Page 50 of Lethal Salvation

“Yes, I drove a wedge into their relationship. Torre del Grecco is where her heart lived, and she always missed it. Did you know it’s the biggest producer of coral in Europe and the biggest producer of cameo brooches since the seventeenth century? The locals are even known as Corallini because of it and my mother was one of them. Technically, so am I because I was born here.”

“Ha, I didn’t know that. It explains the fiery temper though.”

“I don’t have a fiery temper.”

“If you say so, dear.”

“As if you’d ever be a yes man.”

He glanced across at her. “Is that what you’d want?”

“No, I want you as you are now. Fierce and formidable to the outside world and sweet and squidgy with me.”

Gideon laughed and she thought if he could bottle that sound and the feeling it gave her, he’d cure half the world’s problems.

“Squidgy? I’m not liking these analogies. First Damon calling me a Care Bear and now you’re calling me squidgy.”

“Damon is hilarious.”

“He is not, he’s a pain in my ass.”

“You’re lucky you have each other.”

“I know, I don’t know what I would have done without him when we were younger especially.”

Silence filled the car and she let her thoughts wander as they drove through the town. It was easy to see why her mother loved it so much, but enough to walk away from her only child she didn’t know? She knew her mother hadn’t abandoned her but when she turned eighteen and went to university to study languages her mother had taken the opportunity to move back here.

Pulling up to the restaurant her grandparents had owned and then her mother it was hard to see the lights out and the smells she loved not wafting from the door.

“I loved the smells that came from this place when we would visit when I was young. Garlic, herbs, tomato, the scents of my early years.”

“How old were you when you moved to the UK?”

“About three. My father had moved us for his work, and I don’t really remember living here.”

“Do you speak Italian?”

“Grazie per essere qui e tenermi insieme quando voglio crollare.”

Gideon’s voice dropped as he turned into her. “What does that mean?”

“It means ‘Thank you for being here and holding me together when I want to fall apart’.”

His fingers swept her hair from her cheek as his eyes softened with something she didn’t want to evaluate right now.

“There is nowhere I would rather be, Nadia.”

His lips met hers, and it was easy to sink into the kiss and let him wash away the grief and pain she knew she’d face when she walked inside that building. He pulled away and rested his forehead against her neck.

“You ready.”

“No.”

“If you need to sit in this car all night, then that’s what we’ll do, Nadia. Just let me know what you need.”

“A time machine.”

“Ah baby, if it was in my power to give it to you, I would, but that’s the one thing I can’t give you.”