Let's see if we can speed the events up." Ryan says and slips away into the crowd.

On my own, I fan myself, watching the ballroom for any signs of the hostile activity, and bingo!

Luca cuts through the crowd and offers me his hand. "Mila, a dance?"

I smile with my eyes, saving the lips for my darling husband. "Why not. How's Pansy?"

The tune envelops us, slow and seductive, which is great for a serious conversation, not so great for dancing with Luca.

"Pansy?" he asks.

Technically, her name isn't Pansy, but he should know who I mean.

As soon as I move chest-to-chest with him, the coiled desires, teased out by kissing the wrong lips, warm me. They hid deep inside me, still perfectly hot, like a volcano wanting to erupt. My body remembers too well who used to ply it with pleasure.

Luca's melting eyes won't let me look away in search of Ryan. Treacherous whispers swirl in my mind.

Good things about Luca outweigh the bad things. Remember who Ryan is, and who you are. Remember!

Luca's gentle and strong hands used to dissolve my doubts every time we quarreled. Make-up sex mixed with a flow of soothing words over my sweating skin. The world is bland, he conditioned me to think, when it's not reflected in his dilating pupils.

I jerk my head so hard, I almost pull a muscle in my neck, but I break our perilous eye-contact.

"Pansy is Pansy. You know who I'm talking about." I pretend to look for his escort. "Or did you replace her already?"

"If you mean Amber," Luca says pianissimo, as if he'd just now guessed who I mean, "then I did exactly what I've told you I would. Had an associate prep a case against her pimp. Talked a friend into giving her a job to keep her from sinking back into prostitution. That's all, I swear."

"L.A. Lawyers of Distinction Award will be yours this year for sure."

The spell he put me under starts to thin out. We both know that his 'friends' wouldn't employ a girl with a checkered past out of the goodness of their hearts.

"I didn't break my word to you," Luca insists.

I pat his cheek. "Luca, darling, give it up. You're free to fuck whoever you want, and I don't give a shit. I've married the better man. It's better this way for both of us."

"It matters or you wouldn't have done what you've done."

Part of me is aware that he's leading me away from the dance floor. He holds me so closely, my wires cross. It's also far closer than any man should hold another man's wife.

"My husband! Where is—"

I dart a glance over Luca's shoulder, but I can't spot Ryan. Do all husbands disappear when you need them the most or just the fake ones?

Luca's voice falls to its most heartrending cadence. When he sounds like that, he could be reading a bus schedule, and it would sound like a drama about eternal love. Even though we are drifting away from the band to the edge of the floor, the combo with romantic music lulls me. His aftershave stirs memories—the older ones, the sweetest—because he's switched to the brand he used when we started dating.

"Mila, love, when you're mad at me, you always rush into things. Then you regret them later."

A flash of shame shoots through me. I sure rushed into my fake marriage, and now Ryan is nowhere to be found. "I regret nothing!"

Alas, my heels refuse to dig in and my arms wouldn't let go of Luca.

We're no longer among the guests. While my mind struggled with his pheromones, he led me out of the ballroom, past the washrooms and through the doors to a service area. It's a sterile hallway, illuminated by halogen lamps. They make any space look like a morgue.

No banners, no flowers, no people in haute-couture attire here. It's also way cooler, so the waiters can take a breather. Goosebumps cover my naked shoulders immediately. When I shiver, Luca pulls his jacket off to wrap me into a cocoon. Or maybe a marsupial sack is more apt comparison, because he doesn't let go off the jacket's sleeves, reeling me in.

My eyelids grow heavier in his magnetic aura, and so does the treacherous spot between my legs. Our estrangement is so recent after years of intimacy! My feelings war amongst themselves. I have every reason to spit in his face; every reason to wear out his lips to the bone with kisses; every reason to be torn.

The jerk senses my inner turmoil. "Let me set things right. With how recent your marriage is, we can file for divorce on the grounds of it not being consummated. It will be painless."

I'm sure he's made a few calls while I danced with Ryan. He might have even lined up a divorce virtuoso already.

I pull in a lungful of chilly air.

"Not consummated?" I screech. I rarely do and I'm not proud of it, but there's no other way to describe my hysterical voice. "Luca, you fool!"

He frowns and I smile my trashiest, happiest smile.

"We're like a couple of teens in the back of a truck!" To dispel any doubts, in case he has them, I add, "Hot, sweaty, grabby sex, Luca. Hours of it."

"You're doing it in a truck!" Luca's smile is an attempt to mock mine, but it comes off as sensual. With his fuller lips, it's hard for him to do anything else when he thinks about someone committing to sex with unbridled enthusiasm. "Well, that explains why he's never once entered your apartment."

