My stomach tightens.
Could it happen that quickly?Could his child already be growing inside me?
The thought feels enormous and terrifying and strangely intimate all at once, and I hate that a small, treacherous part of me wonders what a child with Dante Moretti’s dark eyes might look like.
Thankfully he closes the door and shows me the other rooms, five in all.How big of a family does he want to have?
When he carried me up the stairs, I hadn’t noticed how wide they were, and how gracefully they curved.
Sunlight pours through the tall windows that line the back of the property, flooding the open living space.
Earlier I barely noticed any of this.
But now?Now I notice everything.
The layout of the rooms.Not just how exquisite the home is, but the positioning of the doors.The quiet efficiency of the men stationed near the perimeter windows.
One soldier I haven’t met before nods respectfully as we pass, his gaze alert but carefully neutral, and I recognize the subtle choreography immediately—men positioned where they can see every entrance, every stretch of glass, every vulnerable angle of the house.Security without spectacle.Protection that feels almost invisible unless you know where to look.
Halfway down the hallway we pass a plain, closed door that looks no different from the others, but a low murmur of voices leaks through the thick wood, along with the faint glow of light beneath the threshold.
Moretti shows me the inside where men are watching screens, tracking movement across the property, keeping the invisible perimeter that surrounds his world firmly intact.
After that, we pass a set of double doors standing partially open, and I glimpse a room beyond that clearly belongs to Moretti.A massive desk dominates the space, its dark wood polished to a mirror shine, and maps and monitors glow quietly along one wall.Even from the hallway I can feel the gravity of it—his command center, the place where decisions are made and enemies likely learn to fear his name.
Another room surprises me entirely.Sunlight pours through a bank of tall windows onto a wooden easel standing near the center of the space, brushes and tubes of paint arranged neatly on a nearby table.The faint scent of linseed oil lingers in the air.
I stop.
“You remembered what I said about my mother.”
Moretti meets my gaze.“I pay attention to every single thing about you, Valentina.”
Emotion catches me off guard, tightening unexpectedly in my chest.
Painting has always been the one place I could disappear, the one place where the noise of family expectations and the politics of power fade long enough for me to breathe.Seeing the easel here, waiting for me, feels strangely like a piece of my old life reaching across the distance to meet me.
We continue toward the back of the house.
The kitchen opens before us in a sweep of marble and warm wood, wide enough to host a small army of cooks if necessary.Copper pots gleam above a massive island, and sunlight spills across bowls of fresh herbs and baskets of produce that must have come straight from the surrounding countryside.It smells faintly of bread and citrus, warm and welcoming in a way that makes the house feel unexpectedly alive.
Moretti leads me through the living room toward the massive doors that spill sunlight across a wide limestone patio.
Adriano, his man, is standing there, hands respectfully tucked behind his back.“Sir.Mrs.Moretti.”
Will I ever get accustomed to hearing that name?
He acknowledges me before returning his attention to my husband.“Everything’s secure,” he reports.
“Good.”Moretti gives a tight nod, then he guides me outside into the warm Hill Country sunlight.
The view steals my breath for a moment.
Rows of vineyard vines stretch across the rolling land beyond the house, their green lines rippling across the hills in careful symmetry.
A broad oak tree spreads its branches across one side of the patio, casting cool shade over a long wooden table already set for lunch.
As we near, a woman in a crisp white chef’s jacket welcomes us.
