Nacho Figueras Presents by Jessica Whitman Page B

crash. Noni was hunched in the bath, the water running, her face in her hands, her long blond hair bedraggled, the ends floating in the water around her, her whole body in a spasm of sobs.
    Enzo froze. He had never seen her like this before. Even at her worst, at her darkest. She had been angry, she had been distant, fierce, lashing out at anyone in her way, but he had never seen her so purely sad.
    “Noni,” he breathed.
    She brought her knees up out of the water and hugged them to her chest, ducking her face down out of sight.
    “ Que te pasa mi reina ” he said, and without thinking, he got into the water with her, pulling her toward him.
    She looked up, shocked out of her misery. “Wha-what are you doing?”
    He looked down. Socks (thank God he’d removed his shoes earlier), jeans, his button-down shirt, all soaked. Fully dressed, in the bath.
    He didn’t care. She needed him.
    Her face was red and swollen, but she laughed through her tears. “Are you crazy?”
    “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said huskily.
    The smile vanished from her face. She shook her head and closed her eyes.
    “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it,” she said softly. “I just…can’t.”
    He touched her face, smoothed the wet hair back from her eyes. “You said he never harmed you. What did he do, then? This seems so much more than a broken heart. How can he still have this hold on you?”
    Her bottom lip trembled. She opened her eyes and looked at him, tears clinging to her long lashes. “Maybe you were right before,” she whispered, “when you said that this was a mistake.”
    He reared back as if she had hit him. He felt a red-hot pain rush through his chest at her words.
    “What do you mean?”
    She looked away and swallowed. “I just mean…maybe you were right. We’re from two different worlds. We were so good as friends—maybe it was stupid of us to jeopardize what we had…”
    Suddenly, Enzo was sick with jealousy. He could barely see straight. He pushed back and away from her, sloshing water over the sides of the tub.
    “Because of that man?” he said. His voice shook. “You see him and suddenly we are a mistake?”
    “No,” she said, “no, not like that. I mean, yes, some of it is seeing him, but—”
    Enzo stood up, water streaming down him as he climbed out of the tub. “That’s enough,” he said. “I don’t need to hear any more.”
    She looked up at him, her dark eyes stricken. “Enzo.”
    He waited.
    She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
    She closed her eyes; a sob started to shudder through her body. “Just go,” she said. “It’s better if you go.”
    He left while her eyes were still closed.

Chapter Thirteen
    N oni took the jitney up alone the next day, and Sebastian met her at the station in Westhampton.
    As they drove to the dock, Noni only half listened to her brother’s cheerful chatter. She was still incredibly raw from the events of the day before. Seeing Jacob after all this time, it had brought everything rushing back. The pain. The loss. The way he’d left her feeling so beaten down and hopeless…
    And all her brave words this last week to Enzo about how things between them were going to be different than anything that had come before. How he needed to let the past go and trust himself with her. She was such a hypocrite. She’d convinced herself that she’d changed, healed, become stronger and managed to leave her old, broken self behind, but all it had taken was one short encounter to send her right back to where she used to be.
    And then the fight with Enzo…She knew she should have explained herself, but she just couldn’t force the words out. She’s been so ashamed that he had seen her that way—scared and sobbing. She had worked so hard to be the strong, independent person he thought she was. She had pretended so much over the years that she had really started to believe that she was a new person. But now he knew. She was just the same old mess. She was still