Chapter 12 Matteo
MATTEO
I've been walking the perimeter of this island for four hours and the staff are starting to look at me the way people look at something they've decided not to comment on.
Elara watched me cross the lower garden twice without saying anything.
Miguel found something very interesting to do with a rope when I passed the dock for the third time.
They're professionals. They'll keep it to themselves.
But they've noticed, and I've kept walking anyway because the alternative is sitting in the study pretending to read documents I stopped understanding the moment I stepped off the boat.
Santos has never been wrong about a scent. Not once in fourteen years. If he says it's her, it's her.
Which is how I end up with my jacket sleeve against the outer kitchen wall, every instinct I possess pointed at the open window above me, telling myself this is a reasonable thing to be doing.
Inside: a pan set down. Drawers. A knife on a board in a clean steady rhythm. Then her voice, low and warm, and my scent does something I have no interest in examining.
Then a different scent reaches me. Citrus soap. Fresh linen. Closing fast.
Fuck.
I push off the wall a second too late. Carmen rounds the corner with her clipboard and stops. We look at each other. Her eyes travel from my shoes to my face to the wall behind my shoulder, slow and deliberate, and I watch her file the whole thing away somewhere I will never have access to.
"Sir."
"Carmen." I straighten my jacket. It helps nothing.
She waits.
Go back inside, Carmen!
"I was just checking something," I say.
Then all of a sudden I have a really good idea.
"In the wall."
Which turns out to be a stupid one.
"Yes."
"What sort of thing?"
I have negotiated billion dollar contracts. I have sat across tables from men who wanted to destroy everything I built and smiled while doing it. "Seasoning," I say.
A pause. "In the wall."
"Yes."
"That doesn't seem healthy, sir."
From inside the kitchen, Jennifer laughs. Bright and sudden and completely familiar, landing somewhere in my chest before I can brace for it. Footsteps follow, moving toward the door.
Fuck.
Carmen's brows lift slightly. She hears them too. She looks at me. I look at the door. Neither of us moves for one excruciating second.
"I can have maintenance look at the wall," she offers pleasantly.
"That won't be necessary." I step back, catch the path edge with my heel, and very nearly go down in the shell gravel in front of the woman who manages my household. I recover. The recovery is not elegant.
Carmen doesn't move, but just watches me, as if she's getting a kick out of this, even if her expression is blank.
"I should go," I say.
"I think that would be wise, sir."
I walk. By the time I clear the corner I am moving at a pace that is technically not running only because I am Matteo Ferretti and there are lines.
Santos and Tomas are in the study. Santos looks up, takes one look at my face, and smiles slowly.
"Were you attacked by a bee? You look a mess!"
I don't even want to see my reflection right now. I can imagine, my shirt is sticking to me, because I was sweating like a sinner in church before I even started to walk. I was nervous about bumping into Jennifer, which is why I shouldn't have gone for a walk in the first place.
"Very funny."
Tomas sets his book down with the careful patience of a man who already knows this is going to be worth it. "What happened?"
I straighten my cuffs. "I was interrogated by Carmen while pretending to inspect the kitchen wall for seasoning."
Neither of them says anything, as I explain about looking up and down the stone wall, looking for seasoning. It sounded stupid the first time, and even worse this time around.
Then Santos laughs so hard he has to sit down.