Aria's POV
I wake up with his arm around me.
The room is still half dark and Rome is just starting to make noise outside and the lamp on the nightstand is off now and I do not remember turning it off which means he did it while I was sleeping.
I lie still for a moment.
Just breathing.
Just feeling the weight of his arm across my waist and the warmth of him against my back and the specific quiet of a room that has two people in it who are both pretending to be asleep.
He is not asleep.
I know the difference now.
"I can hear you thinking," he says. Low and rough from actual sleep this time.
"I am not thinking about anything," I say.
"You are always thinking about something."
I turn over.
He is looking at me already. Dark eyes in the grey morning light. Hair undone. His face is in this unguarded state that I do not think many people have ever seen and I feel something tighten in my chest that I do not have a clean name for yet.
"Good morning," I say.
"Good morning," he says.
His hand moves to my face.
His thumb traces my cheekbone the way it always does and his eyes move over me slowly and I let him look because I have stopped pretending I do not want him to.
Then I remember the message.
I sit up.
His hand falls.
He watches me push my hair back and pull my cardigan from the nightstand and wrap it around myself and I feel his eyes on my back the whole time.
"What is it," he says.
"Nothing."
"Aria."
"I said nothing."
He sits up.
He is patient in the specific way he is always patient. Like he has decided something and is giving me the space to arrive at the same place in my own time.
I pick up my phone.
I open the message from last night.
I turn the screen toward him.
He reads it.
One second.
Two.
His expression does not change.
"Where did this come from?" I ask.
"Unknown number," he says.
"I can see that. Who sent it?"
He takes the phone from my hand and looks at it again and his jaw does the tight thing and he puts it down on the nightstand face down.
"Random messages," he says. "People find numbers. They send things to cause trouble."
I stare at him.
"Random," I say.
"Yes."
"Someone sent me a message about a woman in Naples and it is random."
"People know I travel to Naples for business." He holds my gaze. "Enemies look for ways to get inside your head. This is one of them. It means nothing."
I look at his face.
I look at it the way I have learned to look at it.
He is not flinching. Not shifting. His eyes are steady and direct and completely certain.
And that is the problem.
Dante is always certain.
Even when he is lying.
I do not know if he is lying right now.
That is worse than knowing.
"If there is something to tell me," I say quietly. "Tell me."
"There is nothing to tell," he says.
The room is very quiet.
He reaches across and takes my hand.
His fingers wrap around mine warm and familiar and he looks at me with those dark eyes and says, "I came back to you. That is what matters."
I look at our hands.
I look at his face.
And I choose to believe him.
For now.
I choose it the way you choose something you know might cost you later but cannot stop yourself from wanting today.
He leaves for his office at eight.
He kisses my forehead at the door
Then my mouth. Slow and certain. His hand at my jaw the way it always finds my jaw like it belongs there.
When he pulls back his eyes hold mine for one moment longer than necessary.
Then he is gone.
Elena appears at eight fifteen with coffee and pastries and the expression of someone who has already talked to people this morning and knows more than she is going to say all at once.
She hands me a cup and drops into the armchair and looks at me carefully.
"You look like you slept," she says.
"I did," I say.
"And?"
"And nothing, Elena."
She sips her coffee.
"He told me he came back early," she says casually.
"He did."
"He never comes back early."
"You said that before."
"I am saying it again because it is worth saying twice." She tilts her head. "Are you okay?"
I look at my cup.
"I got a message last night," I say. "Unknown number. About a woman in Naples."
Elena goes very still.
I watch her go still and that stillness tells me everything she is not going to say out loud.
"He said it was random," I say. "People trying to get inside my head."
She does not say anything.
"Elena."
"He came back early," she says carefully. "Whatever else is true. He came back early and he went straight to you." She meets my eyes. "Hold onto that."
"That is not an answer."
"No," she says quietly. "It is not."
We sit quietly in the morning and drink our coffee and I think about the message and his face when he read it and the specific way he said it means nothing.
