20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Donna
I wake to the sound of my shower running.
For several seconds, I lie still beneath the comforter and listen through the door to the sound of water hitting the tile.
Lorenzo is still here.
I had expected him to leave after dinner.
We ate pasta at my kitchen table, finished most of the wine, and argued over whether his ability to identify cedar in a glass made him sophisticated or insufferable. Then he kissed me while I was putting the plates in the sink, and somehow we ended up back upstairs.
After that, I assumed he would dress and go home.
He has sons. A family. A house that had apparently been overrun by celebrating cousins. He did not strike me as the kind of man who woke up in unfamiliar beds without planning to.
Yet his clothes are still scattered across my floor, and he is using my shower as though this is a perfectly ordinary morning.
I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling.
Last night, before dinner arrived, I watched him stand barefoot in my backyard throwing a grimy ball for Mocha. His trousers were rumpled, and he was talking to my dog as though they were old friends.
Mocha adored him.
There was something strangely domestic about the sight. Lorenzo in my yard. Mocha racing back to him. Dinner on the way. Wine waiting inside.
It unsettled me more than the sex.
Sex is simple.
Bodies want things. People give in. Morning comes, and everyone resumes their lives.
This feels less simple.
This feels… domestic.
The shower shuts off.
I sit up and pull the comforter around myself, though Lorenzo has already seen everything I am covering.
Like… a lot.
The bathroom door opens a few moments later.
He walks out with a towel wrapped around his waist, another draped over his head as he rubs his hair dry. He looks completely at ease.
He lowers the towel and finds me watching him.
“Good morning.”
His voice is smooth and full of his usual charm. I’m suspicious.
“Is it?”
He glances toward the window. “The sun is up.”
“That is generally how morning works.”
He tosses the towel onto the chair and reaches for his trousers.
I watch him step into them.
He catches me looking.
“You can stare,” he says. “I don’t mind.”
“I was making sure you didn't steal any of my towels.”
“I have my own towels.”
“Why are you still here?”
The question comes out more directly than I intended.
He fastens his trousers and looks at me.
“Would you prefer that I leave?”
There is no challenge in his voice. No teasing.
He is giving me a simple choice.
I could tell him to leave.
Part of me wants to, because that would restore the rules I understand.
Instead, I say, “I expected you to.”
“That is different.”
He reaches for his shirt, examines the missing buttons, then sets it down again.
“You can’t wear that,” I tell him.
“The other option is no shirt at all. Which is not an option.”
“I disagree.”
His mouth curves. He walks to the bed and leans down, placing one hand beside my hip.
He kisses me once, slowly, as though he has every right.
I kiss him back before I can remind myself that he does not.
When he straightens, I tighten the comforter around me.
“You’re very casual about this.”
“About breakfast?”
“About waking up in my house.”
“I slept well.”
“I wasn't asking for a review of your stay.”
“I also enjoyed the accommodations.”
I throw a pillow at him.
He catches it and places it neatly back on the bed.
“Get dressed, Donatella.”
“Stop ordering me around.”
“Then remain naked. I have no objection. But be warned, I may not leave if that’s what you choose.”
He turns and walks out of the room.
I stare after him.
By the time I come downstairs in leggings and a loose shirt, he has found the coffee, the filters, and the mugs.
Mocha is sitting beside him.
Traitor.
Lorenzo looks over his shoulder as I enter the kitchen.
“Where do you keep the pans?”
I stop near the island. “Why?”
“I’m making breakfast.”
“You cook?”
He turns fully toward me.
“I’m Italian.”
“It's not a requirement.”
“It should be.” He opens the wrong cabinet, closes it, and tries the next one.
I point toward the lower cabinet beside the stove.
He finds a skillet and sets it on the burner.
“What do you have?” he asks.
“For breakfast?”
“If you would prefer lunch, I can skip ahead.”
I open the refrigerator and look inside.
“Eggs. Bacon. Some vegetables that might still be edible.”
“Bread?”
“Freezer.”
“You keep bread in the freezer?”
“I don't finish the whole loaf before it goes bad,” I say defensively. “Don't judge me.”
