The staff tried to usher me into the formal dining room—a ridiculous, echoing mausoleum of a space with a table long enough to seat a soccer team—but I refused. So here I am instead, among copper pots and low murmurs, sitting where the scent of rosemary and yeast is stronger than the smell of power and money. It’s warm in here. Comforting, even. If the staff mind my presence, they don’t show it. But they also don’t speak to me unless I ask first.
“Is he not eating?” I finally ask, voice quieter than I mean it to be.
Rosa—the older woman with iron-gray hair twisted into a loose bun and hands that look like they’ve been kneading doughsince the Roman Empire—pauses her work. She doesn’t glance up at first, just keeps rolling her palms over the soft rising dough in front of her. When she looks at me, her dark eyes meet mine with something unreadable.
“No, signorina,” she says simply.
That’s it. No elaboration. No smile. No invitation to keep speaking.
Not that I want small talk, but still. I wantsomething. Information. Leverage. A crack in the marble exterior of the man who dragged me across the Atlantic to a secluded Castello in Italy.
“Right,” I murmur, more to myself than anyone else.
I press my fork into the spaghetti again, swirling absentmindedly. The tines scrape softly against the porcelain, the quiet sound somehow louder in this space filled with motion—boiling water, knives on cutting boards, the occasional clink of glass.
And me. Alone in the middle of it all, pretending to eat.
Then…
Footsteps. Heavy. Measured. Sharp against the old stone floor.
I don’t have to look up to know it’s him. I can feel it in the shift of the air, the sudden hush of movement from the people around him. Like prey sensing a predator has just entered the room.
Nicolo Esposito steps into the room like it’s a battlefield he already owns. And every part of me goes rigid.
The kitchen’s warm, but he brings a different kind of heat with him. One that curls at the base of my spine, unwanted and completely undeniable.
He’s in another suit—because of course he is. It’s been tailored within an inch of its life, the white dress shirt beneath it opening at the throat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows likehe’s either about to fight someone or sign their death warrant. His black slacks hug his hips, long legs eating up the distance between the door and where I’m sitting with effortless menace. He doesn’t walk. He prowls.
He looks like sin wrapped up in a suit. Like a man who knows exactly how dangerous he is, and doesn’t care.
I hate how my body reacts to him. How my breath catches. How I have to grip the fork a little tighter so my hands don’t tremble.
Right now, I hate him for his hand in taking me out of New York. But lust doesn’t care about logic. And Nicolo is every inch the kind of man logic runs from.
He clears his throat, as if to snap me out of whatever trance I’m in. “Are you done?”
I refuse to feel embarrassed, but my body has another idea. Heat travels up my neck to the top of my hairline.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I bite back.
His gaze sweeps over my face, analyzing, as if he’s trying to decipher a puzzle. “I was talking about your lunch. Are you done with lunch?”
Please kill me now. This isbeyondembarrassing.
Clearing my throat, I get off the stool, smoothing a hand down my pink romper. I really do need to go shopping. I’ve been in this thing for over twenty-four hours.
I swallow back the urge to say something stupid. “Yes.”
Nicolo nods, turning to a man who just seems to have materialized from thin air.
Why are all his staff so quiet?
The man places car keys in his hand before whispering something in his ear and leaving. Nicolo turns his attention back to me.
He’s so intense. Everything about him is intense.
“Rosa, do you have a coat to lend Signorina Folonari?” He keeps his gaze trained on me like we’re in a staring contest.