Like a man who has practiced saying that before.
Two days pass.
Life in the palazzo settles back into its rhythm.
Nico calls from the garage. He went home four days ago but he calls every morning and asks questions that are not really questions. How are you? Is everything okay? Is he treating you right? His voice carries all the things he does not say directly.
Sofia texts in a stream of messages that makes me laugh at my phone in the garden.
Tell me you are eating.
Tell me you are sleeping.
Tell me the Don is not keeping you locked in a tower.
Actually if the Don looks like I imagine the Don looks I would stay in the tower.
ARIA TEXT ME BACK.
I text her back.
I tell her I am fine.
I do not tell her about the message.
On the third day Dante takes me to the Moretti building in the city.
His empire in glass and steel. Thirty floors of power dressed as legitimate business.
I wear a dress the color of deep wine that appeared at my door that morning without explanation and fits like it was made specifically for me which I am choosing not to think too hard about.
His office is on the top floor.
After the meeting he brings me there.
The room empties. The door closes. The city spreads out below us through floor-to-ceiling windows and he comes to stand behind me and his hands find my waist and his mouth finds my neck and I close my eyes.
"Dante," I say softly.
"Mm."
"Someone could walk in."
"The door is locked." His lips move to my shoulder. "And I told Marco I was not to be disturbed."
"You planned this."
"I thought ahead," he says. "There is a difference."
I turn around.
He is right there.
Suit. Dark eyes. The city behind him like it belongs to him.
I reach up and pull him down to me.
He kisses me slow and deep and his hands slide down my back and I forget the meeting and the building and thirty floors of Rome below us.
His hand moves to the hem of my dress.
His fingers trail up my thigh and I gasp against his mouth and grip his jacket and his forehead drops to mine.
"You are going to ruin me," he breathes.
"You started it," I say.
He makes a low sound.
He kisses me again and the city watches from outside and neither of us stops.
We are in the car going back.
The partition up.
His hand on my knee.
I am looking at the city through the dark window and feeling warm and reckless and happy in the specific terrifying way that happens when you are standing close to the edge of something and you know it and you stay anyway.
"Stay with me tonight," he says. "My room."
I look at him.
"I have been staying with you every night," I say.
"My room," he says again. Like there is a difference.
There is a difference.
I feel it.
"Okay," I say.
His hand tightens on my knee.
We pull through the palazzo gates.
And I see her.
Standing near the entrance with Signora Ferrara.
Vittoria.
In a silk blouse and tailored trousers with her dark hair swept back and a smile that she turns toward the car as it pulls up.
I feel Dante is still beside me.
His hand leaves my knee.
"What is she doing here?" I say.
"I do not know," he says. And he sounds like he means it.
We get out.
Vittoria's eyes find mine first.
Then she looks at Dante and her smile changes into something warmer and she moves toward him and her hand goes to his arm the way it always goes to his arm.
"Dante." She leans up and presses her cheek to his. "I am glad you are back. We need to talk." She glances at me sideways. "Privately."
He looks at her.
He looks at me.
Something in his expression says this is not a conversation he wants to have and also not one he can avoid.
"Give me a moment," he says to Vittoria.
He turns to me.
He takes my hand and squeezes it once and looks at my face with those eyes that always say more than his mouth does.
"I will find you," he says quietly.
"Take your time," I say.
My voice comes out perfectly fine.
I go inside.
Behind me I hear Vittoria say his name again. Softer this time. The tone of someone who has been waiting to get him alone.
I do not look back.
But I feel it.
The whole way up the stairs.
Something is happening behind me.
Something she planned.
And whatever it is, it has been building for a long time.
I find an envelope under my door.
White. No name on the front.
I pick it up.
I open it.
Inside is a single photograph.
Printed. Clear. Taken from a distance but close enough.
Dante.
Naples.
A hotel corridor.
A woman in a red dress with her hand in his.
Walking through a door together.
I stand in my doorway and look at it and feel something break open in my chest that is not quiet about it at all.