38. Petra

Chapter thirty-eight

Petra

I can’t sleep. It’s still dark outside as I tear my bagel into miniscule pieces, exhausted but amped. I keep thinking I’m going to get a message that Kinley’s done something awful. As if breaking into a half-dozen cars wasn’t drastic enough. My phone buzzes, and my heart catches in my throat.

Standby flight boarding in five. Pick me up? I can’t wait to see you.

I’m still reeling over the hours I thought Reed was in serious danger. I need his face, his voice, his touch, to assure me he’s okay.

I’ll be there.

Now tell me you miss me.

A smile creeps over my face, and my ball of nerves loosens.

I’ll tell you when you get here.

It’s meant to be a joke, but he doesn’t text back right away, and I frown at my shredded bagel. Maybe he’s like me: unsteady and needing reassurance. I start to send him a new message, but a voice note comes through first.

“I’ll say it, then. I miss you, Petronia Diamante.” The bustle of airport noises fills the background. “I should’ve stayed there. I let Amanda sway me into believing that time apart might be good—take the pressure off, or clear our heads—but mine didn’t need clearing. So when I say that I can’t wait to see you again, I mean it with all that I am.”

Oh, Reed. Though we talk for hours every day, a voice note is different from a phone call. I’m not busy processing it, waiting for my turn to speak. I can absorb it and listen to him over and over again, and I treasure it.

I’m tender as I record my own. “Time apart was good. I needed to let my family back in. To stand on my feet and lean on their shoulders. Now I don’t need a savior. I appreciate you for you, and not how you bring me to life. And I do miss you, tesoro mio .”

I knew you did, Pet. On the runway now. See you soon.

Something tugs at me, and I call Livi. I don’t bother with a hello. “I’m in love with Reed. I know it hasn’t been long and it’s all uncertain, but it feels right—”

“Then it is. He lights you up, Troni. I’m glad you’re letting yourself see it. But if he brings you more pain than happiness, I will kill him.”

I wrinkle my nose, defensive. “What was he supposed to do, Liv? Not let his phone get stolen?”

She mirrors my sass. “Maybe keep it in his pocket like a normal person?”

I roll my eyes, but there’s a new warmth in my chest. Until recently, I wouldn’t have considered calling Livi at all. I would’ve relied on Silla, or not called anyone. “Thank you for being there yesterday. I love you.”

“Love you.” There’s a loud cry in the background and Livi swears. “I have to go. Call me later. And tell Reed that if Kinley comes around, we’ll show her some Diamante fire.”

“If I ever meet her, she’s getting my foot in her face. Love you, bye.” It’s not an exaggeration. I’m not a proponent of women fighting, especially over a guy, but I will protect Reed, no questions asked. The same way I’d protect Livi, or Tommy, or Hailey .

I edit my book to kill time, and make it through several chapters before Papa comes down the stairs. “What are you doing up early?” he asks.

“Couldn’t sleep. Something happened with a friend. I’m going to pick him up at the airport soon. Want breakfast before I go?”

“Please. Frittata with tomatoes?” Papa asks, switching the conversation to Italian. I nod and gather the ingredients as Papa watches me like only a father can. It’s not until I’m cracking eggs into a bowl that I shoot him a look. He raises his eyebrows back at me. “Are you picking up a friend? Or Reed? They’re not the same.”

“Reed is a friend,” I say. Papa shakes his head, as if I’m hopeless. “Papa—”

“ Stellina. ” Papa heaves a sigh and sinks onto the barstool as if he’s suddenly thirty years older. “You’re trying to protect me, but I knew you loved him when you rushed down the stairs at Sunday dinner. You smiled so brightly that La Madonna could have appeared in our kitchen and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

My cheeks flush. “I—”

“And I knew he loved you the moment after.”

His words suck all the air out of the room. “Shouldn’t you be warning me away?”

“When did you decide you loved Nate?” Papa asks.

It’s a shock to hear his name. Papa hasn’t forgiven Nate for my second pregnancy. When I told Papa I was carrying again, I cried in anguish. Instead of the happiness of a new opportunity, I dreaded what could come next. And after I lost the baby, I faded into a ghost. Papa watched it all, knowing there was nothing he could do. Nothing I’d let him do.

Did I love Nate? Our relationship was born out of turmoil. He said it first, after I found out I was pregnant with Natalia, and I just…said it back. “I don’t know.”

