34
NICOLO
The restaurant hums with low voices and expensive silence. Silver cutlery, crystal chandeliers, the faint scent of truffle and rain.
I chose it because it’s neutral ground—public, controlled, a place where I can pretend we’re nothing more than two civilized people sharing dinner. It isn’t working.
She sits across from me in the soft light, pink silk brushing her shoulders, hair falling loose down her back. Every movement she makes seems designed to test my restraint. She doesn’t even have to try.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“Am I?” I keep my tone mild, though I can feel the tension in my jaw.
She nods once. “You seem to be doing that a lot tonight.”
I lean back, reaching for the wine and letting the stem turn between my fingers. “I notice things. Occupational hazard.”
“Like what?’ she presses. “Every time you look at me, it’s like you’re cataloguing something. Filing away information about something you own.”
I set the glass down. “You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?” she echoes softly. “Then tell me what last night was. Tell what that day in the office was. Because pretending it didn’t happen doesn’t make it disappear.”
The air changes—thicker, sharper. A vein of heat crawls up my neck. Around us, forks scrape against plates and a laugh breaks at another table, but it all feels far away.
“It was a mistake,” I say, each word cut clean. “Both times.”
She laughs under her breath, incredulous. “A mistake that keeps repeating itself.”
“Watch your tone.”
“Why? You can command everyone else, Nicolo. But you don’t get to order me around as you please.”
I look at her—really look—and the thing I’ve been keeping buried claws up from my chest. I want to tell her she’s wrong, that this can’t happen again, and that it already has cost too much. Instead, what comes out is low and unsteady.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I do,” she whispers. “You’re the one pretending not to.”
The knife in her voice finds its mark. I push back from the table before I say something I can’t take back.
“We’re done talking about this.”
“Of course we are,” she mutters, folding her arms. “Talking isn’t your strong suit.”
The rest of the meal unravels in silence. She toys with her fork, and before long our waiter brings the check over. I sign it without looking. The candle between us burns low, casting her face in flickers of light and shadow. When we stand to leave, the tension between us feels like another presence at the table—something alive and waiting.
Outside, the rain has stopped, but the city still smells like the storm hasn’t passed. I open the car door for her. She slips inside without a word, and as I circle to the driver’s side, I realize myhands are shaking—not from anger, but from everything I won’t let myself want.
The drive back is smothered in silence. She sits curled against the passenger door, arms crossed, eyes on the rain-slicked road as it slips past the window in a blur.
Her silence isn't passive. It’s weaponized. Each second of it lashes against my skin harder than the slap I know she’s holding back. My jaw clenches. Fingers crush the steering wheel, gripping it like it's the only thing keeping me from snapping—either at her, or for her.
When we pull into the Castello's courtyard, she moves first. Her hand reaches for the door handle. She's ready to escape before I’ve even cut the engine.
No.
I press the lock button.
