“No—we rented a house in Chicago for the summer.”

“Where?”

“Lincoln Park.”

“I’m in Old Town.”

The neighborhoods are right next to each other.

I shouldn’t have told her that—if she talks to the cops afterward, if she gives them a description of me, I won’t be that hard to find. There are only so many Italian men the size of a draft horse in Old Town. Plus, the Gallos are hardly unknown to the Chicago PD.

“I better get going,” I say to her.

My mouth says the words. My body’s not quite in agreement. I’ve pulled the car into the nearest parking lot, but I’m not getting out.

I see those tawny-colored eyes, watching me in the mirror. She blinks slowly, like a cat would do. Mesmerizing me.

“I’m going to leave you at the History Museum,” I tell her. “Do you have a phone?”

“Yes,” she says.

That was sloppy, too. She could have called the police while we were driving, without me noticing.

What the fuck am I doing? I’m never this reckless.

Quickly, I wipe down the steering wheel and paddle shifters with the front of my shirt, making sure to remove any prints. I do the door handle, too.

“I’m getting out,” I tell her. “Do me a favor and wait a couple minutes before you call anyone.”

“Wait!” Simone cries.

I turn around, facing her fully for the first time.

The sight of her in the flesh, not just reflected, takes my breath away. I literally can’t breathe.

She darts forward across the seats and kisses me.

It only lasts a second, her delicate lips pressed against mine. Then she sits back again, looking almost as startled as I am.

“Goodbye,” she says.

I stumble out of the car, into the park.

3

Simone

I press my face against the window, watching the man jog off into Lincoln Park. He moves quickly for someone so massive.

Then I sink back in my seat, feeling like the whole car is spinning around.

What on earth just happened?

I can’t believe I kissed him.

That was my very first kiss.

I went to an all-girls boarding school. And while that didn’t stop any of my classmates from finding romantic partners—male or female—I never met anybody I liked enough to date. I never had the time, or the interest.

In all my wildest imaginations, I never thought my first kiss would be with a criminal. A kidnapper. A carjacker. And who knows what else!

I don’t even know his name. I didn’t ask him, because I didn’t think he’d tell me. I didn’t want him to lie.

My heart is slamming against my ribs. My dress feels too tight around my chest, and I keep breathing faster and faster.

That ten minutes together in the car seemed like hours. And yet, I can hardly believe it happened at all. No one else would believe it if I told them.

I can’t tell anyone about this. For one thing, my father would be furious. Also, as foolish as this sounds, I don’t want to get that man in trouble. He stole the car, yes, but he didn’t hurt me. He didn’t even take the Benz with him.

Actually . . . he was quite a gentleman. Not in manners—he was rough and abrupt, especially at first. His voice sent shivers down my spine. It was deep and gravelly, definitely the voice of a villain.

He didn’t look like a gentleman either. He was huge—both tall and broad, barely able to fit in the car. His arms looked as thick as my whole body. He had ink-black hair, rough stubble all over his face, black hair on his arms, and even the backs of his hands. And his eyes were ferocious. Every time he looked at me in the mirror, I felt pinned in place against the seat.

Still, I believed him when he said he wasn’t going to hurt me. Actually, I believed all the things he said. The way he talked was so blunt that it seemed like he had to be honest.

I press my palms against my cheeks to cool them off. I feel flustered and hot. My hands are hot, too—they’re not helping.

I can’t stop thinking about his eyes looking back at me, that rough voice, and those insanely broad shoulders. His huge hands gripping the steering wheel . . .

I’ve never seen a man like that. Not in any country I’ve visited.

I feel my phone vibrating in my little clutch, and I pull it out. I see a dozen missed calls and many more messages.

I pick up the call, saying, “Tata?”

“Simone!” My father cries, his voice thick with relief. “Are you alright? Where are you? What’s happening?”

“I’m fine, Tata! I’m okay. I’m at the History Museum, at the corner of Lincoln Park.”

“Thank god,” my father cries. “Stay right where you are, the police are on their way.”

I couldn’t leave, unless it was on foot. I never got a driver’s license.

It only takes minutes for the police to arrive. They pull me out of the car and surround me, putting a blanket around my shoulders, asking me a hundred questions at once.

All I say is, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” over and over.

They take me directly back home, on my father’s insistence I’m sure. He’s already waiting out on the front porch. He pulls me away from the police, telling them not to ask me any more questions.

Mama keeps kissing me and holding my face between her hands like she can’t believe it’s really me.

Even Serwa is awake and down from her room, wrapped up in her favorite fuzzy robe. She hugs me too—not as hard as Mama. I hug her back just as gently. My sister is ten years older than me, but a head shorter. I rest my chin on her hair, smelling her familiar scent of jasmine soap.

Once the police are gone, the real interrogation begins.

My father sits me down in the formal living room, demanding to know what happened.

“A man stole the car, Tata. I was in the backseat. He told me to get down and cover my eyes. Then he dropped me off.”

The lie comes out of me with remarkable ease.

I’m not used to lying—especially not to my parents. But there’s no way I could explain to them what really happened. I don’t even understand it myself.

“Tell me the truth, Simone,” my father says sternly. “Did he touch you? Did he hurt you?”

“Yafeu—” Mama says.

He holds up a hand to silence her.

“Answer me,” he says.

“No,” I say firmly. “He never touched me.”

It was me that touched him.

“Good,” my father says with immeasurable relief.

Now he hugs me, wrapping his strong arms around my shoulders and squeezing me tight.

I wonder if he would have done that if I had been “touched?”

“You missed your party,” I say to Mama.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, tucking a lock of pale, shimmering hair behind her ear. “Mon, Dieu, what a city! I knew this would happen. Everyone said it’s all criminals and thieves here, shootings every day.”

She looks at my father with reproach. It’s always his choice which appointments he takes, where we go. Only twice has my mother put down her foot with him—when she was pregnant with my sister, and then with me. She insisted on going home to Paris both times so we would be born on French soil.