Page 29 of Jude

‘I’m OK,’ I called out, dashing tears from my eyes.

I slipped from the generous bed and padded to the door, opening it an inch.

He stood tall, looming over me, in a vest and shorts that did nothing to hide his hard, muscled shoulders, bulk, ink, and heat.

His eyes peered down at me, still half shut with sleep, hair wild across his brow.

A wild need rose in me to reach a hand out to smooth it away from his eyes.

‘You sure you’re fine?’

I shrugged, holding myself tight around the middle, well aware my threadbare pajamas were sad-looking, as perhaps all of me was.

‘Bad dream,’ I murmured. ‘Thank you for checking in on me.’

He gave me a skeptical look, then jerked his sculpted chin.

‘Anytime,’ he rasped.

‘Sorry for waking you.’

‘Please don’t apologize, it’s 6 a.m., just go back in and rest. OK?’

I nodded and backed into my room as he prowled to his, across the hallway.

Damn, I woke him, and he didn’t look pleased about the fact.

I retreated inside and, unable to sleep, I spent a few hours reading some of Maggie’s books from a shelf in the guest suite.

I made it downstairs at 10 a.m., and for the duration of Maggie’s birthday weekend, I became a quiet fixture of the family gathering.

I found safety in corners as the noise of celebration rose around me.

When the relatives crowded the long wooden patio tables on Saturday afternoon, passing bowls of grilled corn and pickled onions, the questions inevitably came.

Where was I from?

Where was my family?

How was I an orphan?

I explained how a catastrophic mudslide buried our entire valley, taking our home and killing both of my parents in the middle of the night.

‘So you’ve been on your own since then, sweet girl?’ one of the aunts, Rabina, asked as she squeezed lime juice over her shredded pork.

‘No, signora. My mother’s sister took me in and raised me with my cousin Anya in Calabria.’

To her point, though, I had lived alone for the last five years.

Five years after moving from Calabria to Naples for TV work, my acting career collapsed. With no jobs left in the city, I journeyed north.

I settled in Milan, close to the industrial suburbs of Sesto San Giovanni, Cinisello Balsamo, and Cologno Monzese.

I worked shifts in hotels, laundromats, factories, and bakeries, and cleaned hospitals.

I stayed in touch with my friends through WhatsApp and with my older brothers scattered across Europe as much as possible.

But in essence, I survived alone and had done so for many years.