“What’s in the bag?” he asked, curious what else she thought he wouldn’t have planned for.
“Simply some of my things. It’s been a few nights, so I thought it best if I spend the night here tonight. We haven’t done that yet.”
“No, we have not.” Fascinating that she’d be the one to instigate it. “I seem to recall something about gunpoint needing to be involved if that were to happen?”
She got very prim looking, that haughty chin of hers going up. “I was referring to your estate when I said that. An apartment in the city is little different than a hotel, all things considered.”
It was semantics, of course, but he could admit he appreciated her ability to twist semantics to suit herself.
She moved forward, shoved the bag at him. “If you have an extra room, put this in there. If not, we’ll deal with it after dinner, but you should put it away. I shall see about adding these flowers to the bouquet.”
She was a woman so used to giving orders and expecting them to be followed, that there seemed to be no question in her mind whether he’d follow through. He, however, was not a man used to taking orders, so while he took the shoved bag, he did not immediately move tostow it away.
She, however, moved for the table—already elaborately set—and unwrapped the flowers. She didn’t evenlookat him as she fussed with the centerpiece.
Though she hid it well, he could read the nerves under the surface. He was learning to see under that careful, icy facade. He wanted to believe that was just good business sense, but he knew part of it was pure fascination.
He didn’trevelin understanding her, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from trying to.
Her mother was coming over for dinner tonight, and if there was one soft spot he still didn’t fully understand it was the one that involved her mother. He aimed to figure it out tonight.
So, with that thought in mind, he decided to fully embrace his acted role of doting fiancée. He went and stowed her bag in his bedroom, then returned to the dining room that featured a curved wall of floor-to-ceiling windows to show off the beautiful cityscape and the sea.
He realized, somewhat abruptly, that there at the edge of the far window, if he angled himself just so, he could just make out the jut of rock her little castle settled itself upon.
He wished he had not realized this. It felt strangely…intimate to know he could look out, look across, and see the place he knew represented her true self better than anything she ever let people see.
“It’s a beautiful view,” Serena said, without ever looking up from her flowers. She was just about done with them, but she took her time with the last stems and arranging them into the centerpiece that already existed.
Luciano made a noncommittal noise as Serena finished what she was doing. He had never once felt uncomfortable in his own home, but suddenly he didn’t know quite what to do with himself.
It felt dangerous to think of hertrue selfwhen her mother would not be here for some time yet. When it was just the two of them. Waiting.
“Perhaps I should give you a tour, so it appears to your mother as if you’ve been here before.”
“Good idea,” she agreed, but did not immediately move away from the centerpiece.
Luciano tried to find something to say that might irritate her, get that stiff back and cool look of hers geared toward him. But he couldn’t seem to think of anything.
Maybe he was ill.
Eventually she let the flowers be and moved closer to where he stood in the living room. She straightened her shoulders, much like she’d done before going into that meeting with her coworkers the other day.
He half expected some dressing down.
“Before we begin, I feel it necessary to explain that… Well, it’s just that my mother will be…” She trailed off. The nerves never showed on her face. They were in the way she gripped her hands together, then seemed to realize it and dropped her hands at her sides. She had done this at least five times since arriving. “I do not know how to articulate how my mother will be, but it will not be comfortable or…normal.”
He found her nerves strange, but he didn’t like it. “Luckily I am an Ascione. Well versed in uncomfortable and abnormal.”
Her mouth curved at that, and a strange warmth settled in his chest. Because it was a real smile. He’d amused her, settled some of those nerves.
And he liked being able to do so.
He could not for the life of him fathom what thatmeant, so he pushed it away as he pushed away so many confusing things when it came to her.
He showed her around the rest of the place feeling a new sort of tension creep into him. It reminded him of a time long gone that he’d gone through great efforts to ignore. That part of his youth when he’d still endeavored to impress his father.
The idea he wanted to impressherwas a personal affront, and he rejected it. He had to reject it.
