“Why me?” I push.
“You lit up a night they didn’t forget,” he says, and now his voice isn’t steel. It’s something warmer that pulls a thread through my ribs whether I want it to or not. “They think you’re a handle for a door they couldn’t open.”
“I’m not a door,” I snap.
“You are a person,” he agrees. “Which is why I am here and not sending a man you do not know.”
I stare at the coffee machine so I don’t have to stare at him. The stainless throws his reflection at me anyway, tall and watchful and too sure.
“You still didn’t answer the first question,” I remind him. “Why are you here? Not your job. You.”
He holds my gaze. “Because the men who want you are my enemies,” he replies. “Because I do not let enemies touch what I have touched.” It sends shivers down my spine.
“That’s a lot of because,” I murmur.
“It is enough.”
The room feels too warm again. Part of me wants to keep pushing until he cracks and shows what’s left under all that control, because I remember the man who once let silence mean something. The other part is just tired—tired of being brave alone for five years, ever since he walked out of Milan and left nothing behind but a note that didn’t even say goodbye.
“You don’t get to come in here and rearrange my life,” I warn him. I step into his space because distance is a lie in a room this small. “You won’t bring fire to my mother’s door.”
“I will not,” he repeats, steady.
“You won’t make my son a rumor,” slips out before I can stop it.
Something moves through his eyes. Not triumph. It looks like pain does when it’s got nowhere to go.
“I will not,” he says again, voice very quiet.
We’re too close now for manners. His hand lifts, not quite touching, as if he needs permission he won’t ask for. I feel the same pull I did under Italian lights when he let me walk towardhim like I was doing him a favor. It’s a bad idea that tastes like a memory. It’s a good idea if I stop thinking.
“This isn’t smart,” I manage.
“No,” he agrees.
“We’re not the same people.”
“No.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“Something we didn’t finish.”
The laugh that escapes me is sharp. “You left a note.”
“I know.”
“You left the city in my head.”
“I know,” he repeats, and the honesty of it takes more air out of me than a lie would.
“Don’t be noble now,” I tell him. “It doesn’t suit you.”
His mouth tips. “I am many things,” he answers. “Noble is not one.”
My world narrows down on his lips and then slowly shifts to his eyes, dark with fire. The oven ticks. The light feels too hot. The room between us alters before I make a choice. He meets me halfway. The kiss hits like a match finding dry kindling. It starts as a dare and turns into something I recognize in my bones—a night and a note I kept in a drawer I pretended I lost. His hand comes to my jaw, thumb skimming my cheek, touch careful in a way that makes my knees go unreliable. I push him back intothe shadowed corner by the prep table because if I don’t have a surface, I’ll float.
“Lila,” he murmurs against my mouth, and the way he says my name folds five years into a single breath I’ll never admit to.