“I would never, cara mia,” he teases.
He moves through the kitchen without hesitation, pulling out what he needs and setting it on the counter. He finds a knife, a cutting board, and a bowl.
I pour coffee into two mugs and glance at him.
“How do you take it?”
“Black.”
“Of course.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It suits you.”
He chooses not to be offended, and I hand him a mug.
He takes a sip, then begins chopping peppers and onions with quick, practiced movements.
I lean against the counter and watch.
“You really can cook.”
“I said I could.”
“No, you implied genetics gave you the ability.”
“They helped.”
“That is still nonsense.”
He slides the vegetables into the skillet.
The smell of onion and bacon begins to fill the kitchen.
I know how to cook too.
My mother taught me.
She used to stand me on a chair beside the stove because I was too small to reach the counter. She would guide my hand while I stirred sauce and tell me that rushing ruined everything worth making.
The memory comes without warning.
I shut it down before it can open into anything else.
That was a long time ago. Before everything went to hell.
I have no interest in spending the morning there.
Lorenzo cracks eggs into the bowl and begins whisking them.
Last night, I told him about the Bureau. Julian. The case that should have launched my career and nearly ended it instead.
I gave him more than I intended.
This morning, I want the balance restored.
“Tell me about their mother.”
His hand stills, only for a second.
Then he resumes whisking.
I nearly wince at how blunt that was, but before I can try to correct my blunder, he asks, “Edoardo and Alessio’s mother?”
“Yes.”
He pours the eggs into the skillet.
“Gemma,” he says.
I wait.
He folds the eggs through the vegetables, his attention on the pan.
“She died twenty-three years ago.”
I calculate in my mind. That would’ve made Edoardo about four and Alessio about one.
I look at him. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
His face is composed, but the ease from a few minutes ago is gone.
“It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.” I know that better than anyone. “I shouldn't have asked. Please forget I did.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“It was leukemia,” he says quietly.
Mocha settles near his feet, sensing the shift.
“Can you put bread in the toaster, please?”
For a moment, I’m confused by the words, then I nod. He shifts to the side and begins cutting some fruit I didn’t realize I had.
“It moved quickly after the diagnosis,” he continues. “The treatment was difficult. She spent more time in hospitals than at home toward the end.”
He turns off the burner automatically when the eggs have set.
“It was painful,” Lorenzo says. “For her. For all of us.”
The toast pops behind me, and I turn to pull it free.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, quieter this time.
He divides the eggs between two plates.
“So am I.”
There is no bitterness in the words. Only the weight of something he has carried for more than two decades.
“Alessio probably doesn’t remember her much.”
“No,” he says. “Edoardo remembers pieces. Her voice. The perfume she wore. Alessio knows her through photographs and the stories we tell him.”
He sets the knife down beside the fruit.
“I made sure neither of them grew up believing she had simply disappeared.”
I think of Alessio standing in the warehouse after Rachel’s arrest. Lorenzo’s focus on him from the moment this began.
He lost their mother when they were too young to understand what was happening.
After that, he was the constant.
The protector.
The one who remained.
It explains more than he probably realizes.
“You raised them alone?”
“My family helped. My brothers. Their sons, once they were older. But they were mine to raise.”
He sets a plate in front of me.
“I made mistakes.”
“Every parent does.”
“You sound very certain.”
“I investigate people. Most of them are walking collections of mistakes.”
His mouth moves slightly.
“I tried to make sure they never doubted they were wanted,” he says.
The words hit me somewhere deep and still very much raw.
I look down at the plate before he can see too much in my face.
The eggs are folded with peppers, onions, bacon, and cheese. He pulled out butter for the toast, and even perfectly sliced the fruit.
“How about you?” he asks.
“What about me?” I toy with the food on my plate, not sure I’m in the mood to eat anymore.
“Do you remember your mother much?”
“I was ten,” I say. “Older than Edoardo was.”
Lorenzo waits.
“Yes, I remember her.”
My fork presses into the eggs without lifting any.
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”
His expression changes into one of sympathy, but he does not ask the obvious question.
I am grateful for that.