Fuck the surveillance videos! I don't know who was suspicious enough to monitor them, but my bet is on Scali. He takes his obligations to Paulie and, consequently, to Luca, seriously.

I can't back down now, though, so I double-down. "Of course. It's such a new experience and so exciting! We can't wait until he packs his place up. We can barely make it anywhere, get anything done. Just fuck, fuck, fuck..."

Luca's lips twist when I mention Ryan's place. He knows something, but I can't stop and question him about it.

"So, yes, it's public restrooms and backseats until then. I find it stimulating." I shake my head ruefully, in a pretend dismay over my low-brow choices. "He makes me wet all the time."

"Does he now?" He doesn't believe me, but I'm hurting him. Luca's all about glam, including staging sex.

My triumph is short-lived though, because he whirls me to lean us against the wall, him somehow on top of me, even though we maintain a sub vertical position.

"So, you want the thrills? Want it rough?" His hands open the jacket—his own fucking jacket, to flow over my breasts, down my waistline to rest on my hips. The touch is light at first, but it holds a promise of rough handling. And, indeed, he yanks my hips to his. I can feel his fingers squeezing through the silk of my skirt. The fabric doesn't lessen the effect at all, it amplifies it. The triangle of the panties, near invisible at the best of times, doesn't add anything in terms of dampening effect. He fondles me. He shouldn't...

My own pressure-cooked fantasies about Ryan and Luca's touch merge into a surreal thing. Thank goodness for the wall behind my back! Wall, painted in a bland color and deadened further by the halogen lights. Without it, I wouldn't have kept my footing.

"Stop punishing us both over a misunderstanding." The jacket slips to the floor with a soft thud. His lips travel down my neck and I know what he plans to do. He will tug down the already low-cut bodice with his teeth just enough to free the nipple for a kiss. Or a bite since he's doing it rough. The wall is no longer cold behind my back. I wriggle, but instead of freeing myself, I succeed in self-stimulating against his hard body.

"Mila, I love you."

It's this love confession that sobers me up. Ryan's many warnings that Luca has a hold over me swim up in my mind. No matter how long our shared past is, how flattered I'm by this ambush, no matter how much I want sex after two weeks of drought—I don't love him anymore.

I don't.

I put my knee up to separate us. "Take your hands off me, Luca. Or you'll have to call upon Scali in to continue the Tangorello's bloodline."

He freezes, then moves his hands from my hips to the wall. His chest rises and falls, yet it doesn't touch mine, and neither do any other parts of his body. Maybe he thinks he has me trapped, or that I would come at him, but if so, he's dreaming in technicolor.

As soon as I catch my breath, I'll break his half-ass hold. He's no Ryan to give me any trouble in that department.

"Get the fuck away from my wife," Ryan says behind Luca.

For a fraction of a second, I think I'm dreaming him up, but no. There's my missing hubby, in the flesh, growling at Luca. It's a weird tone of voice, but surprisingly effective.

Luca takes a tiny step back, and I can't help it... I... or rather this atavistic bit of a Victorian woman in me, this shred of me, is in love with Ryan at this moment. He and his tux are so sharp in the harsh light. His face comes fully into focus, all angles.

My world no longer spins. Thanks, my boring wall for both the moral and literal support, but I'll be going now. I'm okay. Disoriented, maybe, and with my pride crumpled at the hem, but I've made it out of the crooked memory lane, and I said no to Luca. Fuck.

Luca turns to his new opponent, with a dangerously pleasant smile playing on his lips. The slowness of the move holds more threat than whirling.

"Your wife?" He looks Ryan up and down, searching for chinks in his armor. "If Mila is your wife, then why is she wearing my ring?"

"If there is one thing my wife hates, it's being talked over her head." Ryan's smile is lopsided and doesn't reach his eyes. "Surprised you don't know that, asshole."

I clear Luca to stand by Ryan. I lean into him, hooking my hand over his shoulder. Then, I rest my cheek against it for a good measure. What? He has good shoulders and I'd been through a few shitty minutes just now. His smell overpowers Luca's, helping me stand firmer. Soon, my knees would stop wobbling altogether.

Wiggling my fingers to maximize the sparkles of the ring against the black fabric of Ryan's tux, I admire its beauty. "There is no law against wedding a man with whatever ring pleases me. And I like this pretty bauble."

Luca knits his brows. In a dreamy tone he responds not to me, but to Ryan, "There're other things of mine your wife loves. Ask her sometime."

Ryan lumbers out of my grip. His hands are balled into fists, arms rising to a fighting stance, breath constricted. "Care to elaborate?" he rasps.

