“In appearance only,” he said. “Not in actuality. No one will look down upon your association with us, but that doesn’t grant you free rein over the palazzo. There are rules.”
“And they are?”
“Don’t go here, don’t go there.”
“Thank you for clarifying,” she said, exasperated. “I have questions.”
He raised an eyebrow and waited. Ravenna hated how much his beauty distracted her. She wanted to carve his face, that exact expression. Politely inquisitive, a little exacting.
An intriguing combination.
Instead she took herself back to the moment when Tomasso had pushed her into the carriage, the door locking behind her. That shocking moment had nearly suffocated her. The Luni family’s demand had been senseless, cruel even. Ravenna’s nostrils flared. “Why was I taken?”
It was the first time she’d seen him baffled. “We just showed you.”
She gave him a look, coolly disapproving. It was an expression that always worked with her rowdy brothers, but Saturnino didn’t flinch. “No, I meant, why notaskme to come?”
He stared back at her, incredulous. “Why would we?”
Ravenna held on to her patience by a thread. “Are youtryingto provoke me?”
Saturnino leaned against the stone railing and folded his arms across his chest. She blinked at the sight of him,lounging.That stubborn lock of hair fell at an angle across his pale brow. “No.” He paused, brows pulling together in a brief frown. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
She gestured to his long frame. “It’s the first time I’ve seen you behave like a human.”
He stared at her.
“You look more approachable,” Ravenna said, feeling the need to explain. “Relaxed.”
“Do I seem relaxed to you?”
Ravenna felt a pins-and-needles sensation of warning.
“You do not.”
“I am as human as I allow myself to be,” he said. “Like right now,but only because I was up late making sure our strong-willed guest didn’t try to escape again, followed by long hours in a jostling carriage where I had to listen to Marco belabor a moot point.”
“You will not get any sympathy from me.”
“I wasn’t looking for any. I’m merely replying to your rude observation.”
Ravenna furrowed her brow. “I observed you were behaving like a human.”
He shot her a baleful look. “Exactly.”
In a million years this immortal would never make sense to her. “Why wasn’t I given time to pack, to say goodbye to my family?”
“It was easier than dealing with dramatic emotions and protests,” Saturnino said. “Everyone calms down at the sight of gold, anyway.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Even your family stopped crying for you when they were presented with more money than they knew what to do with.”
Ravenna stared at him. “Youboughtme?”
“No. The prize for winning was moneyanda boon. You chose to save your brother, and your family was given the money since you have no need of it while here in Florence.”
“You’re lying,” she scoffed.
“No,” Saturnino repeated. He watched her closely, almost clinically, as if he were tallying her weaknesses. “Your mother demanded more than one bag of it.”
A pit formed in her belly, deep and yawning. Her mother, much like her, valued security and pragmatism. She understood why the coin would have appealed to her; running the inn was lucrative but it wasn’t without sacrifice or monetary cost. A horrible thought struck her.
