I move through them slowly, breathing in green and damp earth and sunlight, letting my shoulders drop in a way they haven’t in a long time. If the house feels like a quiet museum, the gardens feel alive.
Lara is already out there when I arrive, crouched near a bed of new growth, blond pixie hair sticking out in every direction, wide grin firmly in place. She lights up when she sees me, like I’m not a guest but part of the routine now.
She straightens and waves me over, already talking.
“See these?” she asks, gesturing at a row of roses. “They finally took. I had to adjust the soil mix—more drainage, less nitrogen. They were sulking.”
I lean in, smiling. “Drama queens.”
“The worst,” she agrees cheerfully. “These ones still need time. And don’t even get me started on the aphids. I won that war, but it got bloody.”
We drift from bed to bed, talking pruning angles, soil balance, how much sun is too much before leaves start to scorch. The conversation flows easily, like it always does when two nerds realize they share the same incredibly specific obsession. In our case, anything green and leafy.
She ducks into the greenhouse and comes back with a small rosebud, deep red and just beginning to open. "This one broke. It's such a pity." Then her eyes light up. "Hey, can I?"
Without waiting for a reply, she tucks the bud into my hair, just behind my ear.
Her face breaks into a grin. “It suits you.”
I laugh despite myself, fingers brushing the petals. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”
“With who?” she asks. "A single bud won't be missed. These roses are basically all going to the west wing anyway."
“The west wing?”
Lara pulls that face people make when they realize they've said too much. “Yeah, no biggie. Anyway, I should get back to work,” she says too quickly. “Mulch waits for no one.”
She bustles off before I can press, leaving me standing there with the rosebud in my hair and a knot forming low in my stomach.
Flowers going to the west wing.
Why would the west wing need flowers?
The thought sticks with me longer than it should. I tell myself it’s nothing. That people are entitled to privacy. That I promised not to go there and I intend to keep that promise.
Still, as I wander the paths alone afterward, my gaze drifts back toward the house.
Toward the part of it that stays closed.
And for the first time since I arrived, curiosity edges dangerously close to worry.
My brain, unhelpful as always, immediately supplies worst-case scenarios. A modern Bertha-in-the-attic situation, minus the gothic romance and plus a very real crime podcast vibe.
I picture pale faces, barred windows, the kind of horror that doesn’t need imagination so much as silence to survive.
I stop walking.
No. That’s absurd. That’s fear talking, feeding on isolation and too much time to think. Matteo may be many things, but he’s notthat. He’s careful. Controlled. Kind, in his own way. Whatever rumors trail him through the restaurant, whatever criminal world he moves in, human trafficking is not something I could ever shrug off.
I said I wouldn’t judge.
I would judgethat.
I force myself to breathe and let the image dissolve. It can’t be that. It isn’t that. The idea feels wrong in my bones, like trying to force a plant to grow in soil it will never tolerate.
Matteo isgood. He saved me. Whatever else he is, he is no monster.
But another thought slips in, quieter and somehow worse.
