A Matter of Heart (49 page)

I reach out and twist my
fingers through his inky strands. “This is where all the dark hair and skin
comes from.”

As if the dimple wasn’t
enough, he goes and blushes, pink stains under the gold of his skin. Gosh, he’s
beautiful. And charming. I decide to throw him a bone and take a miniscule bite
of biscuit. “Do you speak Italian?”

“A little.” I think he’s
trying to hide his relief I just ate, but he’s grinning like crazy. “I
understand and read it better than I speak it, though.”

“So, if it’s your mother who
has ties to Rome, then why did Joey buy a place?”

“Actually, we didn’t inherit
this from him. It was our mother’s—Joey came here a lot because he was willing
to keep the place up, unlike the Old Man. Whereas the Old Man and Hannah grew
up as cousins, Joey and my mom were tight. This place was my mom’s, and her
parents before her.”

I feel this odd twist of
pleasure that Jonah would feel that this place here, one of the few remnants he
has of his mother, would be where he’d bring me to heal.

He scoots his chair over so
it’s flush to mine. I lean into him, my ear against his heart. Its rhythm is
steady. Strong. Just like him. I take comfort in this sound.

I
manage to eat the entire biscuit.

Rome is a beautiful, magical
place.

We spend the next few days
doing touristy things as well as acting like locals. Jonah knows the area
pretty well thanks to annual visits Joey insisted upon in his childhood, who
claimed it was important for the boys to be surrounded by their mother’s
heritage.

Jonah lied about his ability
to speak Italian, though. From what I can tell, his accent’s flawless; nobody
even questions whether or not he’s Italian when he speaks, which is funny
considering until just this weekend, I didn’t even know that his family
originated from here.

There are so many things
about him that I still don’t know, things that I want to discover. I can’t
believe in all the years we’ve been together, I’ve never bothered to learn
about his heritage except that he was a Magical.

I resolve to change this.
From here on out, I need to stop dwelling on how crappy things are and instead
focus on what’s right in my life. Like Jonah.

He makes sure that there’s
absolutely no stress allowed on this trip. We go out when I want, come home
when I’m tired. We go to the places I want to see, eat at the places I’m
intrigued by when hunger manages to surface. I finally open up about the
ulcer—he’s upset, but doesn’t berate me for it. Instead, he spends time
researching ulcers on the net and talks over with me ways we can attack it,
outside of a Shaman, who I steadfastly refuse to go see. And finally, hints of
his enormous bank account come out when he insists I pick out a new wardrobe
and he doesn’t even blink at the exorbitant price tags that nearly have me
hyperventilating.

“I love it here,” I tell him
one sultry evening. For the first time in a long time, I’m utterly relaxed. In
Rome, things are different. I don’t feel pressured, like I am in Annar. Guilt
stays away. In its place, I embrace contentment. It’s like there’s a force
field around this city, keeping all my troubles out.

He wraps his arms around me,
settling his chin on my shoulder. We’re out on the balcony, taking in the
panoramic view of surrounding us. “I’m glad.”

I sink into his warmth and
tell him the first thought that came to me when I woke up from my nap an hour
before. “I don’t want us to leave.”

“Then we won’t,” is his
answer.

I close my eyes in relief.
“How long can we stay?”

His lips graze my ear. What
was Callie thinking, insisting Paris was the City of Love? Rome is. Rome is all
that and more. His words are soft against my skin. “As long as you want.”

Forever
sounds about right.

I’ve just come back from the
market, carting some fruit that looked surprisingly appealing enough to buy,
when I find Giuliana sipping espressos with Jonah in the living room. “
Ciao,
bella!
” She stands up and kisses me on the cheeks. “Your ears must be
burning. We were just discussing you!”

Jonah takes the canvas bag
I’ve brought in from me. “I was explaining to Giules that we’ve decided to stay
here awhile.”

I nod enthusiastically.
Stay. Yes.

Or . . . no? Giules is
grimacing, albeit contritely. “And I was just explaining to Jonah that I’ve
been sent to bring you back. You’ve got work to do.”

Anxiety stirs in my belly,
rising in my throat until I taste ash. The appetite I’ve slowly reclaimed falls
away. No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to leave Rome.

Jonah drops the bag and
leads me over to the couch. Giules is staring at me funny. Why is she staring
at me funny?

“Are you okay,
bella
?”
she asks quietly.

Jonah says something in
Italian to her. Have they done this before? Did I really never notice this? How
can I not have noticed that Jonah speaks Italian?

The anxiety doubles and then
intensifies until it consumes me. And yet, I paste on my cheerleader smile.
“I’m great! Why do you ask?”

Her brows furrow. “It’s just
. . . you went silent. Like a statue.”

My hyena laugh fills the
apartment. “Oh my gosh. Really? How funny!”

Now her eyes widen. Jonah
says something else in Italian. Her features smooth out, and she once more
looks as if everything’s okay. In English, she tells me, “I feel terrible about
taking you away from the beauty of my homeland, but I’m afraid Battletracker is
insisting on your expertise to help transport the Elder you caught back to
Annar. He’s afraid Emotionals and Dreamers alone won’t be able to fully contain
it.”

Over the last few days, I’ve
completely forgotten about the Elder. “Why does he want it in Annar?”

