"Savannah. She won't respond to my texts. She won't look at me in class. Something's wrong."
"Maybe she's busy. Graduate students have a lot of work, you know—" His voice is dry, in a way that only he could get away with when it comes to me.
"It's not that." I'm still pacing, unable to stand still. "It's him. Whitmore. He must have said something to her. Done something."
"Romeo—"
"I need to know what he's doing. What he's saying to her. I need—" I stop, running my hand through my hair. "I need to see her. To talk to her. To make sure she's okay."
There's a long pause. Then Luca says carefully, "You're spiraling."
"I'm not spiraling. We talked. She opened up to me. And now suddenly she won't even look at me? Something happened."
"Maybe she realized getting close to you is a bad idea. Maybe she's trying to do the right thing—stay loyal to her fiancé, focus on her studies. Maybe she's pulling back because she knows getting involved with you would fuck up her life." Luca’s voice is flat.
“I could kill you for that.”
“Do you want unconditional support or do you want honesty?” He sounds unruffled, probably because he knows I’m not actually going to kill him. But I'm silent for several long moments, my jaw clenched so tightly it aches.
"Romeo," Luca says, his voice gentler now. "I know you care about her. I can see that. But you need to be careful. If you push too hard, you're going to scare her away. And if Dante finds out you're this obsessed with a Beauregard?—"
"I don't care what he thinks."
"You should. He's already suspicious. He knows something's going on with you. And if he decides you're becoming a liability to this family?—"
"Let him try." The words come out cold, flat. "I'm not giving her up."
"Be careful," Luca says finally, after another long moment’s silence. "Please. For both your sakes."
I hang up without responding.
The next morning, I'm at the coffee shop before she arrives. I order her drink before she walks in. I've watched her order it enough times to know exactly how she likes it. When she arrives, I'm sitting at a table near the window with two cups in front of me.
She sees me immediately. I watch her freeze in the doorway, and I see the conflict play across her face—the desire toturn around and leave warring with the desire to stay. She approaches slowly, and I can see the wariness in her eyes.
"Hi," I say, keeping my voice casual. "I got you a coffee. I hope that's okay."
She looks at the cup, then at me. "How did you know?—"
"You order the same thing every morning." I push the cup toward her. “I paid attention.”
For a moment, I think she's going to refuse it. Tell me this is inappropriate, that I shouldn't be here, that I need to leave her alone.
But then she sits down, wrapping her hands around the cup like she needs to hold on to something. I wish it were me. "Thank you," she says quietly.
"You didn't respond to my texts." I keep my tone neutral. "About the project. I was worried something was wrong."
"I've just been busy. A lot of reading to catch up on." She’s not meeting my eyes.
"Too busy to work on our presentation? It's due soon."
She takes a sip of her coffee, still looking at the table instead of at me. "We can work on it separately. Divide up the sections. It'll be more efficient that way."
"I thought we worked well together."
"We do. I just—" She stops, and I can see her searching for the right words. "I think maybe we've been spending too much time together. People might get the wrong idea."
"What people?"
