“I was going to do this in bed,” he says, something like amusement warming the words. Is it possible he can actually read my thoughts? “But since you’re up, we can sit outside.”
“I was just going to… get dressed,” I say, voice too thin. “I can—”
“Eat first,” he says, mild but not a suggestion. He steps past me like we’ve done this a hundred mornings, sets the tray’s weight in his palm, and nudges the door closed with his heel. He doesn’t turn the lock. He doesn’t need to. The quiet click says enough.
He crosses the room toward the balcony, and that’s when I notice what he’s wearing: a robe, similar to mine but darker,heavier, cut for his build. Bare ankles. Bare throat. The tie sits low on his hips, and for one stupid, hot second, my knees feel unreliable.
Heat slips under the shame before I can shut it down. I don’t know what I’ll do if I stay. I don’t know what I’ll do if I run.
Would he be angry if I just walked out? He’s my boss. And a Conti. Contis don’t just fire employees who displease them.
I give the door one last look like it might offer me another option. It doesn’t. He’s already at the glass, pushing the doors open. Morning spills in bright and cool.
I follow him out because the air helps me breathe and because he’s already setting the tray on the small table by the railing, the vines throwing neat lines down the hill under a sun that’s higher than I expected. The chill touches my calves. The robe is warm. I sit because he pulls out the chair, because coffee is right there, because I don’t trust my legs around him.
Chapter Thirty
Giovanni
She sits because I pull the chair out and because coffee is there and because, right now, choices that require only a nod suit her.
The robe swallows her a little—shoulders narrow, belt cinched too tight. She loosens it a little after she sits and folds one leg under the other. Her toes curl once against the rung, then flatten. She sets her hands on her knees, palms down like she’s bracing in a moving car.
She’s flushed high on the cheeks and at the throat. Not the night’s heat—that’s gone. This is morning heat: nerves, breath that keeps wanting to go shallow, pulse a little too fast.
I pour coffee so she has something to hold. Her fingers wrap the cup like they’re cold when I know they aren’t.
“Milk?” I ask.
She looks at the little pitcher, then at me. “Yes, please.” The manners kick in when everything else in her mind is loud. That’s one of the first things I learned about her.
I tip milk until the color warms. She watches the swirl as if it can answer a question for her. It can’t, but it buys her a few seconds.
“Sugar?”
She shakes her head, then changes it to a nod. “Half.”
I give her half. She stirs. The small metal spoon dings the porcelain. One, two, three. She sets the spoon on the saucer precisely and lifts the cup. The steam fogs the air between us for a beat. She takes a sip. Some of the tightness leaves her shoulders. Not all.
She glances at the tray like it might be a trick. “What…is all this?”
“Breakfast,” I say, because being plain with her works.
I lift the first dome and set it aside. “Uova al tegamino—eggs baked with a little tomato and smoked paprika, finished with speck.” The smoky whisper escapes. Her eyes flick up, surprised. I lift the other lid. “Roasted tomatoes and mushrooms with thyme, cannellini warmed in what was left of the lamb juices, and bread we didn’t finish.”
Her eyebrows move before anything else does. “You cooked?”
I let the corner of my mouth lift. “I cook.”
She blinks once, rapidly. “I mean—of course you can cook, I just—” She gives a small, helpless gesture that is more honest than any sentence. “You don’t seem like a person who does…this. Personally.”
“I don’t usually have time,” I say, amused because she apparently hasn’t yet learned that there are more versions of me than the one the public sees. Well, I’ll teach her that too. “But I had time for this.”
Her expression loosens a fraction. It’s not trust, not yet, but it’s enough for now. “It smells good,” she says, and it’s not a throwaway line. She means it.
“Eat,” I tell her softly, and pass the plate.
She hesitates, then picks up her fork. The first bite is small, the second is larger. She chews, looks past my shoulder at the rows, then back at the plate.
