Chapter 36 Giovanna
Giovanna
The restaurant hums with conversation, silverware clinking against porcelain, warm light fractured by the chandeliers and candle holders.
It’s fall, and Tommy sits across from me at dinner, gorgeous in the navy suit I had made for him.
It’s working on him, but there’s something about it that seems wrong, that I can’t quite put my finger on.
He looks comfortable, like he belongs here.
He responds to the wait staff with pleasant smiles, makes eye contact with people he knows, giving a friendly wave when it’s appropriate.
Gone is the guy who used to fidget uncomfortably, wanting to leave, the guy who used to stare at me because he couldn’t bear to look away, who barely grunted if he spoke at all to those who tried to make pleasantries.
He’s sharper than he was, more polished.
His lack of presence with me is making me very fucking uncomfortable.
When Paisley Wallace, a real estate investor, sees Tommy from across the room, she makes a beeline for him, and he smiles at her without the usual groan under his breath or glance of irritation at me.
“Tommy,” she says, laying her hand on his arm like they’re best friends.
“I heard you were the one who cracked that zoning loophole for the councilman. Brilliant.”
Tommy tips his head, his smile growing in a way that makes my stomach twist. Smooth.
Easy. “You give me too much credit. Donovan saw it first.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Tommy.
” She laughs, soft and practiced and leans just close enough that her cloying perfume coils around our table.
He doesn’t pull away, which I don’t like.
Instead, he leans back, relaxed, his eyes bright while she glances at me as if to include me in the ‘how cute is he’ energy she’s sending him.
I do not smile back.
The most irritating thing?
He’s fucking lying. I’m the one who sat up late with him, spread out maps and codebooks, watched him put the pieces together.
It wasn’t Donovan. It was Tommy.
Even worse, there are zero tells.
I only know he’s lying because I was there.
I know Tommy better than anyone, and I honestly cannot tell that he’s lying.
The air between them hums with a subtle charge.
There’s professionalism, but it’s laced with something else, something spicy.
His tone is too warm, her smile too familiar.
I wait for him to shut it down, to redirect, to remember I’m sitting here.
But he doesn’t. He plays the game perfectly, as if this woman is the only person at the table.
I press my nails into my palms.
This is what I taught him.
This is the skill set he needed to be successful.
So why do I feel like I want to slam her face into the table and throw my drink in his lap?
When she finally leaves, a hand lingering on his shoulder, Tommy turns back to me, unbothered, with that same smile, that weird fake smile that lacks the depth of intensity in his eyes that made me fall in love with him.
He is trying to read my expression. “She just wants something from Donovan. It’s not a big deal.
”
“She wasn’t looking at you like she wanted zoning favors.
” My voice is sharper than I intend.
His grin doesn’t falter.
If anything, it softens into something practiced, soothing.
“Nothing for you to worry about, sweet girl.”
He couldn’t have irritated me more unless he’d said, ‘Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.’
My man doesn’t lie, and I stare at him, searching for some kind of tell, that twitch in his jaw when he’s holding back or the shadow in his eyes when he’s trying to protect me from something he doesn’t want me to know about.
But there’s none of that. He’s polished.
Smooth. Unreadable.
Terrifying.
It’s not the woman I’m jealous of.
It’s that I can’t tell anymore if the man across from me—the man I love—is lying when he smiles at me.
He chuckles, that maddening velvet sound, and reaches for his glass of wine.
“It’s just politics, Gi.”
But the way he says it—smooth, deflecting, almost patronizing—makes me scream at him.
I lean in, keeping my voice low. “You think I don’t know the difference between politics and flirting?
”
His smile softens as he tilts his head at me.
It’s a gesture he’s always done, but tonight it looks calculated, rehearsed.
“You don’t have to worry about me, Gi. Not ever.
”
His words should soothe me. Once, they would have.
But I can’t see him anymore. The smile is too perfect, the words too even.
No intensity in his voice or in his eyes.
“Do you hear yourself?” I whisper. “You sound like…like a politician.”
That makes his smile widen, like I’ve complimented him.
The fury spikes hot in my chest. “That’s not good, Tommy.
I don’t want to be with some polished mask smiling at me like I’m an audience you’re trying to win over.
I want you.”
For the first time, his smile falters for a second, his jaw flexed, his hand tight around his wine glass.
But just as quickly, the smile is back in place.
“Gi,” he says softly, but the softness feels rehearsed too.
“This—all of this—is for you. Don’t you see that?
”
And my heart breaks a little right there, because I do see it.
I see him burying every jagged edge of himself to build a future for me.
But I miss those jagged edges.
I miss him.