“We’ve had a taste of each other now,” he says softly. “And you’re still pretending you can build that wall back up.”
“I’m pretending I can breathe,” I shoot back.
He smiles, slow and intimate. “You’re doing beautifully. Do more of it.”
Heat stirs low in my belly, unwelcome and unavoidable.
I step back, busying myself with the tape. “Stop being… fond.”
“Fond,” he repeats, amused. “Is that what this is?”
“Yes.”
He leans closer. “What would you prefer?”
“Co… cool,” I say because I can’t bring myself to say cold. Not that he ever was. “Abrasive. Mafia don.”
His mouth brushes my ear. “Too fucking late.”
I shiver.
The shower hisses behind us, steam thickening, and for a moment the world narrows again, not to gunfire, but to skin and breath and the fact that we are here.
He takes the bandage from my nerveless fingers and we step beneath the spray. We kiss as he washes me, touch as he dries me.
He murmurs hot, beautiful words in my ear as he walks back into the bedroom, reminding me that we’re alive. Together.
Then—
“Enough of that.”
Caterina’s voice cuts through the doorway like a blade.
I jerk back, mortified. Giovanni doesn’t even blink.
Caterina stands with her hands on her hips, eyes sharp.
“You will eat,” she declares. “Both of you. Get your strength back before you collapse or do something else equally foolish.”
Giovanni’s mouth twitches. “Caterina?—”
“No,” she snaps. “You think blood and adrenaline replace food? Sit. I have cooked.”
She disappears like a general issuing orders. I stare after her, then glance at Giovanni.
“She scares me.”
“She scares everyone,” he says proudly.
We don bathrobes and walk out onto the moonlit terrace with a cosy and intimately laid dining table.
Candles, plates already laid and a spread so sumptuous it borders on absurd: roasted lamb with herbs, citrus-bright salad, warm bread slick with olive oil, a pasta dish fragrant with truffle,figs and cheese arranged like an offering, and a bottle of red wine breathing patiently beside two glasses.
Caterina has staged a feast like she is warding off death with food.
Giovanni pulls out one chair. “Sit.”
I hesitate, frown when I go to pull out another, and he shakes his head. “No,amuri. On my lap.”
