Alessandro's jaw tightens. He closes the distance between us, trapping me against the desk. I can smell his cologne, feel the heat radiating off him.
"So all this—" he gestures between us, to the rumpled bed visible through the adjoining door, to my body in his shirt "—was just part of your sacrifice for Tommy?"
There's something raw in his question, something I can't quite name. I should lie. I should tell him yes, that everything I've done—every touch, every gasp, every moment of surrender—was just to protect my brother. But I'm tired of lies.
"No," I whisper. "Not all of it."
His eyes darken. He lifts his hand, and I flinch, expecting violence. Instead, his fingers brush my cheek with surprising gentleness.
"What parts were real, Emma Pitt?" His voice drops lower, rougher. "Tell me exactly what wasn't a lie."
My breath catches. The truth feels dangerous, more dangerous than any knife or letter opener.
"The way I responded to you," I admit. "That night at the gala, when you hurt Blair… I should have been horrified. But I wasn't."
His thumb traces my bottom lip. "What else?"
"When you touch me," I continue, heat flooding my face. "I forget to pretend. I forget to be Frances."
Alessandro's eyes never leave mine, searching for deception. Finding none, his expression shifts into something hungrier, more possessive.
"A servant who sacrificed everything." He says it slowly. His voice carries no judgment, just observation. "Your identity, your freedom, your future. All to protect your brother."
"He's all I have left." The admission costs me something. "Our mother died when we were young. Father disappeared. Tommy and I, we only had each other. And now he's locked upbecause he tried to protect me from…" I stop, swallowing the rest.
"From what?"
"It doesn't matter. What matters is he needs me alive. And I need him."
Alessandro studies me for a long moment, his thumb absently rubbing his jaw where my scratches have healed. "How long is his sentence?"
"Three more years." The number feels like a lifetime. "Mrs.Hewson promised to get him protection, maybe early release, if I played my part well enough."
"And you believed her?"
"What choice did I have?" My voice cracks. "She had all the power. I had nothing except a face that looked enough like her daughter's to fool a chapel full of mafia families."
He extends his hand abruptly. "Come with me."
"Where?"
"Just come." There's something different in his voice now. Not anger, not calculation. Something I can't quite identify.
I take his hand reluctantly, letting him pull me away from the wall. My fingers find his like they're magnetized, like my body has already chosen what my mind still fights. The calluses on his palm, from guns, from violence, somehow feel like safety against my own servant-worn hands. He doesn't comment on my bare legs or the way his shirt barely covers me. Instead, he grabs his suit jacket from the chair and drapes it over my shoulders, the gesture unexpectedly gentle.
"Slippers," he says, pointing to a pair by the door. "The floors are cold."
The consideration confuses me more than anger would. I slip them on and follow him through the quiet mansion, up the service stairs I discovered that first night. My heart pounds as we climb toward the rooftop, toward my sanctuary.
When he opens the door, I gasp.
There, among the roses and jasmine of the garden, stands a telescope. Not just any telescope: a vintage brass beauty from the 1960s, the kind I've only seen in astronomy books my grandmother left me. The kind I dreamed about while describing constellations to Tommy through our fire escape.
"How did you…"
"You told me about the stars that night in the rain." He guides me forward with a hand on my lower back. "About watching the Perseids every year since you were seven. About how it was all you had."
I approach the telescope with trembling hands, running my fingers over the smooth brass, the pristine lenses. It's been perfectly restored, positioned to face east where the morning planets are still visible.
