Bianca
I wake up to quiet.
Not the hotel kind of quiet, but the old-house quiet that holds its breath and lets you hear your own. The shutters are mostly closed, just a slim seam of light slicing the room into soft shapes.
The air is cool on my face and warm under the covers; the sheets are heavy with that washed-cotton weight that makes you want to burrow and pretend the world stops at the edge of the mattress.
For a breath, I don’t remember where I am. I only know the pillow smells like sandalwood and something green, and that my body is loose and heavy. Achy.
Then memory turns the dimmer up, and the room clears up: high plaster ceiling with beams; the dark wardrobe with iron hinges; a chair with a shirt slung over the back like someone threw it there in a hurry; a pair of double doors that lead to the balcony, their latch caught, a thin slip of morning cutting around one edge. And the bed. Giovanni’s bed.
My hand slides over cool linen where his shoulder should be. No heat. No weight. Just the ghost of last night clinging to the sheets and to my skin: rosemary and lemon, hot water and wine, the faint mineral scent of steam; his mouth at my throat; the press of his hands where I didn’t know I was aching until he touched me there and the ache turned into something else.
I breathe in. It’s stuck right behind my ribs—the rewind button that plays a reel I both want and don’t. The kitchen. Laughing at the island. The way “Gio” felt in my mouth and in his body when he heard it. The hot tub on the balcony, steam rising into the cold night, while his hands and mouth warmed me up as much as the hot water.
And after. The shower.
The way I let go, not because I forgot who I am, but because in that moment I wanted to set everything I am in the open and see what he did with it.
My cheeks go hot. I don’t need a mirror to see it. I can feel it under the skin, blooming at my ears, sliding down my throat.
What did I do?
The question spikes, sharp as a pin jabbed into a balloon. The softness around me compresses. I stare at the seam of light until my eyes sting and water a little, until I have to blink.
Shame is such a stupid, stubborn thing; it always shows up at dawn and washes memories in a different light.
I roll onto my back, and the sheet drags across my stomach. Everything is tender—not hurt, just used—the good kind of sore that says you were as alive as a person can be for hours. My thighs complain at the angle and then settle.
The base of my throat feels raw, a thin ache like the start of a cold that never arrived. I touch there and wince at the memory that touches back: how thoroughly he took my breath and how easily I gave it to him.
I hadn’t known that was a thing I wanted until it was the only thing. My throat remembers. So does the soft inside of my lower lip, swollen just enough to make me aware of it when I swallow. A spot high on my neck warms under my fingers—his mouth, later, bracketed by steam, while I let him.
While I begged him for more.
While I didn’t think about the next day, about my mother, about my position, about anything except the next yes.
There’s a part of me, the part that catalogs, that wants to itemize damage like I’ve cracked a vase: small bruise here, tenderness there, nail trace, shower fog, the print of a hand steadying me against tile.
But the bigger part—the honest one—knows “damage” isn’t the word. Not for last night. Last night was deliberate. Chosen. I gave what I gave and wanted it all the way down.
Which doesn’t stop the flush when the other voice shows up. The one that wears a suit and carries a clipboard and writes on it with very neat block letters: He is Giovanni Conti. Underboss of the Conti crime family and brother of Don Luca. He holds your debt. He could make a call and end your world. End your mother’s world. Nonna Sabina’s legacy.
What is wrong with you?
I sit up too fast, and the room lurches. So does my stomach. I shove the heel of my hand against my eye until stars jump, then drop it. Okay. Okay. Breathe.
I am not a child who wandered into a grown-up’s room because of all the pretty things. I am not a reckless idiot who forgot the rent is due. I am a grown woman who walked into a night with the most sober yes I have ever spoken in my life, and then spoke it again and again because it kept being true. That is one truth.
The other truth is the debt sitting between us, with my mother’s name on it. Both truths war for dominance. Neither is winning.
“What now,” I whisper to the ceiling. It doesn’t answer.
There’s a sensible version of the day. It looks like this: I get dressed. I wash my face until my cheeks sting; I brush my hair so my hands have something useful to do that isn’t touching him.
In this sensible version, I am calm and mildly witty, and when I look at him, I can file last night under “adults being adults” and keep my face neutral.
We go back to New Jersey. I work off my debt for the next few months. And once I do, I walk out the door and never see him again.
