“No!” I stand and face him. “No. No. No.”

He grabs my hair and drags me toward the two women, glancing over my shoulder to say, “She goes first.”

“Ella. Sweetheart. Wake up.”

I roll over to stare into Kayden’s blue eyes, blinking several times to make sure he’s real. “Oh God.” I cup his cheek. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

He covers my hand with his. “Flashback?”

“Nightmare. Flashback. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Him again?”

“Yes. Kayden, he’s . . .” My throat thickens. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”

“It does matter. Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“No. I can’t talk about this and it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t help us figure out who he is.”

“How do you know?”

“It doesn’t help,” I insist. “Please. Just let it go.”

He strokes hair from my face. “I won’t push, but I want you to be able to talk to me. Everything or nothing, remember? That doesn’t change when your memories come back. Remember that.”

His cell phone rings, and he kisses my forehead and then rolls over to grab it from his nightstand, sitting up to take the call. I sit as well, curling my knees to my chest, and while the beating isn’t important, the necklace is, and that means talking about David, a subject not easily broached with Kayden. I listen as he speaks quickly in Italian, deciding it’s time I learn the language. He ends the call, scrubbing a hand through his hair and exhaling.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Matteo picked up some internet chatter early this morning that he thought was a lead on Enzo, but it went cold on him.”

“You have a bad feeling about this, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I do. Really fucking bad, and my feelings aren’t wrong.”

His phone rings again while he’s still holding it and he grimaces and glances at the number. “Adriel,” he says. “He’s looking for Enzo too.” He answers, looking both irritated and confused. “Giada? How do you have my number?”

She doesn’t have his number? That’s odd.

“Hold on,” he says, and offers me the phone, looking exceedingly grumpy as he announces, “For you.”

I accept it, thinking her timing has not played in her favor with Kayden. “Hi, Giada.”

“Hi, Ella. I was wondering if you want to go shopping?”

I glance at the one window in the corner opposite the fireplace, watching rain hitting the glass. “It’s a pretty wet day.”

“We have indoor shopping centers. It will be fun and we can talk.”

Talk. That is her real goal. She needs another woman to bond with, just as Marabella had thought. “Hold on,” I say, covering the phone to run the idea by Kayden. “She wants me to go shopping with her.”

He scowls and takes the phone. “She’ll call you back.” He hangs up.

“Oh my God. Kayden. That was horrible. I know we have to go to the consulate for my passport, but I could have worked around that with her. And I could have handled it nicely.”

“Gallo will be waiting on us if we go today. We’ll go when his boss can make sure he isn’t around.”

I forget about Giada. “You have that much pull with his boss?”

“Yes, I do. And before you ask, Gallo has no idea just how much.”

“How is that possible, if you don’t work for the police department?”

“I do a few things on the side for them when necessary. This will cost me one of those jobs, but so be it to keep the relationship and get what we need.” He rolls me onto my back, his arm bracketing my body. “Today we stay here. Just you and me.”

“Don’t expect me to complain about hiding out with you on a rainy day, but you were still mean to Giada.”

“I don’t want her negativity influencing you.”

“I’m my own person, and she needs a positive influence. Actually, Kayden, you lost your family as a minor as well. You could help her. Maybe we could take her to lunch.”

“No,” he says, his tone flat and absolute.

“Kayden—”

“No. End of topic.” He rolls off me and the bed, and is crossing the room and entering the bathroom before I’ve sat up.

I gape in disbelief, but I am not dissuaded from the topic or finding out what the heck is up with him and Giada. I scramble off the bed, quickly crossing to the bathroom, where I find him slathering on shaving cream at the sink. “No?” I demand. “You sound like Gallo. I only take orders in bed. I am not one of your Hunters.”

He sets the brush down and turns to face me. “Is that right?”

“Oh yes. That’s right.”

“You really are a redhead, aren’t you?”

I have a flickering memory of my mother, and my temper deflates. “Yes. I am.”

He drags me to him. “Then you leave me only one option,” he declares, his tone flat.

“And that would be what?”

He kisses me, and I gasp into his mouth as shaving cream smudges all over me. I shove on his chest to free my mouth. “No, you didn’t.”

He grins, and it’s truly sexy and hot in every possible way. “That’s what you get for messing with me, sweetheart.”

I laugh and push to my toes and kiss him again. He cups my head and gives me a long, drugging kiss, and then turns me to the mirror, and I have as much shaving cream on me as he does him. I grab the towel he has sitting on the sink and pat my cheeks.

“Now you know what happens when you argue with me,” he teases, reaching for the brush again.

“I’ll do it,” I say, stepping in front of him and taking the brush from his hand, our laughter in the middle of what could have been a fight feeling right in the same way our comfortable silences are.

He lifts me and sets me on the counter. “Are you as dangerous with a razor as you are with a gun?”

I grin. “Of course, but at least I’m accurate with the gun.”

“You aren’t making me confident about putting a blade in your hand, and how do you know you’re accurate with a gun?”

“My father made me practice. I resented him then, but it’s actually really comforting to know I can handle myself.”

“You will get no argument from me on that. What else do you remember?”

“My mother was redheaded and beautiful.”

“No surprise there.”

I blush with the compliment. “Thank you, Kayden.”

He drags a finger down my cheek. “Just speaking the truth, beautiful. Anything else?”

“I was close to her, and I think she died of cancer.” I shake my head. “I said that so matter-of-factly, but it didn’t feel that way when I remembered it. You know, Giada lost her mother to cancer too.”

“That doesn’t make you like her.”

“She’s alone. She has no one.”

“She has her brother and Marabella.”

“Not you?”

“I look out for her, and she knows it even if she doesn’t like it.” He gives me a heavy-lidded stare, his hands flattening on my bare legs beneath his shirt. “You aren’t alone. You have me now. You know that, right?” A firestorm of emotions attacks me, jumping around in my belly, and I cut my gaze. His finger slides under my chin and he gently brings my eyes back to his. “You have me.”

“For now.”

“Not for now. You don’t know that yet, but you will.” He reaches for the razor. “This is what you call trust.”

I close my hand around the razor, heat sliding up my arm and over my chest as our fingers touch. “Trust,” I whisper.

“Yes. Trust.”

We stare at each other and the air shifts and almost burns, the connection between us expanding, deepening, and he is safe and right in ways that matter more than ever after my flashback this morning. “Last night . . .”

The blue in his eyes darkens. “What about last night, Ella?”

“I just . . .” I wet my lips.

“We can go slow.”

“That’s not the point. I just wanted you to know that I . . . slept pretty good with you.”

He gives me a curious look, those sexy lips curving into a smile. “I slept pretty good with you too. Now. Shave me, woman.”

I laugh and am about to go to work, but I’m not ready to let go of his grumpiness from minutes before. “You know—”