Luca finds the Vespa without asking, as if the island is already mapped inside him. He’s left the resort before. He may be from here. Sera doesn’t ask.
We rent our ride from a young boy with a cigarette stuck to his lower lip and a tattoo. I hold on to Luca as he takes the switchbacks up through pines to the ridge road.
The island is a brochure for excess. White houses with blue shutters. Bougainvillea like pink fire. Every driveway hides a car costing more than a house in neighborhoods back home. Every gate hides a guard who can handle a rifle.
Guns don’t unsettle me.
Being unarmed does.
Sera Vale rides the Vespa like she belongs nowhere and everywhere at once, her arms loose, her chin lifted to the wind. Isabella watches the mirrors, cataloging exits that are not there.
We find a tiny trattoria with string lights hung even though it’s bright noon. The owner greets Luca with familiarity that could mean anything and brings us grilled prawns that taste like the sea. The bread’s so hot it hurts my fingers. A lemon salad shocks my mouth awake. Luca eats like a man who works and earns his hunger. The way he listens matches it, attentive without intrusion, patient without distance.
He doesn’t ask where I’m from. He asks where I’d go if I could wake up anywhere. I say Palermo without thinking, almost giving myself away. And then I quickly change it to Paris. His smile tells me he heard both answers and decided not to press.
After lunch, he finds a path that leads down into the teeth of the cliffs, narrow and half-hidden, opening onto a cove where the water turns darker, deeper, a coin dropped into shadow. We undress without ceremony, without commentary, as if speech would break the spell. The sea lifts me, lowers me, rocks me back into a body I abandoned long ago in favor of control.
He keeps his distance until I close it.
When his hand skims my waist beneath the water, the touch is light enough to feel like a question. Permission offered rather than taken. The sun makes my shoulders ache pleasantly. Salt clings to my lips. I dive under, letting the water erase sound and thought alike.
When I surface, he is there, close enough that I feel his heat through the water before his mouth finds mine.
I know how kisses work. In my world, they are currency, punctuation, performance. This one is none of those things. It isn’t polite. It isn’t brutal. It is a door opening inward. He kisses me like a man who has gone hungry and been offered something sacred, careful and relentless at the same time, his mouth coaxing rather than claiming, his hands steady at my back as if he is anchoring me to something real.
I forget names. Titles. Expectations. The way men eye me when they want something I'm unable to give.
Time softens around us, blurring at the edges. When the shadows lengthen and the sun begins to slant, we climb out of the cove, drunk on salt and light. He wraps me in his towel and carries my sandals again, a small gesture that proves intimate in a way I’m unprepared for. The scar on his shoulder catches my eye again, pale and crescent-shaped, a reminder that his ease has sharp edges.
Isabella worries about that.
“Have dinner with me,” he says.
“Yes,” I let Sera answer, because I don’t want this day to end.
ChapterTwo
Isabella
We shower in separate rooms because I still want to pretend we have choices. I put on a dress that wasn’t made for innocence. Red like the peel of a blood orange. I leave my ring in the room’s safe where it can’t lie to anyone. When I come down, he’s waiting in linen and shadow. I join him, and the space between us hums.
Dinner happens to other people. We sit at the edge of the terrace where the glass ends and the air begins. The sea is ink now, a sheet of black silk cut with moonlight. The quartet plays something old enough that my grandmother would’ve hummed along and the sommelier pours wine that tastes like summers I barely remember. Luca’s knee rests against mine beneath the table, unmoving, deliberate. He doesn’t move it away. I don’t move, either.
His dark eyes track and commit. I concentrate on his mouth that curves like he’s saving the good part for when the room is empty. His hands are for doing, not for show. His knuckles are nicked, palms sure, and they entrance me more. I was born to notice every detail. Elsewhere, he carries stillness like a weapon. Yet he smiles, and it feels like contraband.
If danger had refinement, it would appear as him.
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” he says. It’s not a question.
“I am leaving always,” I say. “Even when I stay.”
He reaches across the table and takes my hand, his thumb circling my pulse with a steadiness that makes my breath hitch. I can’t remember the last time a man touched me without calculation.
I think of my father’s office and the maps with our routes marked in red. I think of the truce, the Commission and the old hate that bears my name. I think of Adrian’s ring and the little bloodless smile he uses when he wants me to obey.
Then I let the sea take it. I think of the cove and the way Luca only wants my yes.
“You do not have to tell me anything,” Luca says quietly. “Not where you live. Not who you belong to. Not why you peek over your shoulder when you think you forgot not to.”
