I think about Elena.
I think about the arithmetic of this life, what you let matter and what it costs you when it does, whether any version of that equation ever comes out even.
It doesn't. I've run it enough times to know.
"Go home," I tell them. "We can talk about the rest tomorrow."
Matteo stands and puts a hand on my shoulder, brief and solid. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't need to.
They file out, these three men who are the closest thing I have to family, who have somehow managed to hold love and this life in the same hands without one destroying the other. Matteo with Alessia. Dante with Bianca. Enzo with Isabella. All of them finding their way through the wreckage to something that looks, from the outside, almost like peace.
I don't know how they do it.
I don't think it's something I need to figure out. I don’t think it’s something I can figure out.
I stop at the base of the stairs and look up toward the east wing. Dark and quiet.
She's going to be a problem,I think again.
I go upstairs.
CHAPTER FIVE
GIA
Okay so this is the master bedroom. His master bedroom. The room where he sleeps. Where we are apparently both supposed to sleep. Tonight. Together.
The room is enormous.
Of course it is, because nothing about this day has been remotely proportionate to what a normal human being can reasonably process, so naturally the bedroom is the size of my entire Paris apartment, all dark wood and high ceilings and a bed that could comfortably sleep four people.
The maid, a sweet-faced girl who cannot be older than twenty, is already moving toward me with the specific purpose of someone who has been briefed on what tonight is supposed to be and has come prepared to facilitate it.
Ugh, I need some time alone. I need to gather my thoughts and I don’t know—I just need to be alone.
She reaches for the buttons at the back of my dress. “I’ll help you take it off.”
"No. I've got it," I step away from her.
She hesitates. "Mrs. Caruso, I'm here to help?—"
"I appreciate that." I step forward and give her a smile because she doesn’t deserve to be at the receiving end of my terrible and snappish mood tonight. "I'd just like some privacy. Thank you."
She looks uncertain. She looks at the dress, at me, at the dress again, doing the mental calculation of whether the buttons at the back of my gown count as a one-person job.
They do not. I know this. I'm choosing to ignore it.
"Good night," I tell her with another smile, this one less genuine because I’m fucking tired of smiling.
She nods and goes.
The door clicks shut and I stand in the middle of Rafael Caruso's master bedroom in my wedding dress.
I take one long breath, then I get to work.
The buttons are tiny. There are approximately forty of them. Whoever designed this dress was either a sadist or deeply committed to the idea that a woman should never be able to undress quickly.
I cannot reach the buttons. I literally cannot reach the buttons. I should have let the maid stay. Do not think about the maid. You made your choice, now figure it out.
