6. Casey #2
I feel it immediately, the way my shoulders tighten before I can stop them.
Adriano also notices as his body moves closer, as if to shield me.
Of course he notices.
His gaze drops briefly toward my bag before lifting back to my face. “You’re popular today,” he says.
The comment is light, but there’s observation sitting quietly underneath it. “Apparently.”
I hate how careful my voice sounds.
Letty is already tugging on my hand again. “We got pastries.”
“Did you?”
“And Daddy said I could have hot chocolate.”
Adriano sighs heavily beside her. “I said one small hot chocolate.”
“She heard the important part,” I say with a smile that feels more forced now.
“I’m beginning to realize that.”
The phone buzzes.
Goddammit, Jasper, catch a clue.
This time Letty notices too.
She wrinkles her nose. “Your phone is annoying.”
A startled laugh escapes me. “You’re not wrong.”
“You should tell it to stop.”
If only it were that easy.
I pull the phone from my bag long enough to switch it to silent, but the second the screen lights up, my stomach twists again.
Three missed calls now.
Another message.
Please, Casey.
I lock the screen before either of them can accidentally see the name.
When I look up, Adriano is watching me with that same unreadable steadiness that always makes me feel slightly overexamined. “You okay?” he asks.
The question is simple.
Gentle, almost.
Which somehow makes lying harder. “Fine. It’s a spam call.”
Too quick.
I hear it myself.
His expression doesn’t change, but something in his posture stills slightly, like he’s filing the answer away for later. “You should block the number.”
“Yes, I will when I get home.”
Adriano watches me as if looking for the lie.
Thankfully, Letty interrupts before the silence stretches too long. “Come with us,” she demands.
“To where?”
“The bookstore. They sell books and hot chocolate. It’s my favorite.”
“That sounds dangerous,” I tell Adriano. “She’ll financially ruin you.”
“Oh, she tries daily.”
“That’s because I’m cute,” Letty explains. “Uncle Matteo told me.”
I press a hand dramatically to my chest. “Your uncle Matteo is right again. This is getting concerning.”
Letty beams and grabs my hand before either of us can object properly.
Looks like I’m going to the bookstore with them, and I’m not mad about it.
The bookstore is small and warm and smells like paper and coffee, with uneven wooden shelves packed too tightly together. Letty disappears almost immediately toward the children’s section while Adriano follows at a slower pace behind her.
I linger near the front for a moment, pretending to examine a display table while checking my phone again.
Six messages now.
My chest feels tight.
You owe me a conversation.
I said I was sorry.
You can’t throw away three years over one mistake.
That makes me even angrier, because how could I have spent so much time with a man who views his child as a mistake? It’s revolting.
The last message arrives while I’m staring at the others.
I still love you.
Something hot and furious twists through me so suddenly it almost makes my vision blur.
Love.
As if love and betrayal can somehow cancel each other out.
“Casey?”
I look up too fast. Adriano stands a few feet away holding a stack of books while Letty sits cross-legged on the floor beside him reading upside down.
“You disappeared.”
The words are casual.
His eyes aren’t.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, locking the phone again. “I was distracted.”
“I noticed.”
Heat crawls up my neck. God, I hate being observed this closely. Before I can think of something else to say, the phone starts ringing again.
Not vibrating.
Ringing.
Loud enough this time that even Letty looks up from her book.
I stare at the screen.
Jasper.
Again.
My thumb hesitates for half a second before I answer, mostly because if I don’t, I know he’ll keep going.
“Excuse me,” I murmur, already stepping away.
I can feel Adriano watching me as I move toward the back corner near the travel section.
“Casey.”
Jasper’s voice slides through the speaker, warm and familiar and instantly unbearable. “What?”
“You finally answered.”
“I’m at a bookstore.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I close my eyes briefly. “What do you want?”
“To talk to you.”
“We are talking.”
“You know what I mean.”
A couple walks past me, laughing quietly to themselves while I grip the edge of a bookshelf hard enough that my fingers ache.
“You lied to me for months. You have a child you hid from me. We have nothing to talk about.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
I let out a disbelieving laugh under my breath. “You had a child, Jasper. An actual human being.”
Silence crackles briefly through the line.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“No,” I say quietly. “You just knew exactly how not to.”
“Casey—”
“I have to go.”
“Please don’t do this.”
My throat tightens unexpectedly. “Don’t do what?”
“Shut me out.”
The audacity of that almost makes me laugh again. “You lost access to me when you lied to my face every day for months. It’s over. Don’t contact me again.”
I hang up before he can answer.
For a second, I stand there staring blindly at the blurred titles in front of me while my heart pounds far too hard for a conversation I never wanted to have in the first place.
Then I switch the phone off completely.
Not silent.
Off.
The quiet afterward feels immediate, as does the weight lifting from my shoulders.
When I turn, Adriano is standing at the end of the aisle with Letty balanced against his hip, one small arm wrapped around his shoulders while she flips lazily through a picture book. But his eyes are on me.
He doesn’t ask what happened.
Doesn’t ask who it was.
But something in his expression has changed slightly, the careful neutrality edged now with awareness.
“That was…”
“You don’t have to explain,” he says quietly.
Relief hits me so suddenly it almost hurts.
Which is ridiculous.
He’s my employer.
Not my friend.
Certainly not the kind of man I should feel safe around.
And yet. “Thank you,” I say softly.
Letty holds up her book between us. “This dragon has two heads.”
Adriano’s gaze stays on me for one second longer before shifting down to her. “That seems excessive.”
“I think it’s efficient,” I murmur.
His mouth almost curves again.
Then he adjusts Letty more securely against his chest and nods toward the front of the store. “Come on,” he says. “You can help us decide whether we need twelve more books.”
“We definitely do,” Letty informs him.
And before I can stop myself, I follow them.