“Council edict,” she tells
us. “At Monday’s meeting, it was decided that it was too risky to keep in
California. There’s a fair amount of hysteria over its presence after what
happened during its capture. The goal is for you to imprison it in Annar like
you did the others last year.”

We missed a scheduled
Council meeting. I turn to Jonah to judge his reaction to this, but he’s
unfazed. Like it’s no big deal we completely shirked our duties.

And in the end, we go.
Inside, I’m screaming and crying and wishing there was a way I can say no. But
Giules only ever sees a smile on my face. I refuse to let her, or anyone else,
see anything different.

Kellan doesn’t ask about the
medications he brought to Italy. He doesn’t ask what they’re for or why I’m
bothering with drugs rather than Shamans. And I don’t know if this is a good or
a bad thing.

What I do know is that the
ulcer’s reforming. Jonah wants me to go back to Kate, but I’m resisting. I
don’t want anyone to know what’s going on with me, especially after I
apparently broke down in front of Giules and can’t even remember it. It’s bad
enough Jonah knows.

The truly ironic thing is
that, after keeping so many secrets from Jonah, now I’m keeping new and
different ones from Kellan. Secrets are a heavy load, and I loathe them with
every fiber of my being. But, to spill them would only serve to hurt people
more than I already have, so it’s my burden to suffer.

A week after I returned from
Rome, and six days after I imprisoned another being under the streets of Annar
after an uneventful transport and subsequent imprisonment that an Intellectual
could have probably supervised better than me, I find myself sitting on a couch
with Kellan at an outdoor café a block away from his apartment. I’m nursing my
tea as he tells me about his latest mission. I like it when he tells me things
other people don’t get to hear, because it means he trusts me.

Even though I don’t deserve
it.

One of his arms is draped
across the back of the couch, so close to my shoulder. Because the pull between
us is too hard to resist, I reach up and play with the ends of his fingers. He
stops talking at my touch, and then moves his arm away.

I whisper an apology, like
so many before, and so many that will surely come after.

“I don’t need your
apologies,” he murmurs back, voice hoarse.

I know what he needs. So
much of me wants to give it to him. But then, isn’t it always simpler to
consider betrayal when the other person isn’t around? In Rome, it was so easy
to be certain of what I have with Jonah. Sitting with Kellan, it’s different.
Harder to remember.

I blink back tears, refusing
to let them fall in public. And they retreat, just like I knew they would. But
it doesn’t stop my heart feeling like it’s once more being ripped into two.

Our hands meet on the couch
in between us, fingers overlapping, connecting us together when it feels we’re
twice as far apart in the moment. I swear I can see right down into his soul
when I stare into his blue eyes. So much sadness. So much love. So much pain.
He hides it so well, far better than me, that’s for sure. It’s only in these
small moments, usually brought on by my touch, that his façade cracks enough to
let me glimpse what we both know to be truth.

I want to hold him and swear
that I will find a way to fix this. I wish Caleb was talking to me right now.
He’s been radio-silent for longer than he’s even been gone before.
You need
to start figuring things out for yourself
, he told me last time we spoke.
It’s
time for you decide what’s best for you. I can’t hold your hand forever
.

You’re my Conscience, I
argued. Aren’t you supposed to tell me what to do? Because, now’s the time,
buddy. I could really use somebody telling me what to do.

That’s the problem
, he
said.
I’m supposed to help you figure out things, not dictate. Lately, it
seems like that’s all I’m doing, and . . . I can’t do that anymore. This isn’t
something I can choose for you. I can’t pick who you end up with. Only you can
.

“It’s going to be okay, C.”
Kellan’s voice is low, so no one else around us can hear. “I swear. It’s going
to be okay. We will get through this. We’ll make this work. We will all be
okay.”

But
he can’t promise this. And he knows it.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Sophie Greenfield is
standing over me, an unreadable expression on her face. I pick up my backpack
and set it on the ground.

She sits, ankles crossed.
“How are you doing?”

I’d just gotten out of my
one class at the U. What I wouldn’t give right now to be having a typical
college experience at a school that actually assigned me homework. I don’t even
know why I bother with a backpack. Wishful thinking? “Good, thanks.”

She’s more in control of
herself than she was the night she accosted me and Jonah. In fact, she looks .
. . not happy, but calm. Cool. “How’s Jonah?”

Well, this is awkward. Why
is she talking to me? I wonder if I can make my phone conveniently ring. “Also
good.”

She nods, eyes mysterious
behind dark sunglasses. “And Kellan?”

And . . . there it is. I
don’t know if I can do this with her right now. I have a hard enough time
thinking about him, let alone talk about him with anybody. I pray my voice
doesn’t squeak. “Everyone’s good.”

She purses her lips
together, watching me behind those dark glasses. Then a small smile cracks, one
that isn’t kind in the least. Warning bells sound. “You and he are quite close,
aren’t you?”

What’s her point? Hasn’t she
asked this question before?

“At first, I thought I was
seeing you with Jonah at the coffee shop the other day.” A perfectly manicured
hand is held up to examine the tips. “Sometimes, from a distance, it’s hard to
tell them apart.”

It takes no time to
understand what instance she’s referring to.

“I was out shopping with
your friend Lizzie, and we happened to be in a store right across the street
from where you guys were . . . having lunch? Coffee? I saw you through the
window. You can understand why I thought it was Jonah, because his arm was
around you.”

This. Isn’t. Happening. Is
it? Kill me now. “It was more like across the back of the couch, really.”