◆ Keeping It Friendly ◆

◇ KEL ◇

"You full?"

"Very."

"Enjoyed the food?"

"Yeah." I gave Enzo a small nod and lazily got up from my seat, putting on a smile for him when I noticed he was staring at me again.

The restaurant was about to close now, with only a couple of hotel guests lingering near the buffet table.  I cooked him a small lunch meal earlier, but I knew he wanted to eat out for dinner.  And I just couldn't say no when he invited me to hang out with him in the hotel where he's  staying.

Enzo just treated me to dinner for the third time, despite my refusal to let him pay for everything.  It wasn't like a romantic date, though, like the first few times we dined out.  Just two friends hanging out over a meal.  No more, no less.

"Thank you for dinner. My treat next time. Okay?"

"Sure. Counting on it." He carried my tote bag as we walked away from our table with his bodyguard following us again.  "You need to go back to your place now? Just say so."

"Uh...no. Not really." I tried not to mind our closeness as he stayed beside me,  his warm hand touching my back.  We proceeded to the spacious hotel lobby with his arm loosely draped over my shoulders.  A bit heavy, but I knew why.

He'd been drinking a lot of wine, almost three full glasses if I remembered correctly.  He seemed more stressed than usual. Our conversations had been rather brief.

"I'll drive you back to the apartment in a few."

"Okay."

"Just say so if you need anything," Enzo replied.  His English accent was more audible when he said "drive".  He'd always sounded more of a Londoner than an Italian whenever he spoke English, and his warm breath smelled strongly of wine now.  Like me, he was wearing a plain black shirt and dark gray jeans.

My shirt was a crop top, though, which I shouldn't have worn tonight because it was almost freezing cold in every corner of this expensive hotel.  "Okay. But I'll help you pack first," I offered.  We were both tired from our long week, but I wanted to help him with his luggage.

It was obvious he was plainly exhausted and sleepy now, too tired to pack up his stuff for his flight back to Florence tomorrow.  Life of a CEO.  Always traveling.  Always had little time for himself and limited opportunities to unwind.

Our conversations over dinner had been constantly disrupted by phone calls he had to take every half-hour or so.  Just part of his routine even on weekends.  I didn't expect otherwise, considering he co-owned two businesses:  a new biotech company here in New York and a pharmacy chain in Italy, which he and his best friend Raffaele established a couple years ago.

Just to keep up with the demands of the career track I had chosen for myself, I had to bury my head in thick paperbacks.  Almost every day.  But I didn't envy his lifestyle and rather overwhelming list of responsibilities.

He said he liked being busy, and that he'd long before planned to start his own business so he could keep away from his family's messy involvements with the Italian mobs.  I'd say it was the wisest decision he'd ever made after resigning from his first job as an industrial engineer.

"Thanks. I just can't be bothered to fold clothes today." Enzo snickered and stroked my hair that reached the top of my arms now.

It was another affectionate gesture I'd gotten used to whenever we hung out—not that we hung out often.  At times, my thoughts still got interrupted by a fair amount of anxiety whenever he got a little too friendly.

But he didn't really make me uncomfortable whenever he would get too close. It just bothered me that his girlfriend might find out that Enzo always paid me a visit whenever he's here in New York, and more often than not, he would take me out to lunch or dinner.

Miles as well.  Hopefully he wouldn't hear about Enzo paying me another visit.

"Hey. Did you talk to Ricchar or...Miles lately?" I asked Enzo as we stepped into the large elevator.  Berto, his longtime bodyguard, kept a good distance beside us, just keeping an eye on our surroundings.

"Just Ricchar," Enzo mumbled with a slight frown.  "Why?"

"Have you met Ilya in person?"

"Ilya?" Enzo muttered as he checked his phone.  Someone was calling him.  He pulled a face after glancing at the caller's name on his phone screen.  "Libby" was calling him.  Libby—his girlfriend.

While I watched him ignore the ringing, he sighed shortly before he declined the call.  It reminded me of the last time Enzo and I hung out here in New York.  In this same hotel.

"As in Ilya Božić?" Enzo furrowed his brows at me. He pocketed his phone, his tone slightly surprised.

Could he still recall details from that day?  I wasn't sure whether he'd met Ilya, and if Enzo had found out that Ilya could be my biological father.  The same Ilya who allegedly tried to get him and Cloe killed back in that ambush.

According to Miles and Niccolo, Ilya didn't get charged with any crime since he wasn't in Italy at the time of the incident, and the authorities were not able to link him directly to the crime scene.  Lack of hard evidence, said the cops.

The thugs who had incited the deadly shootout had not been found, either, except for one of the gunmen who died in jail after an apparent drug overdose.  I hadn't heard about any updates on the case in months.  The Italian cops had probably closed the case.

"Yeah. You met him?"

"No. Why?" Enzo crossed his arms and avoided my eyes now.

Then the elevator doors swung open in front of us.

"Just curious," I murmured.  With his bodyguard, we walked across the hallway to Enzo's hotel room while I dithered.  The hesitation paralyzed my thoughts for a second or two.

Should I tell him what I knew about Ilya? And about my half-brothers?  Would Miles be more upset?  Most likely.  But I just had to talk to someone about it...about all the things I just found out about Ilya and my brothers, who could also be pureblood vampirars like Ilya, Stefano, Eleana, Ricchar and Miles.

Thanks to Niccolo's impressive computer skills and apparent concern for my welfare, I knew now that one of my half-brothers had a house in Calabasas.  But I doubted Enzo knew all about the Falcos' huge secret.   He might just laugh at me once I started talking about the things I knew about vampire clans and "purebloods".

It was just out of this world—like an alternate reality.  But for about a year now, I had known they'd been co-existing with us here on this Earth for centuries.  They just preferred to keep their existence a well-kept secret.

"Let's talk for a bit inside," Enzo muttered before he unlocked the door to his room.

"Sure." I bit on my lip.  What else did he want to talk about?  I just hoped he'd finally sign the payment agreement contract I'd asked Gaia to revise.

After his bodyguard did a quick check,  Enzo and I stepped inside his hotel room. We left Berto in the hallway.  Enzo locked the door behind him as I slouched by the bed.  "Then I'll drive you back to your place."

"Okay."

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