I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me.

I pull on a black lace thong and slip the dress over my head, then turn and look in the mirror. This dress is perfect with my butterflies. They’re a slash of color that sweeps up from the waist at the lower right and disappears behind the strap at the top left. I don’t even need any jewelry. “Yep, baby,” I tell the mirror as I adjust the neckline. “You still got it.”

I smooth my kinks back into a loose bun and twist a few corkscrews down the side of my face, blend on some blush, and brush on some mascara, but just as I’m slipping on my shoes, the buzzer sounds for the door downstairs. I go to the intercom. “Yeah?”

“It’s Alessandro.” Mmm . . . that accent. But what the hell’s he doing here?

I press the button for the door latch. “Wait there. I’m coming down.” I grab my bag and my coat, and head for the elevator.

When the door opens on one, I find Alessandro standing just inside the front door. “I thought you might be missing these,” he says, holding up my gloves. “You dropped them when you ran screaming from my company yesterday.”

I take them from his hand. “You did not come all the way uptown to give these to me.”

He shrugs with half a smile. “I was in the neighborhood.” I smile at his repeating my words from the Y back to me, but then his eyes scan down the front of me and there’s something burning in them when they find my face again. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. You’re obviously on your way somewhere.”

“My boyfriend’s show opens tonight.”

His jaw tightens and something flashes in his eyes, but then he holds out his hand. “Let me help with your coat.”

I hesitate, but then hand it to him and turn. There’s a pause before he slides it on and I can almost feel his eyes sweep over my bare back. Something tingles in the same spot that was squirming a little while ago when Brett touched me.

He clears his throat as I turn to face him and pull on my gloves. “Thanks.”

“Let me walk you to the subway.” He places one of those sexy hands on my low back and that tingle is there in my belly again as he guides me to the door.

I shut it down. I can’t want him like that.

I bundle my jacket around me and we walk the three blocks to the subway.

“Have you thought about Thursday?” he asks.

“I’ve thought about it.”

There’s a pause as he waits for me to elaborate. “Any decisions?” he finally asks.

“No,” I say without looking at him.

“You’re not very talkative tonight.”

I keep my eyes on the sidewalk. “Am I ever?”

He doesn’t respond.

We funnel down the stairs into the subway and just make it onto the train before the doors close. I grab the pole near the door and Alessandro steps up behind me, reaching for the bar over my head. “If I make you uncomfortable, Hilary, I’ll go away,” he says low in my ear.

I turn and look at him then, because that spot in my gut tingles again. “Honestly, I don’t know what you make me. But, no. I don’t want you to go away.”

He catches the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth and his eyes cloud. “I really should leave you alone.”

I don’t know what he wants me to say. He’s right, of course. He makes me feel like that girl again—weak and vulnerable. I can’t be her anymore. I should have told him to go away when he first showed up. I turn and grasp the pole with my back to him. “Probably.”

As we sway with the movement of the train, Alessandro’s body brushes against mine, and by the time we stop at Fiftieth, he’s pressed tight against me. I don’t know whether it’s that I’ve shifted back into him, or he’s leaning forward into me, but whatever it is, what I do know is neither of us is breathing. There’s a palpable charge, like static electricity, with every subtle shift of his body against mine, and when the doors slide open, neither of us moves for a several beats of my pounding heart.

Finally, I have no choice.

“Hilary,” he says as I step away from him onto the platform, and that one word sounds like a prayer. I turn and his expression is guarded. He looks at me with pleading eyes, like there’s something more than my name he wanted me to hear. Like he just poured his heart out and he’s waiting for some response. But before I can figure out what those deep eyes are asking, the doors close, and a second later, he’s whisked off through the tunnel.

Something deep inside me aches as I stand here watching after him, but I can’t ache for Alessandro. Not like this.

THE THEATER IS packed and the air is electric with opening-night anticipation. I feel myself getting jazzed just being here, and I’m not even in the show. I envy Brett so much right now.

I find my seat just as the house lights flicker their warning, and a few minutes later, the first chords of the opening number erupt out of the orchestra pit. When Brett hits the stage a few minutes later, every female eye is trained on him.

Damn, he’s good.

I laugh along with everyone else at the funny parts, and dab at my eyes along with everyone else when that one kid dies. And the older woman on my right actually gasps near the end when Brett strips.

I don’t blame her. He’s spectacular.

And he’s mine.

I smile as the familiar ache settles in my groin at the thought, and I’m relieved that, this time, I’m aching for the right guy. I can’t wait to get him home so I can give him his own private ovation. I don’t know what the hell that was, earlier with Alessandro, but I am so back.

“JUST REMEMBER, YOU’RE the one who said anywhere,” I tell Alessandro as we slide into seats at Argo Tea in Columbus Circle.

He gazes at me with cautious eyes from his seat across the table. “I’m intrigued to see what you’ve chosen.”

“I heard it was reopening and I haven’t been there and I’ve been wanting to go, so . . .” I shrug.

He nods. “Then it’s the perfect place.”

“How long are you staying?” The question comes to me totally out of the blue and I have to take a second to figure out exactly what I mean by it.

Alessandro’s eyes scrunch in confusion. “In New York?” he asks after a second.

Yep, I realize when he asks. That’s what I meant. “Yeah.”

“As long as it takes to sort things out.”

“Your ghosts,” I say.

He lowers his gaze to his coffee cup. “I shouldn’t have called you a ghost, but you have to understand, I’ve been haunted by my past for so long . . . by what I’ve done to innocent people . . .” His eyes lift to me again. “ . . . including you.”

“So why would you want to come back here, then? Wouldn’t it be easier to just stay away?”

He breathes deeply and swirls his coffee. “I came to New York for a lot of reasons. I’ve spent some time at the World Trade Center memorial, finally grieving my father. His name is on the north-tower pool.” His distant gaze drifts back to mine. “But I also needed to sort fact from fiction in my head. I’ve walked this city—from our house, to the lot where Lorenzo’s gang squatted, to my old school, where I dealt to kids—hoping if I saw it through the eyes of an adult, it would put things in better perspective and I could lay some demons to rest.”

“And have you?”

His eyes find mine and there’s despair in their depths. “Some of them didn’t turn out to be as easy to put to rest as I’d hoped.”

Is that me? Or his family?

“You never really told me about your father. Just that he worked at the World Trade Center.”

He nods. “He was assistant chef at Windows on the World, at the top of the north tower.”

“So he was at work that morning?” I was only nine, but I remember. We lived in Alphabet City, so not super close to the World Trade Center, but close enough. I remember how everything shut down, like a ghost town, except for the military. There were some people in the streets during the day, but at night, it was quiet. Too quiet. It felt like a war zone, and in some ways it was, I guess. Mallory was sixteen then—a junior in high school. She wouldn’t let me leave the house for the first week. The truth is, I didn’t want to. I’d never been so scared. I spent the week sleeping in her double bed with her. Mom spent that week drunk on the couch, watching the news and mumbling that we should bomb the fuckers. Little by little, stores and schools started reopening and we ventured out again. And little by little, everyone got back to their lives. But I’ve never gone to the WTC site. Even still.