Papa nods, quietly fiddling with his wedding ring as I cover the frittata. “I knew after our third date that Anita was the only woman I wanted to spend my life with. Sometimes love strikes fast and hard, Petra. I learned to embrace it when it does. ”

“I thought you wanted me to be a nun.”

Papa shakes his head. “I want you to be happy.”

I grimace as guilt pierces my belly. “I’m happy here with you.”

Papa stands up and pulls me into his arms, kissing my hair. “I’m older than you, and will be cold before you. I love having you close, I’ll always want you close, but I want you to be loved after I’m gone.”

I blink back hot tears. “Don’t talk like you’re ninety. You’re not even sixty yet.”

Papa laughs into my hair as he squeezes me. “I’m not dying anytime soon! I’m giving my blessing. Don’t make me take it back.”

He didn’t give his blessing before. It would’ve come eventually, maybe at a wedding shower or when Natalia was born. But neither of those happened. “ Ti voglio bene , Papa.”

“And I love you, principessa. ” He lets go of me so I can check the frittata and plate it for him. When we sit and chat together, it’s easier than before. Papa makes me laugh, and it clears up the darkness in his own face. I wasted so much time heartbroken, when I could’ve had all this. A family who loves me, a…Reed, who makes me happy, a prospective career that I never dreamed I’d have another chance at.

I clear the dishes as a way to broach the topic without having to face Papa. “I’m going to stay the night with Reed. Will you tell Mama where I am when she wakes up?”

Papa chokes on his eggs. It’s a big ask. “Of course, I’ll handle it.”

“Love you doubly.” I kiss his whiskery cheek and squeeze him in the biggest hug I can manage. I give him a smile before I grab my bag. I’ll be back soon , I nearly say, but the words won’t come out. This is the start of something new, and we both know it. So I bite my lip and close the door behind me.

I circle the terminals, heart in my throat. My heart beats his name, as if he’s in my body. Reed. Reed. Reed. He’s inevitable.

He steps onto the sidewalk, his messy brown hair glinting in the sun, and my heart stops beating entirely. I pull up to the curb, and I’m not sure who runs to who, because it’s an instant before we’re inches away.

His hand cups my jaw, and his eyes are soft. “You’re here.”

“And you’re here.”

Reed takes my hand and puts it on his chest. “You’re here. ” Electricity courses through us. We form a circuit together, his thumb on my cheek, my fingers over his fast beating heart. I’m speechless in the face of Reed’s soft, honey eyes and half-smile. It’s like he’s never seen me before, or like he might never see me again.

I can’t breathe when Reed’s lips touch mine, sweet and slow. I had plenty of air before and was barely surviving, but I’m vibrantly alive with Reed. Oxygen be damned.

I wrap my arms around him, kissing him with everything I want to say. I’m sorry I didn’t call for weeks. I don’t know why I thought this thing between us would fizzle out. I’m sorry I held back when you were in Swift River. I’m ready to jump if you are. Jump with me.

“Reed,” I whisper.

He ducks his face into my neck, his hands tight around my waist. “I missed you every minute.”

Before I can spill everything weighing on my heart, a traffic officer blows his whistle at us with a get moving motion. I help Reed load his bags into the back, and when we pull into traffic, his palm is warm against mine. His fingers stroke my skin as if reassuring himself that we’re together.

“Do you want to get something to eat?”

“Want to see my new house?” Reed smiles, and it brightens his whole, worried face. “I’m renting it until we close. They dropped my pod off the other day and moved in the big furniture. Told you I was serious when it comes to you.”

He kisses my knuckles, and my little mushroom of a dream springs up from its place in the dirt.

I follow his directions until we park on a quiet, residential street that’s mostly older homes. Some are renovated and others have wear and tear, but Reed points out one that’s a sweet shade of creamy yellow, with a porch across the entire front and a storage pod in the driveway. The yard is overgrown, and the trees and bushes are bare and leggy. Once they are pruned and bud out, they’ll be beautiful.

“Do you like it?” Reed asks, but I can’t read him.

“It’s charming. But what do you think? Worth the buy?”

“Pet.” He brushes our lips together and leaves me aching for more. “It was worth the buy just to be near you.”

We walk up the path, hand in hand. Reed leads me to the side door, where he enters a code on a lockbox. It opens, revealing a set of brass keys. Reed shoots me a grin that sends tingling warmth down my arms, and unlocks the door.

A mud room/laundry room combo opens into a large kitchen and dining space. There is a small formal room in the front half, but the back half is made up of a bathroom and living room with huge windows that overlook the backyard and the river beyond. The whole place has a light, airy feeling, with wood floors and high ceilings. The movers placed furniture haphazardly in some of the rooms—a dining table, sofa, loveseat, and desk.

