when life felt too complicated to handle."
I can feel his eyes on me. “What happened?”
“Lung cancer.” I let out a breath through my nose, curling and uncurling my fingers. “He never smoked around me, but he definitely smoked a lot. I’d see the empty packs in the trash. I think I knew it was coming—I always worried about it—but it was something different to see it happen.”
