The Score Read Online Free PDF

everyone was out of the house because you asked for them to be.”
    Anton smirked wickedly. “I lied. I couldn’t have you even considering the possibility that we would be flying somewhere. Besides, Demyan is taken care of. We’re not going to be at the house, so Clarissa isn’t needed there, either. She was more than happy to spend some time with Ma. We’re only going to be gone four days. I promise everything is fine here, even the bookstore.”
    Viviana’s bottom lip disappeared between her teeth. “Where are we going, then?”
    “You can open your box, now,” Anton said instead.
    She’d been holding onto that black box ever since he handed it back in the Bugatti after dinner. Viviana wasted no time unfastening the silver latch and flipping open the lid. There, resting in black velvet, was a set of house keys. Her genuine surprise was almost cute.
    “Keys, for what?”
    Anton’s chest suddenly felt tight, constricting with the fast pace of his heartbeats. “Where was the first place I fell in love with you, Vine?”
    The sound of her breath catching was audible. “We can’t leave the States.”
    “Yes, we can. The paperwork I have and the passports I paid a pretty dime for say differently. They also have a different last name from ours, but that’s not really important. No one will know. The people hired for this flight were also employed because of their ability to keep quiet.”
    “Barbados, really?” Viviana asked quietly.
    “Not just Barbados. That two storey beach house, the one you snuck through to get to me … yeah, that one.”
    Viviana’s brow furrowed as she stared at the keys. “But you have keys.”
    “No, you do, baby.”
    Finally, she seemed to understand. “You bought me the beach house?”
    “Barely managed to. It’s a hot piece of property over there. Hell, I couldn’t walk away from it when I got word it was going on the market.”
    “Too many memories,” Viviana whispered.
    “Mmhmm. My thoughts exactly. So, you ready?”
    Viviana could only nod.
    ***
    The outside of the beach house in Bridgetown, Barbados was just like Anton remembered it all those years ago. From the gated front entrance with the white stone walkway, to the pale yellow color of the siding. Even the big bay windows on the top and bottom floor, allowing all the beautiful Barbados sunlight in without even needing to turn on a light bulb in the daytime, were still as clear and open as they’d always been.
    Back then, when he was eighteen and stupid, he thought the place looked warm and inviting. Now, it felt the same, but a hell of a lot more sentimental, too.
    They left New York around ten at night, and arrived in Bridgetown just after three in the morning. Viviana refused to sleep on the plane. Anton could see the exhaustion Viviana was feeling, but she was insistent on not finding a bed to sleep in just yet. They certainly had plenty of beds to choose from; the house came fully furnished.
    Viviana wanted to walk through the halls of the home before they did anything else. Using the tips of her fingers, she grazed the walls, staying silent and remembering. So many things were the same in the house, and a dozen more were entirely different. A decade would do that to just about anything.
    But the walls knew. They heard things others hadn’t. The window in the far bedroom on the bottom floor had reflected the innocent beauty of a sixteen-year-old girl Anton fell in love with and the strange courage she’d found in an eighteen-year-old him. Maybe if the sun was out, and he looked out the back where the beach led to the ocean, he’d get that feeling all over again. That first one when he saw who Viviana was, not who he thought she would be.
    Anton followed behind silently, too, watching his wife pull the pins from her hair, letting it fall out of the chignon into waves down her back. Then, she was reaching back to tug at the zipper of her white dress. The thick fabric that was surely too warm for Barbados