He must have known all of this, but I wasn’t so sure he shared the same sentiment.

I was a convenience.

His second choice.

It took a moment to realize Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck played on the radio. The song was far from romantic, but it was rough and compelling, like the man beside me. It was the song I’d kissed him to. Someone might as well have yelled it into the car, as aware of it as we suddenly were.

I opened my door an inch so the radio would shut off, but I didn’t get out. Something pounded in my chest. An unfulfilled need that felt close to bursting. My palms grew clammy.

“Nico—”

His hand came toward my face and my words caught in my throat. As if my body expected a blow, a breath escaped me when his thumb brushed across my lips and down my chin. “Go inside. I have some things to do out here.”

The truth was, I hadn’t exactly figured out what I would say, and for that reason I was glad he’d stopped me. But as I made my way inside, a heavy weight that felt too much like rejection settled in my chest.

Once I was inside my room, I slipped into my Yankees t-shirt. My body thrummed with indecision, my heart beating with a speed that made me feel alive. I sat in the seat below the window and stared through the glass, at the light underneath the garage door.

I fell asleep before I ever heard the creak of the stairs.

A crick in my neck ached as I awoke curled up on the window seat. Sunlight filtered into the room in rays, lighting dust particles in the air. My mouth watered as the smell of bacon reached my nose. I wondered if Nico’s cook was here, though it was Sunday and she wasn’t due until tomorrow.

Not fully awake, I made my way into the hallway bathroom, combed my hair, and brushed my teeth. Maybe I should’ve put on a little makeup now that I had a fiancé I could run into at any moment, but truthfully, I’d never cared much for the stuff.

I padded toward the smell of bacon, and then stopped short at the base of the stairs. Heat curled in my stomach and drifted through my body in one smooth sweep. My heartbeat settled between my legs. A pan was cooking on the stove, but I hardly had a sexual fetish for food. That I knew of, anyway. I’d seldom seen this man out of a suit and tie. Now that he stood at the island without a single stitch on his upper half, it was a shock to my nervous system.

He was more brawn than chiseled, wide shoulders, defined chest, and when he ran a hand across his bare abs, my cheeks grew so warm they could have heated the house. I swore blushing was the bane of my existence.

He flipped a page of the magazine that held his attention. “Thought I told you to burn that shirt,” he drawled.

I swallowed, and couldn’t think of one thing to say, because it was so early and there was so much skin. His ink stopped at the shoulder of one arm, leaving everything else tan, hard, and ugh. I opened my mouth, and what came out was, “Why? So we can both walk around inappropriately dressed?”

His lips lifted, though he didn’t bother to look at me. “I don’t know, seems platonic compared to what you were begging me—”

“Okay,” I blurted. “Fine. But I’m not burning my shirt. You’ll have to convert.” I told him this with all seriousness as I made my way to the coffeemaker.

His response was a dry noise of amusement that let me know that was not going to happen.

I worked on getting the coffee started like it required my full attention, because his nudity made butterflies dance in my stomach. However, I got distracted somewhere along the way and ended up staring at his back.

All of a sudden I decided I had a thing for men’s backs, though I was uncertain about the gun tucked into the waistband of his sweatpants. No wonder he was still alive—he was never unarmed. There was a small circular scar low on his side, and I wondered where the two other bullet wounds had been.

“Who taught you how to cook?” I asked, eyeing the pan on the stove.

He turned around and leaned against the island, grasping the counter on either side of him. “Are you telling me you can’t make bacon and eggs?”

I frowned and shifted my weight to the other foot. “Well . . .”

His smile was sly and charming at the same time. “Starting to wonder what I’m getting out of this marriage.”

I bit my lip. “Me too.”

He laughed, deep and hearty, and it made my pulse skip a beat. It was only the second genuine laugh I’d heard from him, and I suddenly knew I could grow used to it.

The coffee began brewing, filling the kitchen with a rich and earthy smell. Nico had gotten me the good stuff, though I would have drunk burnt gas station coffee for my fix. Glancing at the clock, it read seven-thirty a.m.

“Does this marriage thing mean I have to go to your church?”

He smiled and then wiped it away with a palm. “Yeah. That’s what this marriage thing means.”

My lips pursed in thought. It wasn’t like I had a particular fondness for my church—in fact, I knew our priest was on Papà’s payroll. Therefore, I couldn’t be honest during Confession, leaving me with all these sins that needed to be absolved. It was a mess on my conscience, really. But I imagined it wouldn’t be that different at Nico’s church. And I’d also have to be surrounded by Russos . . .

I swallowed. “I guess I better go get ready.”

“Nah, not this week. We’ve got somewhere else to be.”

I watched him for a moment while a tickle played in the back of my mind. My gaze narrowed. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact your priest won’t approve of me living here before marriage?”

The tiniest flicker passed through his eyes and I knew I was right. He was hiding me from his priest. He wanted to be a respectable Catholic, and even though it was far, far from the truth, it was sort of admirable.

“So, I’m like your dirty little secret.” It was supposed to be teasing, but it came out more acutely as I realized it bothered me.

“Dirty?” The look he shot me was warm whiskey over ice. “Hopefully.”

I inhaled, though my lungs refused to accept it. I didn’t know how he could say something like that as if the intensity of it didn’t bother him a bit, whereas I needed to break eye contact and brush the moment away.

“I don’t need to keep you a secret, Elena,” he said, going to tend to his pan on the stove. “I just don’t have the patience to listen to what people think I should do with what’s mine.”

Mine. It drifted through the room, hanging above our heads like a lazy breeze unwilling to depart. Something touched me deep in the chest.

“Yours, huh?”

He stilled, running a hand across his jaw. “My fiancée,” he corrected with indifference, as though he’d realized his simple mistake, as though fiancée had a different meaning than mine. In this world, it did.

“My family’s aware you’re here and that’s all that matters,” he said. “They aren’t going to say anything.”

“Or you’ll shoot them?”

He glanced my way, gaze lazy. “Or I’ll shoot them.”

The frightening thing about it was that I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. A part of me heard the light, teasing tone, while the other replayed him shooting his cousin in the head on a sunny Sunday afternoon.