I am an attorney. I know how to find things. I also know how not to look like I am looking for things. But Mario Conti is not exactly an easy man to research, not when half of what exists about his family is in Italian, and the other half is either corporate filings, sanitized business profiles, or vague references that made me feel like I needed three translators and a historical archive.
I know his wife died about ten years ago.
That is all I really know.
Not how.
Not what happened after.
Not what kind of life he had between then and now.
Not whether this house has held other women.
Not whether I am one in a line of many.
And I hate that I care.
I hate that I care so much that the question is burning through me.
Mario watches me for another moment.
Then his expression shifts.
He chuckles softly.
I stiffen. “What?”
“I have not been celibate, cara.”
My face catches fire.
“I did not ask that.”
“No. But you wanted to.”
“I absolutely did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
I glare at him, which is difficult to do while wrapped in his sheet and feeling intensely naked in every possible way.
He reaches up and brushes a loose strand of hair away from my cheek.
“I have simply not brought a woman home,” he says.
The heat inside me changes.
It does not leave. Not at all.
It deepens, warms.
“Oh.”
That is all I manage.
Oh.
Brilliant.
