Her attention returned to the contract. “They talked constantly,” she said. “I was usually serving meals or cleaning rooms. They didn’t consider me part of the conversation unless they were talking about going after me in some fashion. And even then, Iwas more of an object they were discussing than a person.”
For a moment Magnus said nothing.
A hard, dangerous stillness settled through him as the words landed. The image rose unbidden: Elia moving unobtrusively through Donati rooms while men with too much power and too little restraint discussed her as though she were a possession, something to be traded, threatened,or discarded.
His hand tightened against the edge of the table. “They discussed you,” he said at last, his voice softer now but edged with an underlying anger, “as though you belonged to them.”
Elia seemed to recognize the shift in him immediately. The air between them had sharpened, and she lifted one shoulder in a small, almost dismissive motion as if trying to ease the tension she had just created.
“It wasn’t unusual,” she said gently. “Not there.” She glanced down at the contract again, her fingers smoothing the edge of the page as though returning them to safer ground. “They talked about a lot of people that way. Servants. Rivals. Anyone who couldn’t answer back.” She looked up again, offering him a faint, steady smile meant to calm rather than challenge. “I learned a long time ago it wasn’t really about me.”
Magnus forced the anger down and shifted the conversation before it could linger there. “What did they say when they thought you weren’t listening? About business. About the contract.”
Elia stilled.The silence stretched long enough that Magnus knew a memory had surfaced.“Sometimes they joked,” shesaid.
“About what?”
“About Severins.”
Magnus didn’t move. For a heartbeat the room seemed to contract around those two cautiously spoken words. Acold anger slid throughhim, the kind that never showed on his face but changed everything beneath the surface.
They’d sat in their own house and spoken about his family in front of her. In front of a woman they believed belonged to them. As if she were furniture. As if Severins were nothing more than a problem waiting to be cheated.
His voice dropped when he spoke again.“Go on,” he encouraged.
She traced a finger along the edge of the paper. “One of them said something about fine print. Idon’t remember the exact words.”
“Try.”
Elia closed her eyes briefly.
“Tommaso was laughing,” she murmured. “He said something about leverage hidden where no one would look.”
The air shifted inside Magnus’s chest.“And Lorenzo?”
“He told Tommaso to stop talking,” she said. “But then Dario said the Severins would read it and think everything was clean.” She opened her eyes again. “I didn’t understand what they meant at the time.”
Magnus did.
The Donatis hadn’t been careless. They’d been arrogant. And arrogance made men sloppy. One other piece had become painfully clear. Vittorio hadn’t wanted Elia returned because she was his daughter. Hewanted her returned because she might remember what they had buried.And shehad.
More importantly, Magnus had refused her return. That refusal had shifted the balance of the situation in ways the Donatis wouldn’t ignore. If Elia remained here, beyond their reach, then she was no longer merely a servant who had overheard too much. She had become a problem they couldn’t manipulate, and problems like that were rarely allowed to exist for long. The danger surrounding her had just changed shape.
Elia watched him carefully. “Did I say something important?” she asked.
Magnus leaned forward and closed the folder with care, sealing the contract and the implications it carried inside the leather cover. The sound of it shutting seemed louder than it shouldhave.
“You said enough,” he replied.
The intensity in his voice made her freeze. She studied him, searching his expression for some clue about what he’d concluded, what was enough, but Magnus’s face had already settled back into the stillness he wore in negotiations.Only his eyes betrayed that something had shifted.
She glanced at the folder between them and then back at him again. “Magnus… what does that mean?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead he rose from the chair and walked back toward the edge of the pool, the early light spilling across the water in shifting reflections. For a moment he simply stood there, looking down at the surface as though the swirl of the water might help him order the pieces fallinginto place.
Elia remained seated for another heartbeat before standing as well. She followed him partway, uncertainty threading through her.“Did I make things worse?” she asked.
Magnus turned his head slightly, studying her again. She stood a few steps behind him with the towel still wrapped around her shoulders, damp hair curling around her face. Concern had replaced the earlier confidence she carried while analyzing the contract.
