Tacie Graves - Compromising Positions

Marco’s eyes narrowed in the sunlight, dark hair falling over a frowning brow, and Mina shivered as she watched the emotion fade from his face. The stony expression was more unnerving than his temper ever could be.

“Serafina can go to the Devil for all I care,” His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you’d stayed and let me explain instead of running off with Giovanni, you’d know that.”

Again with the blaming. Really?

“Of course! It’s my fault because I ran off with Giovanni. Did you forget the part where you punched Giovanni in the face trying to get to me?” She threw the words at him. “You’ll forgive me if I didn’t see that as an invitation to a civilized conversation.”

“I’ll tell you what I remember: I remember a conversation where you promised- promised -not to run away again. You promised to stay and deal with things instead of throwing everything away because it was the easy way out.” He sneered down at her, and her temper flared again.

“Easy? You think this has been easy?” Her voice was so shrill she was surprised the neighbors hadn’t called the cops on them for disturbing the peace. “I haven’t slept for three days. I couldn’t eat. I spent four hours Friday night crying until Gio thought he was going to have to take me to the hospital for dehydration.” Her eyes burned with tears. “This wasn’t about easy, Marco-it was about survival. It was about getting out with my skin intact, because it was clear that was the best I was going to get.”

The hands holding her let go so suddenly that she lost her balance, grabbing for the car for support.

“I told her this wouldn’t work.” Marco ran one hand through his hair as he threw the other up in the air. “I told her you wouldn’t listen. Fam! ” He turned away from her, slamming both hands on the roof of the car. His breath was coming like he’d just run a race. Mina had never seen him so agitated.

“Told who I wouldn’t listen?” She latched on to what he said.“ Serafina? I’m sure she was really happy to hear that.” Marco looked at her and shook his head. “Again you’re not listening. Ivy. I told Ivy you wouldn’t listen.”

That was unexpected. And offensive.

“Why would you tell her that? I listen.” Mina stuck her chin out. “I always listen.”

Marco let out a stream of Italian and raised his eyes to heaven.

“English, please,” she snapped. Damn she hated not understanding what was going on. Marco looked at her over his shoulder. “You didn’t care what I was saying Friday.”

Mina stopped for a moment, but it still didn’t compute.

“What do you mean, what you were saying Friday? You didn’t say anything Friday.” Every minute of that night was burned into her brain; she was pretty certain he never spoke Italian to her.

“In the office,” Marco turned to face her, his expression carefully blank again and Mina watched him, trying to figure out what he was getting at. “When I was with Serafina I was speaking Italian. You didn’t want to know what I was saying then .”

She thought about it for a minute-the scene crystal clear in her mind-and nodded slowly. They had been speaking Italian, but that didn’t explain why that woman was pressed up against him, or why they were kissing. They’d known she was there. Serafina certainly knew , she thought sourly.

“I don’t see what understanding Italian has to do with it. Kissing is pretty universal.” Even saying the words left a bad taste in her mouth. “You don’t normally need subtitles with that.”

Marco leaned toward her, casting a shadow across her face.

“Really? Because my understanding of what happened seems to be very different than yours.” He sounded too calm. It made her nervous.

“I may be inexperienced,” she said wryly, aware that she could chalk almost all of her experience up to what she’d learned from him, “but it was pretty obvious to those of us in the audience what was going on.”

A light glimmered in Marco’s eyes, and he looked hopeful for a split second, before his expression shuttered again.

“It’s odd that you used that word. Audience.”

“Odd? Why? You two were certainly putting on a show.” She couldn’t help the bitterness in her voice. She drew a circle on the roof of the car with her fingertip, around and around and around. Just like this conversation.

“Actually, only one of us was putting on a show.”

Mina looked at him and her finger stopped moving. Dark eyes bore into hers and she shivered at the intensity she saw there.

“Wha-at do you mean?” She felt like Demosthenes with his pebbles, trying not to stutter. “What show?”

“What does it matter?” Marco took a deep breath and gave her a twisted little smile that hurt. “It won’t change anything. You’ll just find another excuse, another sin, and you’ll run again. Maybe you should just go now.”

“What show?” She demanded.

He stared at her for a long moment and she feared he wasn’t going to answer, and she needed that answer.

“Please.” Her voice was quiet in the busy street, her throat sore from crying and yelling, but she knew he heard. A second passed, and then another until something fell into place and he nodded in answer to some internal argument.

“Will you listen?” The words were simple, but there was a world of meaning in them. She knew that if she agreed she was committing herself to something bigger than this conversation in the street. She knew it could hurt, but she was already hurting more than she’d ever imagined.

What did she have to lose?

“I’ll listen.” The decision made, her bravery returned, faint but real, and she opened the car door. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

As she slid into the leather seat she glanced back up at Giovanni’s apartment. Ivy was standing in the second story window watching, and Gio’s head was just visible behind her. Ivy smiled and nodded, giving Mina a thumbs-up as she slammed the door, and Mina could only hope her friend was right. Otherwise, she’d just gone from the frying pan back into the fire.

Marco drove in silence, and Mina watched the scenery as it passed. Giovanni’s apartment was in Genoa-a bigger city than Miami-but Portofino was tiny. She’d explored the area in between as she’d wandered her way through the local museums, and pretty soon she realized they were headed back to the villa. Back to the beginning.

Or the end.

She couldn’t stand the silence. They’d spent hours on these roads, all of them more comfortable than this one.At least they could talk about work. “The last of the collezione shipped out this morning.”

“You went to the office?” He sounded surprised, and she felt a little redness warm her cheeks.

“I sent Gio.” She didn’t know why the admission embarrassed her. She’d already explained that she hadn’t wanted to see him-this was no different.

“I thought you’d be there,” she shifted in her seat, “and I wasn’t ready to see you.”

Marco shot her a confused look. “How could I be there? We didn’t arrive at the airport until two” he looked at his watch, “and a half hours ago.”

She shook her head, “Think about it. I didn’t even know you were gone . How could I know you hadn’t gotten back ?”

The conversation stalled and Mina zoned out watching fence-posts as they zipped past.

“You didn’t know I’d flown to Miami?” There was an odd note in Marco’s voice and she turned in her seat to look at him.

“No idea,” she shrugged her shoulder a little. “It didn’t even occur to me that was possible. I mean, no matter what else was happening, the collezione had to be dealt with. When I left the villa I asked Giovanni to find me a hotel. It wasn’t until later that he offered to let me stay at his place since it was convenient to the main offices in Genoa and I didn’t have a car.” A stormy look crossed his face and she rolled her eyes. “Don’t look like that. He was a perfect…”