Chapter Twenty-Seven
MARCO
Gio and Lucia return from Prince Street holding hands.
I see their arrival on the security cameras.
The afternoon sun flattens the image, bleaching the drive and throwing long shadows beneath the vehicles. Dario exits first, carrying several folders and a paper bag from a restaurant. Lucia follows with the canvas bag over one shoulder.
Gio comes last.
Her fingers are intertwined with his.
Neither appears concerned about who might see.
Lucia says something as they cross the drive. Gio bends his head toward her, smiling. She tightens her hold on his hand when he answers.
I stand beside the monitor until they disappear beneath the camera mounted above the entrance.
Then I return to my desk and read the same line of a financial report four times.
Jealousy isn’t entirely unfamiliar to me.
Gio and I have wanted the same things for most of our lives.
The same toys.
The same freedoms.
Occasionally, the same women.
But we learned young that jealousy consumes more than it protects. Sharing was often easier than fighting over something neither of us truly intended to keep.
Lucia is different.
Not because she’s my wife.
A piece of paper signed under duress doesn’t make her mine.
She’s different because neither of us can walk away without losing something essential.
A knock sounds against the open door.
Gio leans through it.
“Busy?”
“Yes.”
He steps inside.
“I’ll be brief.”
“That would be unprecedented.”
He closes the door behind him and takes the chair across from my desk.
There’s dust on one knee of his trousers. His hair is disordered, and the top button of his shirt has been pulled loose. A smile remains at the corner of his lips.
A smug one.
I set down the report.
“You kissed her.”
Gio blinks.
“Well, that was fast.”
“You came home holding hands.”
“People can hold hands without kissing.”
“You can’t.”
He considers that.
“Fair.”
I wait.
He leans back, attempting carelessness. The leather creaks beneath him.
“I’m not here to confess.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“And I’m not requesting permission.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
“Good.”
“Did she want you to kiss her?”
His expression changes.
The performance disappears.
“Yes.”
“Then you did nothing wrong.”
“That’s it?”
“What else would you like?”
“I expected more.”
“Anger?”
“Possibly.”
“I’m angry about many things—but not this.”
I look toward the windows. Late-afternoon light lies across the terrace beyond them, turning the glass into a reflection of my office.
“Not at you, anyway.”
Gio watches me.
“You’re jealous.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprises him.
It shouldn’t.
We’ve never lied well to each other.
“You want me to apologize?”
“No.”
“Because I won’t.”
“I know.”
He rubs one hand over his face.
“That phrase needs to be outlawed.”
“Lucia already tried.”
“Lucy,” he corrects.
My attention returns to him.
One eyebrow rises before I can prevent it.
“She said she likes it when I call her Lucy.”
Something warm enters his expression.
The nickname has moved beyond teasing. She gave it back to him as something chosen.
“Lucy, then.”
Gio studies me.
“You don’t have to call her that.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“Lucia suits her.”
“They both do.”
He’s right.
Lucia is the woman who walked barefoot out of Vesuvio.
Lucy is the woman who steals food from Gio’s plate and laughs in the conservatory.
Both belong to her.
“What happened?” I ask.
“At Prince Street?”
“The kiss.”
“You want details?”
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because if she was angry with me—”
“She wasn’t using me to punish you.”
The answer comes immediately.
Some pressure inside my chest eases.
I hate myself for needing the reassurance.
“How do you know?”
“Because I asked.”
“And?”
“She told me it wasn’t about you.”
I nod.
“That’s good.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I believe her.”
“Then what?”
I look at the report on my desk. The columns are aligned. Every figure occupies the proper place. Nothing in them requires interpretation.
Numbers are easier than this.
“We’ve shared women before.”
“Yes.”
“None of them mattered.”
“Some mattered.”
“Not like this.”
“No.”
Gio’s voice softens.
“Not like this,” he agrees.
I stand and walk to the cabinet near the windows. A bottle of scotch rests on the second shelf beside two rows of glasses arranged by height.
I pour two.
Gio accepts one when I return.
“We weren’t in love with them,” he says.
“No.”
“Half the time, I’m not sure we even liked them.”
“You chose most of them.”
“You didn’t complain.”
“I’m complaining now.”
He smiles faintly.
I take a drink. The scotch burns without helping.
“Lucia isn’t something we can share.”
“I know.”
“She chooses what relationship she has with either of us.”
“I know.”
This time, he doesn’t object to the phrase.
“And if she chooses you—”
Gio’s smile disappears.
“Don’t.”
“If she chooses you, I won’t use the marriage to hold her.”
“I said don’t.”
“You need to understand.”
“No. You need to stop preparing to lose her because you think accepting misery makes you noble.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing.”
“It’s exactly what you’re doing.”
He sets his glass on the edge of my desk. A small ring of condensation appears beneath it.
