“Deflection, nice.” I maneuvered around him to get in the fancy car as he said something in Italian before shutting the door, then walked to the driver’s side.
He slid behind the wheel onto the burgundy-colored leather. “Buckle up.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Moody and bossy. Great.
I hated to admit the luxury car suited him. It was a metallic-gray Porsche 911 Turbo something or other. I knew he missed the Porsche he’d sold in Charlotte, but I had no clue he had another one in New York. Well, I was assuming this was his and not a rental. “So where are we staying while here? A hotel?”
“No. Constantine thinks we should all stay together at my parents’ place in Long Island, but I need to stop by my place in Chelsea first and pick up a few things.”
A curtain of shock had my eyes dropping closed at that revelation. “You kept your house? I thought you gave up your life here when you moved.” I wasn’t sure why that hurt so much, but it made me think back to my mother’s irritating warning on my birthday that Enzo might leave me one day.
“I feel like we’re about to fight, and I don’t know why.” Enzo sighed, and I opened my eyes to see his sunglasses up as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just like having my own place and car when I visit, that’s it, Maria.”
When I didn’t respond, Enzo flashed me an uneasy look and returned his Ray-Bans into place.
I knew why I was mad at him. It was those last words he’d said to me on the jet before we both had gone radio silent for the remainder of the flight. He was trying to push me away again. His words were meant to scare me, and when would he learn I wasn’t going anywhere?
I let several minutes of silence swallow the space between us as we left the airport before finally mustering up a conversation starter. “Won’t it be weird to stay at your parents’？”
I’d been to his parents’ home before, but the one that overlooked Central Park. I’d almost forgotten they had another place outside the city in Oyster Bay Cove, Long Island.
“This entire situation will be awkward. But Izzy will be there, too, and I’m sure she’ll love seeing you again.” His tone was a bit less edgy this time.
I hadn’t seen Isabella since the funeral, and she had to be thirty now, or maybe already thirty-one. When I visited for my birthday six years ago, she’d been working overseas for a company in London.
She was living back in the States now, managing billion-dollar brands from what I’d last heard.
“Izzy’s bringing her boyfriend.” He revved the engine a touch.
“You don’t like him?”
“I don’t know him. None of us do. The fact she kept him hidden means she doesn’t think we’ll approve.” He glanced at me while saying, “Bringing him to Long Island for the rest of the week can only mean one thing.”
“And that is?”
“She’s marrying him.” He looked back while spinning the wheel with the heel of his hand, reversing the Porsche to avoid a roadblock in our way.
Why was it always so sexy when a guy did that instead of using the cameras? Of course, everything Enzo did seemed to turn me on. “What is it you need at your house?” I decided to drop the subject of his sister’s boyfriend, worried his foul mood would return, and I needed a break from Mr. Moody.
“I have some of Bianca’s things there that I want to bring with me,” he answered without much emotion in his voice, which meant he’d probably worked hard to do that.
And at that, I realized maybe we shouldn’t talk at all. To fill the uncomfortable silence, I turned on the radio and flipped through the stations until I found a song I liked. Can’t go wrong with Sam Smith.
The grumbles from Enzo had me changing the station. Maybe it was too sexual?
Landing on a country station next, which made my heart happy, I hummed to Chase Rice’s song, and either I sucked at humming or he hated the song, because when I glanced his way, his bladed jawline was tight. Not to mention his forearms were flexed. One hand on the wheel and the other on the stick shift thing.
“Can you change that, please?” he asked, and I hurried to do so, but I had the feeling he wouldn’t exactly love the next song.
“You’ve got to be kidding. Someone is fucking with me, I swear,” Enzo said as “Bad Decisions” played. He reached over and shut off the radio. “How about the sound of silence instead?”
I slumped back in my seat. Feeling restless, I grabbed my phone from my purse and opened my photo album to look at pictures of Chiara.