Sal leaves, then I make my way to the master bedroom that Sofia and I have finally taken over now that everything related to Marco has been removed. My heart beats in my chest as I look towards the room Elena was staying in. Where I found her and Vincenzo earlier today.
Where has she gone?
I had the castle scoured from top to bottom once Sofia was settled in and resting, because part of me wondered if maybe she was hiding somewhere within the castle walls. But she was nowhere to be found.
Now that I’m cooled down from the confrontation we had and I’ve had time to process it some more, I wish I hadn’t told her to leave.
But she was threatening my life.
I shake my head, trying to get my thoughts away from Elena as I approach our bedroom.
When I enter the room, I find Sofia scrolling on her phone.
“You’re awake,” I say.
She sets her phone down on the nightstand. “Well, I’ve gotten my full-nights sleep, and it’s now one in the morning. So, I guess I’ve managed to jet lag myself without flying to another continent.”
I strip down and climb into bed to join her. Pulling her close to me as soon as I get under the covers. Her coconut-scented shampoo fills my senses as I bury my nose in the top of her head. Her skin feels so soft, her body so delicate, and it makes me think back to how helpless and scared she looked in the dungeon.
“That’s okay, Sofia. You can stay in bed all day tomorrow until the rest of your family gets here.”
She readjusts against me, and I try not to get too distracted by the way her ass feels brushing up against me.
“Alessandro?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think Aurora was playing me? That she pretended she liked me to help Elio.”
I pause my thumb that was stroking her arm, fighting the urge to tell her, of course not, as if she were a child. That’s how her family treated her, and it didn’t do her any favors.
A million phone calls were made to tell Aurora, along with all the other wives of those that were slain today, that their husbands were never coming home again. I helped with some of these, and I truly hope that Sofia never receives that call. But because of our age-gap and my profession, I better not outlive her.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Aurora didn’t seem like the manipulative type to me, but it’s not as if I’m adept at reading people, anyway.”
“Good point. I shouldn’t have asked the world’s most antisocial man.”
I playfully slap her ass. “Brat.”
She giggles, her hand resting on her stomach. “Sometimes I worry about what we’re going to create.”
I kiss the back of her head, my hand resting over hers.
“That’s a healthy fear. I cannot fathom what you were like as a toddler. How stubborn were you?”
She cuts me off to laugh and elbows me in the chest, then turns around. “Bianca was an accident. Apparently, I was so much of a handful when I was a baby that they wanted to stop with me. My mom told me that once after several glasses of wine last New Year’s Eve.”
“Now, that does make me nervous,” I say. Her warm-brown eyes shimmer as she smiles at me. “I’m programmed to be miserable constantly. Combine that with a spitfire, overly-competitive personality and we’ll have a baby that wails day and night, a toddler that ignores everything we say, and then a moody teenager that doesn’t know what to do with themselves.”
She groans. “I hope we’re only joking, but something tells me this is going to be our reality.” She strokes the back of her hand against my cheek. “You’re not miserable, Alessandro.”
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“I’m serious. It was your environment that made you that way. If you were truly miserable, you wouldn’t have appreciated those last-minute birthday gifts so much.” She bites the inside of her mouth. “It made me kind of sad, how happy you were.”
“Stop…”
“That’s how I knew I loved you. I’ve never been so overjoyed seeing someone else happy before.” Her eyes are shining as she talks to me. Her words are so sweet I almost get choked up.
