Talent drops his head back and sighs. “No, I’m not in the mafia. I told you my work gets me involved with some shit. This is the shit.”
“I don’t know … Talent, I don’t—”
He steps forward and captures my face in his hands, forcing me to look up at him as he stands above me. “Do you trust me?”
My answer is absolute and without hesitation. “Yes.”
He sighs in relief and pulls me to my feet. “Good, because my dad wants to meet you.”
David Ridge looks like Al Pacino.
We’re already in a room full of gangsters. All that’s missing is the mountain of cocaine and the machine gun to complete this Scarface remake. Thankfully, we’re across the room from Giovanni Coppola and his family. Maybe I won’t have to worry about witnessing a gunfight.
Talent and I arrive at the table where Wilder and his dad are seated, talking and laughing between each other like we’re not in the same room with some of the most dangerous people in the country. I reach deep and compose myself, deciding that if I’m going to trust Talent, I need to trust him all the way. He wouldn’t have brought me here if I were in danger. I only wish he’d have warned me.
David Ridge smiles and scoots his chair back to stand and shake my hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Lydia. Talent only has wonderful things to say.”
“It’s also very nice to meet you, sir.”
He waves me off teasingly and says, “None of that. Call me David.”
“Or Dad,” Wilder suggests from his seat with a mischievous smile. His eyes are glassy and hooded, and that probably has everything to do with the entire bottle of bourbon sitting half-full between him and his father.
“Very funny, you fucking idiot,” Talent says as he pulls my chair out.
“What, Wilder?” I ask in mock confusion. “You want me to call you Dad?”
The table of Ridges erupts into laughter and their banter shows no signs of ending after that. It’s nothing personal. They’re three men without a woman’s influence, getting drunk on expensive liquor. David slides a glass with a finger of whisky in front of me and encourages me to drink up.
“It’s the only way we get through this shit,” he says with the slightest hint of an Italian accent long-forgotten. His head full of salt and pepper curls reminds me so much of Talent, my heart automatically makes a little room for him. “We’d all rather be at home in front of our televisions. But duty calls.”
We spend the next couple of hours drinking too much, filling our stomachs with the delicious food, and laughing more than I have in as long as I can remember. We’re only four people at a table for six, and no one else joins us with the exception of the occasional person who comes around to shake hands with David and his sons.
David does a great job of including me in the conversation without asking about my family or my job, which leads me to believe that he knows exactly where I come from and what I do. Why they’re so accepting of me in light of knowing I’m a seasoned escort is beyond me. Instead, he asks me about my favorite things, if I want to travel, and how his son is treating me.
Talent’s green jacket is on the back of his chair, and his tie is loose like it always is when he’s had too much to drink. He’s scooted my chair directly next to his, so that the entire side of my body is pressed against his, and he rests his arm over my shoulders.
“He’s a gentleman,” I answer, filled with liquid courage and unafraid to wear my heart on my sleeve. Talent deserves nothing less than complete honesty. “He’s more than I ever imagined for myself.”
“That’s my boy.” David lifts his glass to his younger son and nods. Alcohol has changed him from gangster movie Al Pacino to rom-com Al Pacino, and I like it. “Your mother would be proud of you, Talent.”
“Come on,” Talent says with a slight chuckle. He pushes his chair back and takes my hand to help me from my seat. “This is the part where everyone’s had too much to drink and starts getting sentimental. Let’s dance before they embarrass me and I start to cry.”
David Ridge slides his hand across Wilder’s upper back and claps his shoulder, holding up a glass of whisky in his other hand. It swishes around and spills over his fingers. “Your mother was a great woman. A good judge of character. She’d like this one, Talent.”
Wilder clinks glasses with his father as Talent and I walk away from the table. He guides me to the dance floor where the rest of the party has congregated. Purple, blue, and green lights twinkle from projectors above our heads, casting shadows across our faces and warming our skin with their glow. A low pitch, slow tempo blues ballad with a gritty female vocalist belts a song from the sound system, bringing couples closer together and dismissing everyone else back to their seats.
A bead of sweat drips down my lower back under my dress, and warmth radiates under Talent’s shirt, intensifying his natural vanilla and spice scent. I slide one hand across the back of his neck, and he holds my other hand in his as we move with the rhythm of the music. The mesmerizing pulse of the acoustic guitar, piano, and the occasional drumbeat puts us under a spell, and we may as well be the only two people on the dance floor.
Talent spins me around before pulling me back in, pressing his mouth against mine once I’m back in his arms. His lips taste like oak and rye, and it’s strong enough on his tongue to get drunk from. My dress sashays at my feet as we sway back and forth, light on the dancing and heavy on the touching, kissing, wanting.
“Thank you for bringing me tonight,” I say.
“I knew it was risky,” he replies. Talent’s hands rest on my lower back. “I wanted to show you that my family isn’t as perfect as we’re made out to be. We have our own secrets.”
“I’d say.” I laugh.
“Maybe now you’ll understand why I don’t care about your past. I wasn’t lying when I said I deal with people who do worse.”
“Are you going to explain to me how you’re involved with the Coppola family?”
“Yes.” Talent kisses my forehead and playfully adds, “but then I’ll have to kill you.”
Spinning around a second time, the bottom half of my gown sails midair before twisting around my body once I return to Talent. Time slows while we dance under a kaleidoscope of colors, engulfed in heat and lust and possibility. We’re slow kisses and slower touches, unable to break eye contact or change tempo when the song ends.
“Can we stay like this forever?” I ask, laying my cheek against his heartbeat to absorb the steady thud.
“No,” Talent answers. “I have so much more planned for us, baby.”
Two months ago, a future beyond Hush wasn’t tangible. I’d outsmarted the sentence Cricket bestowed upon me when she died, assuming I succeeded by doing everything on my own terms and demanding certain treatment. The last ten years of my life were spent outrunning her legacy, but realistically, I fulfilled it.
Talent changed that.
One chance encounter flipped my world upside down, and a future I don’t recognize becomes in focus the deeper in love I fall with him and myself. Who am I if not Cricket Montgomery’s daughter or Inez Ricci’s prized escort? What will I look like once I step from their shadows? Can I live a normal life after the trauma I’ve experienced?