The Muscle Part Three by Michelle St. James Page B

they could be both rude and surprisingly kind. She loved New Yorkers for their brashness, their way of speaking plainly and honking their car horns even when it didn’t do any good. She loved the way the buildings kissed the sky, and the way the river and the Atlantic, gray and flinty, came together to wrap the city in its arms.
    She tried not to think about Miami, about the course of events that had bought her and Sofia freedom. Luca had tried to tell her something about Diego just last week, but she had pressed her fingers to his lips and kissed him instead, leading him to the big bed in the grand, old apartment they now shared.
    She didn’t want to think about Diego.
    Sofia was still traumatized, still in therapy. She woke more often than not in the middle of the night, thrashing and screaming from her nightmares. Isabel would slide into bed next to her and hold her tight, and sometimes when she woke in the morning it was to Luca, sitting in the chair next to Sofia’s bed, keeping watch over them both.
    She’d never felt safer. Never felt more loved.
    They would be okay. She didn’t know exactly what the future held, but she knew Sofia would continue going to school. And Isabel had just taken a job as a gallery sitter downtown.
    It was a start.
    Her pulse quickened as they turned into the park. She would see him soon, would feel his big arms around her, his hand wrapping hers in security while Sofia drank her hot cocoa and they watched the skaters make graceful circles around the ice rink.
    She wasn’t the way she used to be. She never would be. She was like the two ravished paintings she’d brought with them to New York — damaged but not broken.
    Stronger for her fight to survive.
    And for the love given with tender hands that had healed her.
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    L uca rubbed his hands together for warmth as he watched for Isabel and Sofia. He’d come from his job as part of the personal detail of Matthew Reynolds, a real estate mogul worth billions. The guy wasn’t exactly squeaky clean, but he wasn’t Diego Fuentes either, and Luca spent his days in dark suits and sunglasses, following Matthew around and thinking about the moment he would be back with Isabel and Sofia. He would do something else eventually — maybe start his own security company, although he didn’t need the money — but for now the job suited just fine.
    He smiled as Isabel rounded the corner, Sofia looking up at her like she thought Isabel was the sun and the moon.
    Luca knew the feeling.
    Isabel laughed at something Sofia said, and Luca’s heart clutched in his throat.
    Damn, he loved this woman. Sometimes he woke in the middle of the night to find her gone from their bed, and he would hurry to Sofia’s room to make sure they were okay. When he found them curled side by side in the big canopy bed Isabel had bought for Sofia, he would lower himself to the chair next to it and watch them, happy just to be in the same room.
    “Hey, you,” Isabel said when she reached him. She kissed his cheek. “How are you today, querido? ”
    “Better now,” he said, leaning down to kiss her briefly on the lips. He ruffled Sofia’s hair just a little, careful not to mess it up. She didn't like that, one of many things he was learning about the little girl who had also stolen his heart. “How was school, kiddo?”
    “Fine,” she said. “Except for Hannah Goldman.”
    “Oh, yeah? What happened with Hannah Goldman?” he asked leading them to the ice rink.
    “She didn’t want me to sit at her table, so I had to find another one,” Sofia said.
    “Seriously?” Luca asked, secretly proud of himself for adopting the language he heard her and her friends use. “Well, forget her then. I bet the other table is better anyway.”
    She looked up at him. “Do you think?”
    He nodded. “You’re there, aren’t you?”
    She smiled, and he thought his heart might break in two from the force of it.
    They stood in line for hot cocoa while Sofia chattered about