"To you? No." Luca opens his arms wide with a disarming smile. "Go ahead, hit me. Mila isn't as prejudiced against the jail visits as an average American girl. With Nazarevich's line of business and all that, she might even protect you once your inmates get a whiff of who you are. Or, rather, who you were."

Ryan freezes in his tracks, and some inexplicable intuition tells me it's not fear of Luca trumping up charges that stops him. It's that reminder of who I am.

A regret washes over me. If Ryan didn't know who I was from the start; if our meeting was purely accidental; would he have guessed at my affiliations and hated me the same way he hates me now?

He seemed to have forgotten my pedigree in the heat of the dick-measuring contest so completely, Luca didn't bother to put a finer point on his jab. Could he forget again?

But this is no time to daydream. Luca's threat is very real. The delicate ties between the mafia and the FBI would be upset if Luca runs to the cops with a crashed jaw, pointing to Ryan as the one who had broken the terms. His unique status with the mafia and the law-enforcement is our team's only ace for the moment. To preserve it, it's paramount that Ryan doesn't appear out of control.

I lunge between Ryan and Luca, pressing a palm into Ryan's heaving chest. "Don't worry, darling. I can hit him on our behalf."

"What a charming couple you two make," Luca murmurs, "but I must take my leave of you."

The lingering glance he gives first to us, then to the surroundings, implies we belong here, in the service wing. That's rich, given he played the role of the prince who spirited his Cinderella away from the royal ball to a coal pile. But before I can throw a barb, Luca leaves with a spring in his step.

Good thing he doesn't whistle because I'm pretty sure it's not among his many talents. Six steps away from us, just as Ryan's pulse drops to its resting rate, Luca comes to a stop and turns to us again. "Ah, I almost forgot, with all the excitement."

So, it wasn't just the insulted honor that drove him to my side.

"I'm listening," I say evenly.

"Your father was wondering when you would introduce his upstanding son-in-law. He was afraid you were avoiding him," Luca says.

So, he is a messenger boy for Papa and Paulie Tangorello! How his insides must boil... but no. This cannot be, they wouldn't humiliate him like this. Yes, yes, his role is bigger than a courier. He was testing the waters, testing me before the upcoming audience. Even when I get all that figured out, it's much more fun to play dumb.

"Tell Papa, Ryan and I'll be right along, Luca. That's a good boy."

Luca flinches, but his eyes shoot another volley at me.

Mila, reconsider. Mila, it's all a silly misunderstanding. Mila, I love you.

If I were telepathic, I'd send a fuck off right back at him.

What I can do is to keep up the appearance of a happy couple. Ryan and me, a happy couple—it's like I'm seeing us from a distance. Here, we're dancing. Kissing. Standing together, hand-in-hand. If we weren't on the opposite sides of the law... The worm of regrets stirs at the bottom of my soul once more, and I do what one does with the parasites. I squish it under my spiritual heel.

Once Luca is out of earshot, a pent-up breath escapes me. "Holy shit, Ryan, you were fully into it! The Oscar is waiting for you!"

"Thanks," Ryan replies absently. "Naz, are you sure you're up to seeing your father? You almost folded to Luca."

Blood rushes into my face. How much did my sneaky spouse overhear? For example, did he miss the part about our purported erotic pursuits? "Did not!"

His calm contrasts vividly with all the nostrils-flaring, fist-shaking, and glaring when Luca was around. Instead of taking the bait, he studies me. Whatever he sees, it makes the lines deepen around his mouth. "Naz. It's not about your pride. Our op depends on it."

"Do you need new glasses? I would have emasculated Luca, if you didn't barge in on us screaming like I've stepped on your balls."

He tugs off his old ones and cleans them on the sleeve of his coat. "Remember who the enemy is."

My first impulse is to yell at him for stealing my drama-filled lines, but I take a deep breath. See, I can be frustratingly calm too.

"Luca won't catch me off guard again." He can't, I promise myself, no matter how much he ups his virile charm. "Firstly, I don't love him anymore. Secondly, I'm married to you. I know it doesn't mean a squat to you, but I feel... married."

"You do? Because for a second there, I thought you'd jump out of your dress."

"And whose fault was that? You almost waltzed my brains out. I have womanly needs!"

Ryan sort of gulps. "Naz—"

"And FYI, I was thinking about you the whole time."

Whatever it is he wants to say before clearing his throat is lost. He moves my clenching hand from the lapel of his suit to his elbow. "Ready?"

"Always." I brush a kiss on his cheek to seal the cease-fire, and he pats my fingers. Our steps echo from the pale walls and the stainless-steel doors. For a second, I feel like I've been dealt a get-out-of-jail-free card.