Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty Nine
Bianca
I wake up to quiet.
Not the hotel kind of quiet, but the old-house quiet that holds its breath and lets you hear your own. The shutters are mostly closed, just a slim seam of light slicing the room into soft shapes.
The air is cool on my face and warm under the covers; the sheets are heavy with that washed-cotton weight that makes you want to burrow and pretend the world stops at the edge of the mattress.
For a breath, I don’t remember where I am. I only know the pillow smells like sandalwood and something green, and that my body is loose and heavy. Achy.
Then memory turns the dimmer up, and the room clears up: high plaster ceiling with beams; the dark wardrobe with iron hinges; a chair with a shirt slung over the back like someone threw it there in a hurry; a pair of double doors that lead to the balcony, their latch caught, a thin slip of morning cutting around one edge. And the bed. Giovanni’s bed.
My hand slides over cool linen where his shoulder should be.
No heat. No weight. Just the ghost of last night clinging to the sheets and to my skin: rosemary and lemon, hot water and wine, the faint mineral scent of steam; his mouth at my throat; the press of his hands where I didn’t know I was aching until he touched me there and the ache turned into something else.
I breathe in. It’s stuck right behind my ribs—the rewind button that plays a reel I both want and don’t.
The kitchen. Laughing at the island. The way “Gio” felt in my mouth and in his body when he heard it.
The hot tub on the balcony, steam rising into the cold night, while his hands and mouth warmed me up as much as the hot water.
And after. The shower.
The way I let go, not because I forgot who I am, but because in that moment I wanted to set everything I am in the open and see what he did with it.
My cheeks go hot. I don’t need a mirror to see it. I can feel it under the skin, blooming at my ears, sliding down my throat.
What did I do?
The question spikes, sharp as a pin jabbed into a balloon. The softness around me compresses. I stare at the seam of light until my eyes sting and water a little, until I have to blink.
Shame is such a stupid, stubborn thing; it always shows up at dawn and washes memories in a different light.
I roll onto my back, and the sheet drags across my stomach. Everything is tender—not hurt, just used—the good kind of sore that says you were as alive as a person can be for hours. My thighs complain at the angle and then settle.
The base of my throat feels raw, a thin ache like the start of a cold that never arrived. I touch there and wince at the memory that touches back: how thoroughly he took my breath and how easily I gave it to him.
I hadn’t known that was a thing I wanted until it was the only thing. My throat remembers. So does the soft inside of my lower lip, swollen just enough to make me aware of it when I swallow. A spot high on my neck warms under my fingers—his mouth, later, bracketed by steam, while I let him.
While I begged him for more.
While I didn’t think about the next day, about my mother, about my position, about anything except the next yes.
There’s a part of me, the part that catalogs, that wants to itemize damage like I’ve cracked a vase: small bruise here, tenderness there, nail trace, shower fog, the print of a hand steadying me against tile.
But the bigger part—the honest one—knows “damage” isn’t the word. Not for last night. Last night was deliberate. Chosen. I gave what I gave and wanted it all the way down.
Which doesn’t stop the flush when the other voice shows up.
The one that wears a suit and carries a clipboard and writes on it with very neat block letters: He is Giovanni Conti.
Underboss of the Conti crime family and brother of Don Luca.
He holds your debt. He could make a call and end your world.
End your mother’s world. Nonna Sabina’s legacy.
What is wrong with you?
I sit up too fast, and the room lurches. So does my stomach. I shove the heel of my hand against my eye until stars jump, then drop it. Okay. Okay. Breathe.
I am not a child who wandered into a grown-up’s room because of all the pretty things.
I am not a reckless idiot who forgot the rent is due.
I am a grown woman who walked into a night with the most sober yes I have ever spoken in my life, and then spoke it again and again because it kept being true. That is one truth.
The other truth is the debt sitting between us, with my mother’s name on it. Both truths war for dominance. Neither is winning.
“What now,” I whisper to the ceiling. It doesn’t answer.
There’s a sensible version of the day. It looks like this: I get dressed. I wash my face until my cheeks sting; I brush my hair so my hands have something useful to do that isn’t touching him.
In this sensible version, I am calm and mildly witty, and when I look at him, I can file last night under “adults being adults” and keep my face neutral.
We go back to New Jersey. I work off my debt for the next few months. And once I do, I walk out the door and never see him again.
The thought makes me a little sick.
Yes. That’s what I have to do. I push the sheets and my doubts aside and swing my legs over the edge of the bed.
The floor is cool, and a slant of light spears across my foot. I curl my toes a little, then brace myself and get up. My legs wobble for a second, and I steel them.
I look around. My clothes are likely still downstairs somewhere. My cheeks heat again at the thought of a housekeeper finding them scattered across the kitchen. Then I’m mortified at the mess we left down there.
I never leave a kitchen messy. It’s a point of pride with me. I think about the state I would have to be in not to care.
I feel that stab of shame again as the image of me on my knees in the shower crosses my mind.
The way I eagerly took his balls in my mouth.
The way I begged him with my eyes to fuck my throat because I couldn’t form any words.