The memories I have of my mother are good ones. That is part of the problem. They make everything that came after so much worse by comparison.
“What about your father?”
“He…” I clear my throat. “How did you put it? He simply disappeared. When my mom told him she was pregnant. Just… poof. Neat trick, huh?”
“Coward.”
The word is absolute and full of menace.
I look up at him.
There is anger in his face now, but none of it is directed at me.
“My mother said we were better off without him,” I say.
But then she died and left me alone.
He seems to read my mind.
“What happened after she passed? You had no other family?”
“No, I did. Big Italian family.” I take a bite to give myself something to do. I taste none of it. “But I was a difficult child. I got into trouble a lot.”
“You were grieving.”
“I was inconvenient,” I say. “There is a difference when you are the one being passed around.”
His fork goes still.
“Passed around?”
“An aunt for a while. Then an uncle. A cousin after that.” I force myself to swallow. “Everyone meant well, at least in the beginning. After a while, everyone decided someone else might be better equipped to handle me.”
“They passed you from one relative to another?”
I give him a small, humorless smile. “Big families are useful that way. There is always another house.”
His expression hardens.
“Donatella.”
“Don’t,” I say, and my warning is a little too sharp. “I’m over it.”
“You are not.”
“I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Lying to yourself is a waste of energy.” He sets down his fork. “And you, of all people, should know that.”
I look up at him. “And what exactly do you expect me to do with it now?”
“Be angry.”
A short laugh escapes me. “What good would that do?”
“It would get it out.”
My fingers tighten around the fork.
“I'm not interested in going back there.”
“I'm not telling you to fixate on it,” he says. “But I think you swallowing it and calling it peace hasn’t helped.”
“And what would help?” I ask. “Screaming at people I haven’t spoken to in years?”
“No. But maybe screaming in general would. Getting it out. Cursing them, even if they’re not here to hear it.”
I shake my head.
“They made you believe your pain was a problem, and you have been carrying that lie ever since.” His voice softens, but the anger remains in his eyes.
I look down at my plate.
For years, I have called it discipline. Survival. Maturity.
Anything but pain.
Then I shake my head. “I was a lot to deal with.”
“Yes, you were,” he says angrily. “You were ten, and your mother died. Of course you were difficult. You were supposed to be difficult. You were angry and frightened and impossible, and you had every right to be. The adults around you were supposed to understand that.”
My throat tightens.
“They lost her too.”
“She was your mother. It wasn’t the same.”
I look away because I cannot argue with that.
I lost the person who tucked me into bed every night. Who knew when I was lying and when I was scared. Who made me feel as though there would always be one place in the world where I belonged.
“They were adults,” Lorenzo says. “And you were a child.”
Something in me gives way at the words.
I blink hard and reach for my coffee, but my hand is unsteady enough that I leave the mug where it is.
“What changed?” he asks.
“It didn't,” I say. “I finished school, got into a good college, and never looked back.”
“That was not peace,” he says quietly.
“No,” I admit. “It was leaving before anyone could send me away again.”
“And then you continued that pattern into the FBI,” he says.
This time, anger surges up into me, but before I can blast it at him, he holds his palms out in surrender.
“I understand that situation was different. You had to get out before they could send you away,” he says. “But I don't think it helped, being back in a similar situation.”
My anger trips and stalls.
He is right, and I resent him for seeing it.
“They were going to take everything from me,” I say.
“I know.”
“So I left first.”
“Yes.”
The quiet agreement takes some of the fight out of me.
I look down at my hands.
“I thought getting out before they could ruin me meant I had won.”
“Maybe it did,” he says. “But winning does not mean it did not hurt you.”
I stare at him.
“I survived it.”
“You did.”
“I built something better.”
“You did that too.”
His agreement leaves me with nowhere to direct the anger.
I look down at my plate again. “Then what do you want from me?”
“Nothing.” His voice is quieter now. “I want you to stop treating what happened to you as proof that leaving is always safer than staying.”
My chest twists.
His gaze holds mine across the table.
“Because one day,” he says, “you might be tempted to leave someone who would never send you away.”