She turns. Crosses the room toward me without being asked, without hesitation, moving through the space between us with her chin level and her expression composed, her eyes on mine the entire way. She reaches me and steps into my side, her hand coming to my arm, and she turns to face the room the way a woman stands beside a man when she has decided that is where she belongs.
“Hey baby, enjoying yourself?” She asks in a sweet voice and even manages to smile genuinely, like a woman in love.
I raise my brow slightly, but I smile. “Of course, I’ve just really missed you all night. Stay with me.”
She smiles even more. “Of course.”
The murmur resettles. Fontana's smile goes somewhere less certain.
I look down at her. She is looking at the room. The furrow between her brows is there, brief and private, the question she is filing away for later.
I say nothing.
I cover her hand on my arm with mine, once, briefly, and I feel her exhale through her nose beside me, small and controlled, and that is all.
The watching stops.
Gia glances up at me, a small furrow between her brows, a question she's filing away for later.
On the drive home she's quiet, sitting beside me with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the window. The evening sits between us, not uncomfortably, just present.
When we get home, I get out of the car, open the door, and wait for her.
She steps out and the night air hits her face and she closes her eyes for exactly one second, just one, like she's been holding her breath since we left Conti's estate and is only now letting it go. I watch it happen and I say nothing.
She takes three steps toward the entrance and stops.
She bends down, unbuckles one heel, then the other, and straightens up with both shoes hanging from two fingers at her side.
"What are you doing? I frown.
"My legs hurt." She starts toward the entrance in bare feet on cold gravel, not flinching, not slowing. "I don't have to pretend here." Then she raises her brow warily. “Or do I?”
Without saying a word, I reach out and take the heels from her hand.
She frowns at that but doesn’t say anything.
Why am I even doing this?
Carla appears at the entrance and I hold up the heels. "The slippers Mrs. Caruso uses. Here."
Carla is gone and back in under a minute. I take the slippers and crouch down in front of her, one knee on the cold stone, and I look up at her.
Her lips part.
I lift one foot by the heel and slide the slipper on, then the other, my thumb pressing briefly against the arch of her foot where the shoe has left its mark, and I feel her weight shift, just slightly, just enough to tell me she felt it too. I straighten up slowly and I'm close when I do, closer than I need to be, and she doesn't step back.
"Thank you," she says quietly. Like the words surprised her.
“Consider it your reward for being a good girl tonight.”
She turns to me. “What?”
“Your reward…”
“Never mind…”
We go upstairs.