“You gave her immediate access to a divorce.”
“Yes.”
“You agreed she could live here after the marriage ends.”
“Yes.”
“You put me in charge of her medical decisions.”
I shake my head.
“She chose you.”
“And you signed it without blinking.”
“Would you prefer I contested it?”
“No. I’d prefer you stop acting as though the only decent thing you can do is disappear.”
My jaw tightens.
“She doesn’t trust me.”
“Then earn it back.”
“I’m trying.”
“Quietly. From another room. Where she can’t see you.”
“I came to dinner.”
“Because she ordered you to.”
“She was persuasive.”
Gio snorts.
“You’re hopeless.”
“So I’m told.”
He retrieves his glass.
For several moments, we drink in silence.
Outside, someone crosses the kitchen terrace carrying a tray. The movement catches my eye before I realize the person is too tall to be Lucia.
“You love her,” Gio says.
The words don’t surprise me.
Hearing them aloud does.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No attempt to qualify it.
Gio looks down at the scotch in his glass.
“So do I.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do.”
“She loves you too.”
His gaze lifts sharply.
“No.”
“She trusts me.”
“That isn’t all.”
“It’s enough for now.”
I study my brother.
“When did you know?”
“That I loved her?”
I nod.
“Probably the first time she laughed at lunch.”
“That quickly?”
“She’s very charming.”
“She accused you of stealing her chips.”
“I was stealing her chips.”
He turns the glass between his palms.
“Maybe it was when she helped Bruno with his granddaughter’s birthday. Or when she ordered the book for Dario’s niece.”
His expression grows thoughtful.
“I’m not sure. I spent several weeks calling it infatuation because love sounded inconvenient.”
“And now?”
“Now infatuation seems wildly inadequate.”
I understand.
Love is too small a word for what she has changed.
The house.
Our routines.
The way my attention follows her through every room.
The thought of her behind Mikhailov’s locked door nearly destroyed me.
The sound of her begging me not to make her go will remain with me for the rest of my life.
“What happens if she wants both of us?” Gio asks.
The question settles between us.
I’ve considered it.
“You mean if she wants you and remains married to me.”
“I mean if she wants us.”
Us.
Not a wife and her husband’s brother.
Not something hidden.
The three of us.
“We’ve shared before,” he says.
“This isn’t the same.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“She isn’t a woman we bring home for a night.”
“Agreed.”
“She could come between us.”
“So could pretending one of us doesn’t love her.”
I look at my brother.
He has been beside me since before either of us took our first breath.
There is no person alive I trust more. I know the faint scar near his chin came from a bicycle accident when we were nine.
I know he taps his thumb against his glass when he is trying to appear calmer than he feels.
I know when his smile is genuine and when it exists only to keep everyone else comfortable.
Lucia will not become a competition.
I won’t allow love to turn either of them into an opponent.
“If she wants both of us, we listen to what that means to her.”
Gio nods slowly.
“No assumptions.”
“No.”
“No dividing her time like a business arrangement.”
“No.”
“And no using your marriage to claim priority.”
The words sting.
“That shouldn’t need saying.”
“Probably not.”
“But?”
“You paid Mikhailov millions of dollars and married her inside a church with armed men at the doors.”
I accept the reminder.
“No using the marriage.”
Gio takes another drink.
“What about Angela?”
“What about her?”
“She’ll have opinions.”
“Angela always has opinions.”
“She may call Father Russo.”
“He’s already disappointed in us.”
“True.”
I almost smile.
Then Gio’s expression becomes serious.
“I won’t hide what happened today.”
“I know.”
“I’m also not giving you reports every time I touch her.”
“I don’t want them.”
“Good.”
We look at each other in understanding.
“But if she asks you to keep something secret from me?” I ask.
“I’ll tell her I won’t lie.”
That’s all I can reasonably ask.
More than I have any right to ask.
“And if you kiss her?” Gio says.
I look at him.
His expression reveals nothing.
“She doesn’t want me to.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“If she does, that’s between Lucia and me.”
His mouth curves.
“Good.”
“You find this amusing?”
“A little.”
“I’ll remember that.”
The words leave me before I recognize them.
Lucia’s smile faltering at the dinner table.
That wasn’t a threat.
I put down my glass.
Gio notices.
“She’s back,” he says quietly.
“Yes.”
“You’re allowed to remember the good parts too.”
Before I can answer, someone knocks.
Lucia stands in the doorway.
Her gaze moves first to Gio, then to the glasses in our hands. The canvas bag is gone, but a faint streak of dust remains near the hem of her blouse.
“Are you celebrating something?”
“No,” Gio says.
“Possibly,” I answer.
She leans against the frame.
“Which is it?”
Gio looks at me.
“Marco admitted he has emotions.”
Her eyebrows rise.