20. Silent Treatment
Silent Treatment
Salvatore
“May I assist you with something? A new hobby, perhaps?”
I smirk into my caffè at Alfonso’s heavy sigh. Bianca has been following him around for days, for human interaction that doesn’t involve me. I can’t get her to utter a single word, and Alfonso can’t get her to go away.
“Do you need help with anything?” She shuffles around the dining table, ignoring me. “Polishing silverware or cleaning crystal?”
Alfonso raises an eyebrow. “Do I look like I belong in a historical drama?”
A loud cackle winds its way through Bianca’s snort. The serveware in this house isn’t cheap, but I’m not hosting dinners with monarchs. The women I fuck eat separately. Bianca is the only person to require an additional table setting and still give me her ass to kiss.
For three days, she’s treated me like a stranger in my own house.
I enjoyed her playing hard to get at first until I realized she wasn’t playing.
She won’t talk to me or look at me. Meals are the only time we’re in the same room, which I forced to break her silent treatment.
The TV in her room with streaming services, a new wardrobe, and new bedding. Nothing works.
Ignoring me is a dangerous game that usually ends with loss of life or a few limbs. Anyone else would cower because of my reputation, but not her. Bianca doesn’t give a damn who I am. The fact alone intrigues me, alongside her ability to be content no matter the circumstances.
I watch her throughout the day, which is how I end up at my desk with the kitchen security feed on my laptop.
“Are you finished?” Alfonso points toward her plate.
“Yes, thank you,” she says, patting her stomach through the sundress I bought her. The orange pattern glows against her honey-brown skin. “The sauce was incredible. Did you make it here?”
Alfonso’s lips tilt. “It’s homemade.”
Nonna made sucu for me on the weekends and holidays I stayed with her. The sauce is her recipe I make whenever I get time to cook. Bianca would go on a hunger strike if she knew the food she ate was mine.
“Salvatore isn’t bad once you get to know him,” my butler says, catching me and Bianca by surprise. It’s the first time I’ve heard him use my name and not that “Sir Bennici” bullshit.
“Life has forced him to become who he is. He’s guarded but cares deeply for the people he loves.”
“You talk like you’ve known him most of his life,” Bianca says.
He has.
Alfonso sold produce in the same Palermo market as my parents’ shop. I was a boy then, far from the twenty-five-year-old who’d killed the Preda members who slaughtered his wife and child over a gambling debt. Behind his polished and reserved manner is a man who is still forgiving himself.
“Give him a chance, Ms. Harris. He’s reasonable, but only for so long.” Alfonso grabs a wine bottle from the small refrigerator.
“Reasonable my ass,” Bianca mutters.
A smile cracks through his exterior. “Do you need anything else before I leave?”
“Go on your date, Alfred.”
I frown at the screen.
He sighs. “It’s not a date.”
“A convening with aftershave then.” She grins. “No butler I know walks around his place of employment in sandals with his feet out. Manicured toes with no crust or snaggletooth nails.”
Alfonso switched out of his linen two-piece set for pleated trousers and a knit polo. A gold chain—that matches his watch and pinky ring—peeks from under his collar.
Where is he going?
Bianca follows him out of the kitchen. I track her down the hall on the cameras and suck in a breath when she stops in front of my office. Her nose wrinkles and her lips purse in a quiet succession of mumbles.
My phone rings.
“Yes?”
“Will you be at the port today?” Giulia, one of my assistants, asks.
I’ve worked remotely this week to stay close. I sigh when she lowers her head and walks away.
“I’ll be there around three.” That gives me time to transport Dante. I want him to sweat for a couple more days.
“You have a call in ten and another in an hour. I emailed the fourth-quarter projections for reference.”
“Thank you, Giulia.” All of my businesses require my attention. There’s no time for distractions, but I can’t take my eyes off her.
I switch the video feed to the camera in her room. She’s bored but refuses to admit it. I’ve given her time to adjust, but I’m not a patient man. If she won’t talk to me, I’ll force her hand.
“Let the games begin.”