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“This is insane,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“If anyone finds out.”
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” I took a breath. “But I’m asking, anyway.”
She was silent for a long moment, and I thought she was going to say no. I thought she was going to turn around and walk away, and I’d never see her again except in my head, a ghost of something that could have been.
Then she said, “Where?”
Relief hit me like a physical thing. “There’s a place in the Village. Piccola Cucina. It’s small, out of the way. No one will see us there.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
She bit her lip, still hesitant. Still scared. But she nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.” She looked up at me, and I saw the fear in her eyes, but I also saw something else. Determination. Defiance. “But if this gets me killed, I’m haunting you.”
I smiled despite myself. “Fair enough.”
We started walking side by side but not touching, just two people who shouldn’t be together heading toward something we both knew was dangerous. The streets were darker now as the evening settled into night. Around us, the city moved and breathed, oblivious to the risk we were taking, to the line we were crossing.
Madigan kept her head down, her hands hidden in her coat pockets. I could feel the tension radiating off her, the awareness of every person we passed, every car that drove by. She was terrified. And she was doing it anyway.
“Why did you say yes?” I asked quietly.
She didn’t look at me. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.” She paused. “Why did you ask?”
“I don’t know either.”
She glanced at me then, and I saw the ghost of a smile on her lips. “We’re both idiots, aren’t we?”
“Probably.”
“Definitely.”
We walked in silence for another block. The restaurant was close now, just around the corner. I could see the warm light spilling from its windows, could smell garlic and tomatoes and bread. A safe place. A private place. A place where, for an hour or two, we could pretend we were just two people having dinner instead of two people playing with fire.
“Salvatore?” Madigan’s voice was soft.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For... for being kind to me. At my father’s house. No one’s ever—” She stopped, swallowing hard. “No one’s ever done that before.”
I looked at her, at this woman who had been treated so badly for so long that a simple act of decency shocked her. And I felt that pull again, that gravity dragging me toward her, that certainty that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, even if it destroyed me.
