Chapter 1 #4
Lucy, the younger one, is a slender thing with golden curls and a classic beauty that would make most men look twice.
Andreas can barely keep his eyes off her, and I watch him work his charm throughout the evening, leaning too close, asking too many questions.
Her brother Damiano watches Andreas with barely concealed hostility, his dark eyes tracking every move my cousin makes toward his sister.
Then there’s Ariana. She has dark, sleek hair and fine features. She sits beside me at dinner with perfect posture, answers my questions with careful, measured words, and barely touches her food.
Tommaso has practically begged me to give this a chance. Try to like her, he said. Just try. So I try. I study Ariana’s profile, the elegant line of her neck, the way candlelight catches in her hair. I wait for something to stir inside me. Interest. Attraction. Even curiosity.
I feel nothing. I haven’t felt anything in five years. Just the same bone-deep weariness that’s followed me since Italy. The same gray disconnect between me and the rest of the world.
Because she’s not—
I stop the thought before it forms.
Ariana doesn’t like me either. I can see it in the tension of her shoulders, and she won’t meet my eyes.
Mrs. Barone fills every silence with desperate chatter about her daughter. Ariana would make an appropriate wife. A strategic asset. A means of consolidating power, just like Tommaso said.
And I couldn’t care less.
Because when Ariana speaks, I hear another voice.
Soft and sweet, humming a lullaby while her fingers stroked through my hair.
When I look at Ariana, instead of her shiny hair, I see tresses that are long and untamed, parted in the middle and catching the sunlight in a garden.
Ariana clenches her fork, and I remember hands that cupped my face and traced patterns on my skin until I forgot what pain was.
Ariana Barone is beautiful and appropriate.
But she isn’t Mina.
No one is.
No one ever will be.
The dinner ends. Don Carlucci walks me to the door, already talking about future meetings and consolidating our families. I make some noncommittal noises and shake his hand.
Andreas lingers behind with Lucy, and I leave him to it. I have no energy for his games tonight. Damiano is watching my cousin with murder in his eyes, but that’s not my problem.
The drive home is silent. The rain has finally stopped, but the streets are slick and black, reflecting the city lights. Andreas can marry if he wants to. Tommaso can send my compliments and apologies to the Barones later. I don’t need to marry to secure power in Malus. I’ll do it on my own.
The mansion is dark when I return, the staff long since finished for the day. I head for the kitchen, wanting nothing more than a glass of cold water and the silence of an empty room.
But the kitchen isn’t empty. The housekeeper, Mrs. Santoro, is at the counter, wiping down surfaces that already gleam. She’s a woman in her fifties with steel strands among the brown, and she looks up when I enter. Her face creases into a warm smile.
My shoulders tense, and I halt in the doorway.
I’ve been avoiding her ever since I returned. Though she lives in a room at the top of the mansion, it hasn’t been difficult, because she has her own routine, her own domain, and I have little reason to cross paths with her. I’ve eaten meals at odd hours and kept my distance.
“Mr. Montoni.” She smiles at me, and I study her for any hint of tension or falseness. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. Can I get you something? A late supper?”
I hesitate, but it’s too late now. “Just water, please. Sparkling, if we have it.”
“Of course. Sit, sit.”
She fusses over me the way she did when I was a boy, sneaking into the kitchen after one of my father’s rages, hoping for a glass of milk and a few minutes of peace. She would press a cool cloth to my split lip, offering what small kindnesses she could.
I wonder if she hates me now.
She sets the glass in front of me with a smile, and there’s nothing in her eyes but kindness.
“How was your evening?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“You’ve been so busy lately. Are you sleeping?”
“Mm.”
She hovers, wiping her hands on a dish towel, clearly wanting to say more. She’s always been a talker. Mrs. Santoro fills silences the way her daughter used to fill the garden with humming.
I hold the glass between my hands and stare into it.
I shouldn’t ask. I’ve spent five weeks not asking, keeping my distance from the housekeeper and telling myself that nothing matters except my power as the Montoni don, and I didn’t come back to this city with her face burned into the backs of my eyelids.
I almost bought a canary diamond jewelry set worth seventy-five thousand dollars at a Barone auction because for a split second I could imagine Mina wearing them.
But Mina would recoil at being given expensive jewelry, and she would refuse anything from me on principle.
Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask.
But the question escapes before I can stop it. Casual. Offhand. “Is your daughter still in Malus?”
So much for not seeking her out and the promises I swore to myself.
Mrs. Santoro falters for just a second, and then she smiles. The warmth in her expression is a knife between my ribs. “Of course!” she exclaims, a touch too brightly. “Both my girls are. Rosa is married now. She has two little ones, a boy and a girl. They keep her busy.”
I nod and take a sip of water. I wait, my body racked with tension.
“And Mina has a son.”
The glass stops halfway to my mouth.
“She has a what?”
“A little boy. Such a sweet child. She’s a wonderful mother.” Mrs. Santoro is still smiling, oblivious to the way the room is crumbling around us.
A son.
Mina has a son.
Another man’s child. Another man touched her, held her, was inside her—
“How nice for Mina.” The words come out hoarse. I curl my fingers around the edge of the table. “What’s the boy’s name?”
“Leon.”
Leon. It’s perfect. I picture Mina with a dark-haired boy in her arms, smiling as she receives kisses from a faceless man. A beautiful, happy little family. The last five years stood still for me, but Mina ran toward them with open arms. She built a life without me.
“It’s late.” I stand, moving in a daze, wishing I’d never asked. The chair scrapes against the floor. “Thank you for the water, Mrs. Santoro.”
“Of course, Mr. Montoni. Sleep well.”
I walk out of the kitchen. Up the stairs. Down the hall to my room. I close the door behind me and stand in the darkness, my hand still on the knob.
For five weeks I told myself I wasn’t here for her. That she was incidental. That I had no hope left to lose. But there was an ember buried somewhere beneath the ash.
She has a son.
She let another man—
I press my forehead against the door and struggle to breathe through the tightness in my chest. I have no right to feel this suffocating jealousy. I put fear in her eyes, and she moved on.
But she was mine. She was mine.
Now she belongs to someone else, and I don’t even know where she lives.
My eyes snap open.
I shouldn’t.
I can’t.
I pull out my phone and dial Nico.
He answers on the second ring. “Boss?”
I stare at the door, jaw tight, willing myself to hang up.
“Boss?” he asks again, louder this time. “Are you there?”
“Have my housekeeper, Mrs. Santoro, followed,” I order. “I want to know everywhere she goes.”