Page 15 of Stolen Kisses
“What happened to you here?” He stared right at me.
That scar was over two years old. It didn’t look as bad as it did back when I first got it. “Accident.”
I freed my arm from his grasp.
“Accident? You have the troubled look? You in trouble Maria?”
Yes… I wanted to say yes badly, but thought better of it.
I didn’t need any body. I didn’t need anyone to help me and I definitely didn’t have the strength to feel worse than I already did.
“I’m fine. I have to go.”
“But you had a meeting with me.” The smile came back to his eyes. “I’d love to at least know what it was about before you go.”
“No, it doesn’t matter.” I backed away from him and moved into the crowd before he could continue the conversation.
I would have to find something else. I couldn’t work here. I knew he would have given me the job, but I couldn’t do it.
When Christina was killed, I knew deep down he blamed me for how she had changed. I was the bad girl a girl like Christina should never have been friends with. I was the wild child with no rules, because I had no parents to punish me. Aunt Vira didn’t care about me. I strongly believed she’d taken me in as a baby, because she saw the earning potential in having me. Money from the state, and more money when I got older. She didn’t care how she got it, just as long as she got it.
Christina had a wonderful mother who adored her and a brother who would have done anything for her. A brother who looked for her killer everywhere and had never found him.
Every time I thought about that I died a little more inside, because I had one thing he would never have. One thing that might have helped.
I had a name.
A possible lead, maybe more than possible. Sometimes when I thought about it I felt it was more than possible, but I’d never know. I’d never know and it weakened me every time I thought about it.
I’d never know and I couldn’t say anything to anyone, because it was the sort of thing I couldn’t get wrong.
So, I never said anything. I never said anything because I knew the day I told him, would be the day he’d get himself killed.
Chapter 5
Dante
* * *
Like a damn idiot I couldn’t stop smiling to myself.
I really had no reason to smile and realistically I should know better than to have Maria on my mind.
She’d made it very clear many years ago that she didn’t want me.
Problem was, I’d never been able to stop myself from wanting her.
Even when she wasn’t mine.
I had half a mind to follow her last night. I didn’t though, because it would weaken the chase.
If the object of your desire seemed like they were taken up by other things then there was no point in pursuing. She wouldn’t be focused on me.
Last night she had a look I’d only ever seen on her once. One time only and that was when she came to me years back and told me she was looking for Christina.
It was the look of desperation.
One that screamed for help.
