When he lifts his head, I'm flushed and breathing a little hard.
"You monster," I groan.
"I think you like it."
"That is beside the point."
He kisses me once more, and his expression grows serious.
“Victoria.”
“Mario,” I say quietly.
“I may not have all the answers,” he says. “I may not know where we stand just yet or where we’ll end up.”
I stare into his deep, dark eyes. “Neither do I.”
“But I really want to find out,” he continues.
“So do I.”
And for right now, it’s enough.
Chapter Thirty Four
Mario
For three days, Victoria has slept in my bed.
Not the guest suite. Never again.
Where I can feel it the moment before she opens her eyes. Where she can wake from a nightmare, find me there, and fall back asleep curled against me.
The last few days have been different from the ones before them in every single way.
Before, there were locked doors between us. Not physical ones. Victoria had been in my office, in my conference room, at my table, in my bed, but she had kept pieces of herself hiddenbehind professional restraint and sharp intelligence and the kind of caution I understood too well to resent.
Now, there is very little she does not ask.
And very little I do not answer.
Full transparency, she called it, after sitting across from me at breakfast with dark circles beneath her eyes, a piece of toast in her hand, and my sons pretending with insulting failure not to watch every bite she took.
Full transparency.
As if such a thing is simple.
As if my life is not built on closed mouths, hidden rooms, carefully separated ledgers, and truths that survive only because they are shared by as few people as possible.
But for Victoria, I have tried.
No. That is not true.
For Victoria, I have done it.
When she asks about my father, I answer.
When she asks about Naples, I answer.