“So?” I prompt.

“I love it.” He grins at me, happier each passing minute. “Could you see yourself spending time here? Date nights? Dinners?”

“Breakfasts?” I joke.

His eyes crinkle as he pulls me in close. “So many breakfasts.”

He lifts my chin, kissing me as if we’ve got all the time in the world. Everything fades except for the tingle against his lips, the taste of him, the smell of soap that clings to him. His teeth slowly, confidently, press into my lip before his tongue swipes over the indentation, and I’m lost. His hand is hot as he slides it under my blouse and across my back, pressing us tightly together.

I haven’t been kissed like this in years.

Millenia.

Eons.

Ever .

It’s a kiss that starts wars. Ends wars. A kiss Shakespeare wrote about before it happened. Reed kisses me until my heart stops and is replaced with his own, because obviously I’m his.

I’ve always been his, since the moment the suns collided and scattered stardust across the universe.

I love you, Reed. It comes out as a sigh, thank God, because I’m not foolish enough to tell someone I love them after seven weeks of knowing them. But when Reed pulls back, his eyes dark and insatiable, it has to be written all over my face. He groans, and we meld together once again.

What feels like hours later, his phone vibrates in the pocket that’s pressed against my hip, and we break apart. “Do you need to get that?”

“No. Ignore it.”

“Kinley?” I ask. He nods and hands me his phone. The entire screen is filled with missed calls. “Ninety-two?”

He swipes to another screen. “Nearly two hundred texts.”

I wince. “Time for a new number?”

“Yes. I was waiting until we could do it together. I didn’t want to lose my bridge to you. I’ve changed it twice, since the whole…” Reed gestures at his tattoo, and I smooth my hand over it, marking my territory, erasing her from his skin. “It helped, but then she got my new number from someone and the cycle started all over again.”

“That’s awful. And the restraining order doesn’t stop her from contacting you?”

Reed grimaces. “She doesn’t care. I can only send so many cease and desist letters, or call the police. They’re not exactly sympathetic. If our genders were reversed, it would be a different story.”

I don’t know how to comfort him, because he’s not wrong. I watch as he screenshots the missed call log, visual voicemails, and the text messages, and sends them all to his attorney. “What do they do when she violates the order? ”

“She’s fined. She pays it and keeps going. She’ll probably have to hurt me for anyone to take her seriously.”

I wince and wrap him up in my arms. “If she does, I’ll kick her ass, and then I’ll be the one going to jail.”

“I’ll send you commissary money.” Reed smiles, and it lessens the weight of the moment. He presses a kiss to my cheek and laces our hands together. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the full story with Kinley. It’s not a fun one,” he admits with an awful laugh, and I follow him to the sofa.

He pulls off the moving blanket, and the couch is soft, squishy, and perfect as we sit together. “If you’re not up to it—”

“No. You deserve to know. No secrets, Petra. Not between us. Right?”

I nod. “No secrets.”

“I told you she was in therapy. It’s not an excuse, but she had a fucked up childhood, and her teen years weren’t any better. She developed a hypersexual disorder—among other issues. She acted on her triggers, sometimes with strangers or with people any normal person would stay away from. Kinley was kicked out after her mom found Kinley in bed with her mom’s boyfriend, though the boyfriends had been the root of the problem for years.”

Jesus. No one should have to live through that. “God, that’s awful. I mean, I still hate her, but…”

Reed’s lips quirk up in a wry imitation of a smile. “Exactly. She was finally making progress in therapy, but she discovered erotic audio, and it shifted her fixation to me. She messaged me about how I’d helped her. She was a normal, chatty fan. We met up in person eventually, and she was fun. No red flags. Or maybe I missed them because we didn’t do a lot of talking.”

Ouch. So much for three hundred women. I’m competing with one woman with a hypersexual libido.

“It’s hard to keep up with a girl like that, which was an ego boost, so I ignored a lot. But she stopped taking her meds, stopped going to therapy, and she lost touch with reality. She was jealous, possessive, and had major mood swings. She wanted Knight to be real, not me.”

“She missed out on the best parts of you, tesoro. ”

Reed half-smiles as he kisses my knuckles in response. “She moved in, bits and pieces at a time, so small I didn’t even notice. She isolated me, and depression set in. I missed my friends, my family. Kinley didn’t care as long as she could drag me out to clubs or show me off like a handbag. We took ecstasy while we were out one night and I was…more enthusiastic about sex. After that, she wanted me to take it all the time.”

