His jaw tightens and he looks like he wants to say something but doesn't, and instead he just stands and offers me his hand and helps me out of bed.
We get dressed in silence and I can feel last night in every movement, can feel the ghost of his hands everywhere he touched me, and when I catch his eye in the mirror while I'm pulling my hair back he's looking at me with an expression I can't quite read.
We've been driving for an hour when the city starts to appear on the horizon, familiar and sprawling, and I know we're close to home, at the end of whatever this has been.
I'm awake now, sitting in the passenger seat, and I can't stop thinking about last night, about his hands, his mouth, the way he said my name, the way he made me feel things I didn't know were possible.
I shift in my seat and wince slightly and he glances over.
"Still sore?"
"Yes." I don't see the point in lying.
"I'll get you some ibuprofen when we get there."
"Enzo."
"Yeah."
"We can't tell anyone." The words come out before I've fully thought them through. "About last night. About any of it. We can't tell Matteo."
He's quiet for a moment, his hands tight on the wheel.
"I can't let you marry Vittorio," he says finally.
"I know."
"So we have to tell Matteo something."
"I know." I look at him. "But not like this. Not walking in and saying we slept together and ruined his alliance. We need a plan. We need to figure out how to tell him in a way that doesn't make him want to kill you."
He glances at me and something that might be a smile moves at the corner of his mouth. "You think talking will stop him from wanting to kill me?"
"No. But it might stop him from actually doing it."
The mansion appears ahead, massive and familiar, the gates already open like we're expected.
Enzo pulls through and parks and we both sit there for a moment, looking at the front door, at the end of whatever this was and the beginning of whatever comes next.
"We'll figure it out," he says quietly.
"Yeah." I unbuckle my seatbelt. "We will."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I'm fucked.
I should have fucking stayed away. But I can’t find it in me to regret this.
The gates of the compound close behind us and it feels heavier than it should, the familiar clang of metal on metal settling into the morning air like a period in a sentence I'm not ready to finish.
I put the car in park and kill the engine and sit there for a moment with my hands still on the wheel, looking at the mansion ahead of us, at the guards positioned at intervals along the perimeter, at the life we left behind a week ago that's been sitting here waiting for us to come back to it.
Isabella is already unbuckling her seatbelt, already reaching for the door, and I watch her move with the particular awareness I've had of her movements since last night, since I learned whatshe sounds like when she comes, since I felt her fall asleep in my arms.
I thought having her would make it better.
I was spectacularly, devastatingly wrong.