The salty taste of him as he came in my mouth, demanding I swallow every drop. And I did.
But it didn’t stop there.
I cover my face and nearly whimper with embarrassment at the things I let him do to me in this bed last night.
My pussy is sore, my knees, even my wrists, from when he used his belt to tie them to the bedpost…
I drop my hands. I have to get the hell out of here before he comes back. I can’t face him. Not again. Not in this room. The shame might actually kill me.
I look around again, but this time, I spot a robe draped over the end of the bed. Not the same one that Giovanni put me in after the hot tub or the shower. A different one.
It’s the kind of robe you see in glossy magazines–a dense, weighty material with a velour hand on the outside and a soft lining inside, collar wide and shawled, cuffs bound in a silky piping.
When I lift it, it drapes with that expensive heaviness that says the thread count makes it worth more than what’s in my bank account.
Even the belt is substantial, not the limp ribbon most hotels pretend is a belt.
I slide my arms in, and the lining kisses skin still tender.
It smells faintly of cedar and whatever they use on good linens—clean, not perfumed.
The seams are perfect; the pockets are deep.
I catch myself rubbing the edge of the cuff between finger and thumb, because my body recognizes quality even though I haven’t been able to afford it on my own.
It’s more luxurious than anything I’ve ever handled that didn’t belong to someone else’s kitchen, and the difference makes something inside me go very still.
Then the thought hits hard and mean: how many other women have stood right here in this robe, in this room, doing this exact mental math? How many other mornings were a repeat of this one? The meal, the wine, the hot tub, the look in his eyes. Mia, he said. But did he mean it?
The idea makes my stomach turn to lead. My face heats again, not from last night this time, but from the ache of being replaceable in a story I want to pretend is singular.
I shake my head once, sharply. Stop. That way lies a spiral with no bottom. I don’t know his history, and I don’t need to write it for him.
None of this is relevant. Whatever happened last night happened, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. All I can do is focus on the future. The debt, the work, my mother’s name, my nonna’s legacy.
I cinch the belt tighter, like I can tie those truths in place.
I tuck the cuffs up one turn so my hands are free and check the pockets as if they’ll yield courage. Nothing. Just really expensive fabric. I square my shoulders, inhale the clean cedar of the collar, and tell myself—out loud, barely—“Move.”
I cross to the door. My heart is ridiculous. I rest my palm on the latch and count to three. Then I count to three again because my hand won’t move. God, pull it together. I choke back the stupid, hot edge of tears and twist.
The door swings inward.
I jerk back hard enough that the belt bites my waist, a half-yelp caught in my throat. Giovanni fills the doorway, one hand on the latch he’d been turning, the other steadying a wooden tray.
He takes me in without rushing: robe, hair, the heat in my face, the way my hand is still curled against my chest, as if the latch burned me. His mouth curves, not exactly a smile. More like he knows what’s going on in my head.
I hate that he does that.
His eyes do that soft-focus thing that turns my spine into goo.
“Good morning,” he says, voice low.
“Hi,” I manage. Brilliant. Fluent. Stunning display of language. My voice sounds like sleep, and last night, and the shame that won’t decide if it wants to fight or hide.
He shifts the tray, not to fidget—he doesn’t fidget—but to bring attention to it.
The tray is like a still life: a steaming pot of coffee that smells like salvation, two cups and a little pitcher of hot milk, two short glasses of orange juice so bright they look fresh-squeezed, thick slices of last night’s bread with pats of butter tucked into waxed paper.
Two plates sit under domed lids; smoky and savory scents leak from under the edges.
A bowl of glossy cherries sitting in their own dark juice. They make memories of last night creep into my mind, and I shove them away.
“I was going to do this in bed,” he says, something like amusement warming the words. Is it possible he can actually read my thoughts? “But since you’re up, we can sit outside.”
“I was just going to… get dressed,” I say, voice too thin. “I can—”
“Eat first,” he says, mild but not a suggestion. He steps past me like we’ve done this a hundred mornings, sets the tray’s weight in his palm, and nudges the door closed with his heel. He doesn’t turn the lock. He doesn’t need to. The quiet click says enough.
He crosses the room toward the balcony, and that’s when I notice what he’s wearing: a robe, similar to mine but darker, heavier, cut for his build. Bare ankles. Bare throat. The tie sits low on his hips, and for one stupid, hot second, my knees feel unreliable.
Heat slips under the shame before I can shut it down. I don’t know what I’ll do if I stay. I don’t know what I’ll do if I run.
Would he be angry if I just walked out? He’s my boss. And a Conti. Contis don’t just fire employees who displease them.
I give the door one last look like it might offer me another option. It doesn’t. He’s already at the glass, pushing the doors open. Morning spills in bright and cool.
I follow him out because the air helps me breathe and because he’s already setting the tray on the small table by the railing, the vines throwing neat lines down the hill under a sun that’s higher than I expected.
The chill touches my calves. The robe is warm.
I sit because he pulls out the chair, because coffee is right there, because I don’t trust my legs around him.