That shocks me more than anything else. “You don’t drink, but you were okay with ecstasy?”

Reed breathes a heavy sigh, squeezing my hand. “You know me better than she ever did. I wasn’t okay with it. I was suicidal. I didn’t want to require drugs to like my life. When I took a break to see my family, Kinley followed me to Iowa. She was worried they would convince me to break up with her, which they did. Kinley threatened to kill my sister, and I was done. Went back to LA, changed the locks, and went no contact.”

His voice is full of pain, and I know that’s not the end of the story. “I can’t imagine that went over well.”

Reed nods. “Understatement. She showed up on a set where my best friend was working and caused a scene. She got Holly fired and spray-painted her car. The police got involved, and Holly and I were both granted a protection order. But then, she—” Reed shakes his head. He’s ghost white.

He rubs his hand over his forearm where the mountain range is, and my stomach drops. “You don’t have to—”

“Holly had an awards show in Vegas, and I went with her for support. Kinley snuck into an afterparty and slipped me ecstasy. I didn’t even know she was there. I woke up next to her, with only that fucking KH on my arm and a wedding ring. Sometimes I thank God I can’t remember much from that night. Other times it’s the worst thing in the world. ”

I push my tears away, because it’s not about me. I can’t imagine the psychotic break it takes to do that to someone. But then my heart shatters like glass at Reed’s feet. “Oh, Reed. She raped you.”

Reed’s jaw clenches tight, and pain flashes through his eyes. “Good luck getting her to see it that way.”

I want to pull him into my chest, but I don’t know how he’ll handle being touched in the middle of these memories. “Doesn’t matter how she sees it. It’s the truth.”

He shakes his head, pressing on. “Her lawyer made a pretty convincing argument with the DA. A man—worse, a man who makes a living selling sex—doesn’t make a great victim. She said that I abused her . Even with the restraining order in place, the drug test, everything, she took a plea deal. Barely did any time at all.”

“No! Seriously? How is that possible? Aren’t there minimums for sexual assault? Stalking?”

“The system is complicated, messed up, and geared toward women with male abusers.” Reed’s jaw clenches, and his anger tears me apart. “I couldn’t stand being in the same city as her. Drove to Iowa first, then across half the country, and ended up in Swift River.” He gives me a half-smile. Hurt and hope all in one.

“I’m glad you did,” I say, reaching out a hand. He takes it, and I squeeze, pouring all my warmth, affection, and safety into him.

“Me too.”

I don’t have the right words like Reed does. “I wish I could’ve met you through better circumstances,” I say, squeezing again, “and avoided you going through all that pain.”

Reed brushes his thumb over my cheek with a tenderness that gets to me. “We both went through plenty of pain to get here, Pet. It was still worth it,” he says, and then he’s in my arms, face against my neck. I rub soothing circles everywhere I can as he shudders against me, holding me tight. My words come from somewhere deep down, bubbling up like a spring.

“I’m not going to let her near you again, Reed. You have me. And all the Diamantes, too. You haven’t met Silla yet, but she’s the black belt, and we’ll be like your personal ninja turtles.” It’s a relief to feel Reed jolt with a small, wry laugh. “We’re all in your corner. We won’t let you do this alone. You’re stuck with me until you say otherwise.”

Reed huffs a laugh, and nods against my shoulder. “Remind me to tell you later what I’m thinking about.”

I stroke his soft hair, and he melts into me. “You could tell me now.”

He shakes his head. “Later.”

“Thank you for telling me, Reed. For being honest and vulnerable, for sharing when I’m sure it’s not easy. I know you haven’t been taken seriously, but I hear you. Believe you. We’ve got Darin on our side, too. Maybe he can help us make a case against her.”

“Us?”

“Us. You are incredibly tough and unbelievably brave, tesoro mio. You’re going to have a life where you don’t have to worry about her, with someone who sees you and loves you for all that you are. Who is happy to share you, because you have infinite love to give to the world. I’ll make it happen—whether we’re together or not. I see you, Reed. You see my scars and I see yours, and I will do all I can to help you heal them.”

“Pet—” He chokes on my name as I rub my hand over his back. Reed presses us together until there is no space between us. Each breath is shared. Every brush of lashes, tense muscle, heartbeat—they muddle together until I can’t tell what’s mine or his. “I’d endure it all again just to meet you.”